It’s Time for Public Pharma

[supergee]

Drug cartels make out like bandits even when they’re legit. California is doing something about that.

Thanx to Avedon's Sideshow.

Comments

[ceemage]

In Britain, the NHS is, in effect, a monopsony purchaser of most prescription drugs, which gives it the market power to negotiate a fair price with drug companies for most things. There may be some drugs that cost it an awful lot, but this is more a case of allowing suppliers to recover their mammoth R&D costs than price-gouging.

No Monopsony Purchasers Here!

[lsanderson]

But Medicare and Medicaid which serve us old pharts and the poor has been forbidden to negotiate prices by law. That law has been changed to allow for negotiating ten! -- ten! only drug prices starting in 2025 (I believe). We pay somewhere around 256% more for prescriptions than do countries with negotiated drug prices. The VA (Veteran's Administration) is the third large government entity that purchases drugs for military veterans, but I would have to look up whether they can negotiate drug prices.

[sturgeonslawyer]

The author lost me in the first paragraph when they wrote:

in one-party blue states like California.

Avedon is here talking about the state that gave us Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and that recalled Gray Davis to install the Governator -- who, in retrospect, was not nearly as much of a disaster as RWR and RMN; the state that to this day has Orange County and our fair share of militias (including the one that just tried to take over a county) and MAGAts.