Also, what about allowing purchases from legitimate drug companies in Canada especially in bulk for clinics and hospitals to bring down costs. VA buys medicine in bulk. My late husband’s Alzheimer’s medication was something like $7 a month. My Kaiser Permanente thyroid medication is $15 for 3 months.
To be honest, I’m not sure what the best approach on this is.
Hospitals get some amazing pricing with generics, but are stuck paying top dollar for name brand products.
Pharmaceutical companies do have different pricing for domestic and foreign sales. I don’t know why. It may be government related, or it may be another reason. I’d like to know more about why before I make a determination here.
Pharmaceutical companies are thought to be problematic on a several levels. They charge a lot for medications. Sometimes they charge a big per tablet price. They do so because the treatment the patient used to get wasn’t as effective and cost more. Now they just pop the medication, elimination in some cases surgery.
The general public isn’t privy to this. They are not privy to the concept that pharmaceutical companies can study hundreds of medications before they hit on one that can be useful. When they do find one, it may be an item that they patented over a decade ago to protect their rights to the chemical chain.
The patent may not last more than a few years by the time they get around to testing, do research, development, animal testing, human testing, and market the product providing the FDA agrees it is efficacious and safe.
Jumping in here with both feet isn’t as simple as it would seem, because there are a number of considerations.
We need pharmaceutical companies to be able to make a large amount of money to cover all these costs and investments on the next big wonder drug.
I’m not convinced something couldn’t be worked out to help keep costs down. It’s not an outlandish thought.