Surprised by the comments in this thread<p>US drug prices are not because of R&D. This title presents a false dichotomy<p>Drug companies have enough capital at this point that they don't need old drugs to fund new drugs. They can charge a high price for new drugs to recoup their development costs, & then charge closer to the cost of production once that development has been covered
Well, that depends on specifically which drugs you subtract out of the set.<p>Some new drugs are not that critical to have. Others might be. Given that we don't / can't know which drugs will be developed in the future, it's kind of impossible to answer with certainty.
Note that I had to trim the lengthy title: I think this issue is an interesting and an important one to discuss, and that the discussion doesn’t benefit from the political framing. I certainly did editorialize however and would appreciate a better short title if one is offered.
That’s a pretty privileged view point. On the other hand I have a family member whose genetic makeup makes it so that they cannot use ~90% of the medications available for their condition. As a result every new medication in that area is of extreme interest to them and their doctors because it might be something they can use.<p>Given the choice between higher prices or not having treatment at all, I suspect those whose medications would be culled would gladly choose higher prices.
Healthcare and medicine is a commodity service, similar to airway transportation and food supply, and the more abundance is there on all levels of it, the lower the prices get across time. Artificial caps on the cost of medicine creates unhealthy bureaucratic incentives like this one instance within NHS in the UK <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/15/trump-criticize-uk-single-payer-health-care-column/1419339001/" rel="nofollow">https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/15/trump-criti...</a>
Well this is, in essence, the concern of the "ObamaCare Death Panel"!<p>Only instead of determining by a board of doctors whether you are entitled to care, a bureaucratic measure to determine whether a company should investigate cures to what ails you. Better for society, worse for you as an individual.