In 2009 we were thrust into the world of specialty pharmaceuticals. That's when we learned how not only pharmaceutical manufacturer's but our own government and the insurance companies conspire against us. One of the maintenance drugs prescribed for my wife was $14000/month. She was on for 21 days off 7, so 21 pills each month. We found out that if we hadn't had insurance that it would have been cheaper for her to fly to Paris once a month, go to a doctor there for her prescription, pick it up and fly home. In an interview with the CEO of the company, when asked why they charged so much more for the drug in this country. His response was "because we can". This was for a drug that's been around since the 60's but reformulated for another use.
Now she's on another reformulation of a drug that she had been taking intravenously at a cost of just under $800/month. Instead of a once per month visit to the doctor she now takes 3 pills. The cost for that convenience? Only $10,000/Month! I've been afraid to research the cost of it in other countries for fear that my blood would boil.
I respect the fact that research costs money, and pharmaceutical companies are entitled to a profit on the expenditure. However I find it odd that the same drug sells for wildly differing prices across the world.
There's another "gottcha" going on in the country that is being fought by the insurance lobbyists, "drug parity laws". Cancer and other specialty drugs that are injected, don't have a co-pay, oral drugs do. When you're dealing with low dollar drugs a 5% co-pay isn't much, but when you're talking about these high priced drugs, even with insurance many people can't pay the co-pay. Just under half the states in the country have Parity laws already. There's a move on to nationalize it across the country, but the lobbyists have successfully blocked it for several years.
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