Why Pharmaceutical Drug Pricing Is Indefensible
July 4, 2025 · Frisian News
A diabetic patient in rural Ohio pays four times what a patient in Denmark pays for the same insulin vial, revealing a pricing system that has nothing to do with production costs and everything to do with what corporations can extract. Drug makers, middlemen, and regulators have built a machine that punishes sick people in countries that refuse to negotiate prices.
A mother in Columbus watches her son ration insulin shots because a month's supply costs more than her rent. The same insulin costs less than half that price three hours north in Canada, and costs even less in Germany. The molecule has not changed. The factory that makes it operates at identical efficiency everywhere. What changed is the price tag, and the people who set it learned long ago that Americans will pay anything to stay alive.
Pharmaceutical companies claim research and development justifies these prices. This claim does not survive contact with facts. Most drug makers spend more on marketing than on research. They extend patent protections through minor tweaks that create no real improvement for patients. When the National Institutes of Health funds basic research at taxpayer expense, these companies buy the findings and charge Americans triple what the research cost to discover. They win regardless. The NIH pays for the science. The company collects the profit. Patients die because they cannot afford pills that cost pennies to manufacture.
Middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers charge everyone else between the drug maker and the patient. Insurance companies, employers, and PBMs form a chain where each takes a cut before a sick person gets their medication. Transparency does not exist. Patients learn the price at the register, not when they could shop elsewhere. The whole system works like a cartel because it functions like one. The companies set high prices knowing most patients lack bargaining power. Those with insurance never see the true cost. Those without insurance pay it all.
Governments in other wealthy nations simply say no. They refuse prices above a certain threshold. Drug makers protest, then accept lower prices anyway, because half revenue beats zero revenue. The Netherlands negotiates directly with manufacturers. Germany caps price increases. Denmark requires cost justification. All of them have newer drugs available, all of them spend less per capita, and none of them watch patients die from rationing insulin. The technology works the same everywhere. Only the willingness to say the emperor has no clothes differs.
Politicians who campaign on fixing drug prices then appoint regulators who obstruct real change. Congress passes bills that make token gestures while protecting pharmaceutical profits. The industry funds both parties with equal generosity, so both parties protect it with equal ferocity. Real price controls that work elsewhere get labeled un-American or socialist, as if watching your child die because you cannot afford medicine represents freedom. The system will not fix itself because the system profits from broken people.
Published July 4, 2025 · Frisian News