There’s a fairly simple explanation for why Americans pay more for ALL medications – prescription, and non-prescription (Over The Counter):
Greed.
News Release:
Prescription Drug Prices in the United States Are 2.56 Times Those in Other Countries
https://www.rand.org/news/press/2021/01/28.html
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the United States averaging 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
The gap between prices in the United States and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 3.44 times those in comparison nations.
The RAND study found that prices for unbranded generic drugs—which account for 84% of drugs sold in the United States by volume but only 12% of U.S. spending—are slightly lower in the United States than in most other nations.
“Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of the higher prescription drug prices in the United States,” said Andrew Mulcahy, lead author of the study and a senior health policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “We found consistently high U.S. brand name prices regardless of our methodological decisions.”
The RAND analysis is based on 2018 data and provides the most up-to-date estimates of how much higher drug prices are in the United States as compared to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers calculated price indexes under a wide range of methodological decisions. While some sensitivity analyses lowered the differences between U.S. prices compared to those in other nations, under all the scenarios overall prescription drug prices remained substantially higher in the United States.
U.S. Prescription Drug Prices Are More Than Double Those in Other Countries
Prescription drug prices in the United States are, on average, 2.56 times higher than the prices in 32 other countries. That’s according to a new RAND report.
Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of America’s higher prescription drug prices: For branded drugs, U.S. prices averaged 3.44 times higher than those in other nations. Prices for generic drugs, on the other hand, are slightly lower in the United States than in most other countries.
Transparency about prices Read the rest of this entry »
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