Inconvenient Facts: US Drug Spending

[Batt Boy]

When adjusted for total healthcare spend, US drug spending ranks below global benchmarks. Do American consumers really pay more?

National spending on services and prescriptions - Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker

Distribution of health spending, by service: Trend over time: Share of total health spending, pharmaceuticals: Country comparison, pharmaceuticals: Country comparison, trend over time, pharmaceuticals:

www.healthsystemtracker.org

 

[finesse]

Sounds like they do but more for other services instead of drugs. We're second in per capita spending on drugs according to the article. If our percentage is below the average benchmark, that would indicate higher costs on everything.

 

[Batt Boy]

right, I was referring to Prescription drug spending share of our total expenditure on health

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[StrangePackage]

right, I was referring to Prescription drug spending share of our total expenditure on health

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Yeah, but don't we spend more overall on health than other nations by an order of magnitude?

We could still pay more for prescriptions than other nations in that case while having it comprise a smaller fraction of overall spending.

 

[finesse]

right, I was referring to Prescription drug spending share of our total expenditure on health

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That means nothing about drug costs in particular when we are spending the second largest amount for them per capita. What it does mean is that we are spending a lot more for everything else. That is not a gain. Your inconvenient facts indicate the opposite of what you seem to think.

 

[Batt Boy]

I agree, just saying context mattes. We can't have sensible conversations about healthcare spending and public policy without accurate context and facts. Per the same source: "The U.S. spends twice as much as comparable countries do on health, driven mostly by higher payments to hospitals and physicians."

 

[superrific]

So this is a bizarre thread. The original question is incredibly easily answered by the link provided: yes, Americans do pay more. Full. Stop.

It turns out that we also pay more for other health related stuff, which should come as a surprise to precisely nobody.

So, yea!??!?

 

[Batt Boy]

1000s of prices for the same drug all by the same payer, Medicare Part D

Same drug, thousands of prices: Crossing Medicare’s Catastrophic Coverage finish line — 46brooklyn Research

Opening Ceremony Back in August 2020, we composed a piece titled, “ The Flawed Design of Medicare Part D: A Copaxone Case Study ,“ which explored some of the perverse incentives driving coverage decisions within the federal program that is the primary healthcare access mechanism for seniors. At the

www.46brooklyn.com

 

[heelinhell]

I read through the Brooklyn research, and it is in the weeds in excruciating minutia , but it seemed to me there was a lot of data .cherry picking going on so I googled them and noticed this...

https://www.pcmanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Infographic_Visante-Analysis_46brooklyn-1.pdf

Insurers slam critical drug-pricing research but can't vouch for their own • Ohio Capital Journal

A spokeswoman for a major health-insurance industry group on Wednesday questioned research cited in a story published Tuesday in the Capital Journal. In doing so, she cited a bit of purported research that she couldn't vouch for herself.

ohiocapitaljournal.com