TrumpRx
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@taiwan_girl said in TrumpRx:
I have a friend who was on some asthma medicine. It was a prescription in the US and cost about $5/pill (if I remember) for a daily pill. Not super duper expensive, but not super cheap either.
I could get it "over the counter" in Thailand for about 1/10 of the price. So, I used to bring some back when I would come back to the US.
(I would swallow it in plastic bags! LOL Just teasing)
That’s unlikely to change directionally. A world where every country paid the same amount is a world with no drug development at all. You wouldn’t want, say, Somalia to set the ceiling for how much we’re allowed to value our lives and health.
@taiwan_girl said in TrumpRx:
I have a friend who was on some asthma medicine. It was a prescription in the US and cost about $5/pill (if I remember) for a daily pill. Not super duper expensive, but not super cheap either.
I could get it "over the counter" in Thailand for about 1/10 of the price. So, I used to bring some back when I would come back to the US.
(I would swallow it in plastic bags! LOL Just teasing)
That’s unlikely to change directionally. A world where every country paid the same amount is a world with no drug development at all. You wouldn’t want, say, Somalia to set the ceiling for how much we’re allowed to value our lives and health.
The fact that another country's citizens couldn't pay market rate, would not destroy the domestic economic feasibility of the product.
Education is extremely important.
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I'm sure plenty of people have thought long and hard about this, and I haven't and won't, but it seems likely that the American pharm companies have found ways to exploit the uniquely complicated and opaque American health care system, such that they can charge more here rather than elsewhere. The framing of "Americans pay for R&D while the rest of the world pays for production" is probably just an accident of how the numbers fall out. Software might be a useful analogy where the cost to the company for unit 1 is nearly the entire cost, while the cost for units 2 through infinity is negligible. But Microsoft doesn't charge Americans huge amounts for software while charging Europeans a small fraction. Because that market is more recognizable as supply vs demand, while health care is anything but.
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As I said, in pharmaceuticals you charge what the political system will bear. Prior to Biden, it was illegal for Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.
But yeah, of course that’s just how the numbers shake out (and it’s imprecise, the other developed countries do pay more than marginal cost). There was never an agreement or plan to charge the American consumer for development. Rather, development grew into the market opportunity surrounding it, with the US largely creating that opportunity.
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@taiwan_girl said in TrumpRx:
I have a friend who was on some asthma medicine. It was a prescription in the US and cost about $5/pill (if I remember) for a daily pill. Not super duper expensive, but not super cheap either.
I could get it "over the counter" in Thailand for about 1/10 of the price. So, I used to bring some back when I would come back to the US.
(I would swallow it in plastic bags! LOL Just teasing)
That’s unlikely to change directionally. A world where every country paid the same amount is a world with no drug development at all. You wouldn’t want, say, Somalia to set the ceiling for how much we’re allowed to value our lives and health.
The fact that another country's citizens couldn't pay market rate, would not destroy the domestic economic feasibility of the product.
The fact that another country's citizens couldn't pay market rate, would not destroy the domestic economic feasibility of the product.
My point was differential pricing is here to stay. The companies really do charge something like marginal cost to very poor countries.
The only way that would stop is if Trump considered that as the US getting ‘ripped off’ and disallowed companies to sell drugs in the US at prices higher than other countries (something he’s talked about). Realistically that would lead industry to more or less stop sales to very poor countries until a more humane administration took over.
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It would a net loss, but not visible to your average voter who would see the benefits today and the costs in the future.
The US largely pays for drug development. The rest of the world largely pays marginal production cost +.
That’s an unsustainable imbalance. But like most large international imbalances it can’t be fixed overnight and trying to do so will break shit.
In this case the what will break is drug development. Especially for rare diseases. Unless they exempt them.
We do need to fix it but that would take time and patience plus negotiating with
our alliesother first world countries. Things that are not particularly Trump’s strong suits.The US largely pays for drug development. The rest of the world largely pays marginal production cost +.
That’s an unsustainable imbalance. But like most large international imbalances it can’t be fixed overnight and trying to do so will break shit.
Please provide reasoning for this? I don’t see where lowering US prices and raising other countries prices to some semblance of equilibrium would break shit. And I don’t think there would be too much consternation over poor nations and third world countries getting favorable prices, but when Germany’s prices are 1/3 the price of the US? Canada’s are 1/4?
In this case the what will break is drug development. Especially for rare diseases. Unless they exempt them.
Why? Drop US prices 50%, and raise the rest of the developed world’s rates 100%. Their prices would still be less than the US, and the US purchasers would still get some relief as well.
We do need to fix it but that would take time and patience plus negotiating with
our alliesother first world countries. Things that are not particularly Trump’s strong suits.That’s a cop out answer. Like saying getting NATO nations to actually carry their promised weight would take patience and diplomacy, not Trump’s suits… Turns out that threatening to kick down the house of cards worked pretty well there.
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It’s arithmetically possible but politically not so much.
How many countries are willing to find a percent or two of gdp in short order to lower prices for Trump? Drug companies have to negotiate with them on individual drugs. It takes ages when new drugs come out. At least for the pricey ones.
