Dean Baker: How Big Pharma Is Price-Gouging You

SWe pay roughly twice as much for our drugs as the average for other wealthy countries.

By Dean Baker

The United States stands out among wealthy countries in that we give drug companies patent monopolies on drugs that are essential for people’s health or lives and then allow them to charge whatever they want. Every other wealthy country has some system of price controls or negotiated prices where the government limits the extent to which drug companies can exploit the monopoly it has given them. The result is that we pay roughly twice as much for our drugs as the average for other wealthy countries. This additional cost is not associated with better care; we are just paying more for the same drugs.

This is not an issue about the free market. The free market doesn’t have patent monopolies. The monopoly power provided by a patent is a government policy to promote innovation. There are problems with patent monopolies in many areas, but nowhere is the issue worse than with prescription drugs.