Not to speak for the other poster, but because it's too damn expensive for the average person now. And when the average person can't do things like "eat", "pay rent", or "get live-saving or misery-ending medical treatment", that person bands together with their ilk and tears society apart.
Doctors, I'll let slide, because they do actual labor and spent decades in school (often going nearly-broke doing so) to get where they are. Most doctors are well-paid but they're not financier or c-suite level rich, and that's who today's drug prices serve. That and a bunch of ambiguous "shareholders" who more often than not had more ambition for their retirements than the economy they spent the last 50 years operating can support, despite decades of warnings.
Why is it so expensive? because the vast majority of Americans can and will pay it instead of opting for slightly cheaper options. It is a tragedy of the commons with consumers driving up price
m8 when we've got people rationing their insulin because they can't afford it, it's time to stop blaming "the commons".
The truth is, you absolutely can provide a life-sustaining level of care to most people without bankrupting them. In fact, we used to, and many countries do. We just don't want to do what's necessary (punish excessive executive compensation, reduce the importance of equities as a store of value, make unhealthy foods more expensive than healthy, etc.) in order to make that happen, because somehow, the laws of human behavior in western nations just don't apply in the United States.
When exactly in us history did people get free insulin and robot hearts?
But this is really all besides the point. The point is that prices are high because the system is fucked up.
Prices aren't twice as high as Europe because the companies more greedy here. It is the same companies! The difference is the system. Different laws and institutions
I'm not saying they got free insulin and robot hearts; I'm saying they got standard-of-care medicine in many cases without exposing themselves to medical bankruptcy.
>But this is really all besides the point. The point is that prices are high because the system is fucked up. Prices aren't twice as high as Europe because the companies more greedy here. It is the same companies! The difference is the system. Different laws and institutions
And who, pray tell, lobbies against changing laws and institutions in the United States re: drug pricing? The industry itself: both drug manufacturers and the insurance companies that pay for them. Ultimately a switch to a system like that found in, say, Europe, reduces the pool of money that gets spent on medicines every year in the United States. That's bad for their bottom lines.
I dont think that there was ever free standard of care medicine in the USA, as a matter of history. Today is the most progressive and subsidized the US medical system has ever been.
I do think that the US policy has pretty bogus incentive on both sides. If you think it is just the lobbying, I think you are fooling yourself. Most Americans hate the idea of a fully social system, and both parties reject common sense hybrid options like in the best European systems. They are too radical for the right, and not radical enough for the left. As a result, we get the worst of all worlds. We spend more public funds on healthcare than most european countries, but dont have universal coverage, and we pay extreme private costs on top of that.
There are lots of better options the US could pick, but wont .
> I dont think that there was ever free standard of care medicine in the USA, as a matter of history. Today is the most progressive and subsidized the US medical system has ever been.
I didn't say "free", I said not being exposed to medical bankruptcy.
Not to speak for the other poster, but because it's too damn expensive for the average person now. And when the average person can't do things like "eat", "pay rent", or "get live-saving or misery-ending medical treatment", that person bands together with their ilk and tears society apart.
Doctors, I'll let slide, because they do actual labor and spent decades in school (often going nearly-broke doing so) to get where they are. Most doctors are well-paid but they're not financier or c-suite level rich, and that's who today's drug prices serve. That and a bunch of ambiguous "shareholders" who more often than not had more ambition for their retirements than the economy they spent the last 50 years operating can support, despite decades of warnings.