Because other countries are ignoring patents (or threatening to do so) to get prices that low?
You mean like Canada, where I think roughly 90% of the drugs come from? I think Mexico is the remaining 9% or so.
Not many are getting drugs all the way from Africa and India - which are the places ignoring patents.
No, what it is is that Canada, Mexico, and such negotiate prices, and get much better ones than we do because, in extremis, they're willing to simply not buy the drug. I'll note that given recent history with new drugs, that sticking with the older ones probably saves lives, on average.
I've offended wondered why, when in the hospital, one can't just get a bill from the dang hospital instead of everyone and their brother. Pay the hospital. The hospital pays employees. Call it a friggin day. Maybe the surgeon when your his patient and just using the hospital.
I agree. I turn my truck in to the dealer to get work, I don't get separate bills from the dealership, the engine mechanic, the body mechanic, and the dude who washes it off and vacuums the interior for me. I get A bill.
It's funny how simplified the price gets when you simplify the paying/billing aspects and kick the bureaucracy aside.
And it's even cheaper most of the time. Doctor's offices today often employ as many people in
billing as they do in actually providing healthcare. Shed insurance, go to cash up front, shed all those people, and the prices you can charge and still make a reasonable profit drop drastically.
Hell, there were articles about doctors doing this back in the '90s. Where doctors found that without all the rigamarole required by insurance companies, that they could charge prices below that of the co-pays and still make money. People WITH insurance would come see them because they could be seen the same day and that $40 charge was $10 cheaper than their $50 copay.