The hard truths about pharma, drug prices, and healthcare that people don’t want to hear

The media loves to stir the flames of division with articles on everything from politics to healthcare. However, the truth about healthcare and pharma is often hard to digest for many of us. We would rather blame everyone for our healthcare problems but also need to look inward. Here are some inconvenient truths.

1ne: Pharmaceutical companies justify high drug prices by saying that the money is needed to fund research and development for new drugs. However, studies have shown that the revenue from the price difference on just 20 drugs is enough to cover all the research costs for those drugs and still have extra money for profits. Lower drug prices could still fund research and development while reducing excessive profits and other expenses.

2wo: Pharmaceutical companies in the United States can charge high prices for their drugs because there are not many regulations that control how they set their prices. They claim that they need to charge a lot to fund research for new drugs, but the government supports a lot of research. In other countries, the government negotiates with the companies to determine the price of drugs, but in the US, private insurance policies negotiate the prices. This, along with patent abuse and lobbying by pharmaceutical companies, keeps drug…