I propose the following for keeping down medication prices for people in the United States.
Currently, the Pharma companies do Research & Development for new drugs and products. Then they need to make back all the costs of R&D. However, they do this by keeping their prices high and keeping the US Citizen on the hook for the R&D costs, because Amercan Citizens have a higher standard of living and make more money than Many of the countries around the world. Then they make these medications available to other nations based on the costs those economies and what those people can afford to pay. This unfairly burdens the US citizen with ALL the R&D costs.
My proposal to keep costs of medications down is this:
Force the Pharma companies to spread the R&D costs of their medications across every country in which they do business. Also, force the Pharma companies to keep prices for their medications down to the lowest price of All the countries they sell into. This ensures that either all the countries have the same cost, so American Citizens aren’t forced to burden all the R&D costs, OR, if the prices for different countries are NOT the same, that American Citizens aren’t again forced to pay the highest burden of their R&D. Our Pharma companies should charge us the least.
You are unhappy that you live in a very wealthy part of the world, right?
If a months supply of a medication cost 1% of your yearly wage (shown below), which is fair to every consumer, you can lower your medication costs by working remotely (US wages) and moving to a country with lower local yearly wages. Your complaint is that the drug companies are doing a lot of their research in places with high development costs. It might not be fair if you can prove they are doing their research in India ($2540 p/y) but selling it as if their development costs were in the US ($80,450 p/y).
You can also offset your medication costs by buying medical stocks. Per Forbes Feb 2025, try Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (HALO) with a 5Y return of 183.10% .
Actually your argument is ridiculous. US Citizens shouldn’t be charged more, because we happen to earn more. Our citizens shouldn’t have to pay extra because we work hard and earn our money. Let the Pharma companies do R&D in a cheap country is the counter argument, but that is wrong as well. I don’t care WHERE they do their R&D. They should stop taking advantage of us because workers get paid more here. Think about this. Our elderly don’t earn high incomes, (Many are on Fixed incomes), then medications out pace what the elderly can afford. Let the Pharma company charge equal costs for every country, or keep us at the bottom of the costs lists. Let the OTHER countries governments deal with their medication costs. You putting the costs on our citizens because of compassion because these other countries earn less, doesn’t represent anything fair to the ill people in this country.
" “Let them eat cake” is the traditional translation of the French phrase “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”,[1] said to have been spoken in the 18th century by “a great princess” upon being told that the peasants had no bread. The French phrase mentions brioche, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food. The quote is taken to reflect either the princess’s frivolous disregard for the starving peasants or her poor understanding of their plight."