Could drugmakers have charged a billion dollars a pill before?
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If you look at most of the other countries who have public healthcare, they have a huge bargaining tool with big pharma and healthcare providers. They can say “we have millions and millions of potential customers for you, but we get a say in what you charge them, because they’re not going out and getting private health coverage (most of the time).”
It’s similar for us here in the US because Medicare is covering a LOT of people, but not everyone in the country. So our bargaining with healthcare companies and pharmaceutical companies suffers. They don’t have the bargaining power of a country that is basically saying “you can have millions of customers or ZERO, take your pick!” With Medicare, they have some of that public pull on the companies to negotiate prices, it’s just not as strong as entire countries.
So can drug makers charge a ton for a pill? Yes. But if people can’t afford it or they start dying, that’s also not good for the drug maker. They need to be able to sell their products at an affordable price, though they get to cheat because we will pay more than we can afford because it’s our life or death. Like gasoline, if we use it, we can’t just stop, we have to come up with a replacement, and in the medical field, there isn’t always a replacement.
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