Quote (ofthevoid @ Oct 17 2019 06:37pm)
The so what is you can use better mechanisms rather than market distorting ones. Opening the pharma market to international competition would be a net good for reduction of healthcare costs. Once you do that you won't need price ceilings because they would reduce their prices organically to compete with cheaper drugs to a market equilibrium. I think this should be a bipartisan effort and hopefully it happens. Maybe a combo plan happens, but this is definitely something they could come together and work on, i just hope they don't pussy out and go for very weak changes.
I'm okay with sacrificing some small innovation to reign in costs. It's fucked up for Americans to pay 300 dollars for 2 generic epi-pens when in UK you can get one for like 40 dollars.
Why can't we import them from the UK? No matter how you cut this, it's a win for our country.
It's the same drug, it's just that the UK has price controls and we don't. Quite literally, the UK imports US drugs and says you can't charge higher than price X. You say that it's "inefficient" because it's a market distortion, but EVERYTHING is a market distortion (safety regulations, intellectual property laws, etc.)