Why would a pharmaceutical product be so expensive?
The problem is really that, even though pharmaceuticals represent only 9 percent of total health care costs, for consumers, it appears to be more, because their out-of-pocket expense is higher. For consumers, out-of-pocket pharmaceuticals represent about 30 percent of out-of-pocket expenses. Why? Because we have different insurance systems and different co-pays, different deductibles for pharmaceuticals than we have for the rest of health care. That is not logical. Since pharmaceuticals help avoid hospitalization, surgery, and so on, there actually should be incentives for the usage of pharmaceuticals, not disincentives — which these higher co-pays and deductibles represent. So it’s not fair. But since they see it, they ask why it’s so expensive. Yes. First of all, let me make a point. Should all the profits of the pharmaceutical companies be eliminated, we would make a dent — and a very temporary dent — of 1 percent in total health care costs, and would not stop the growth of these
