Source: Beat The Press
by Dean Baker
“We don’t call our protection for prescription drug companies ‘tariffs,’ we call them ‘patent monopolies.’ But government interventions in the market don’t care what we call them, they have the same effect. Like tariffs on imports, government-granted patent monopolies hugely raise the cost of prescription drugs, often making the price ten or even a hundred times as much as the free market price. In a free market without patents or related protections, drugs would almost invariably be cheap. … Patent monopolies allow drug companies sell drugs for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per prescription. This would be a bad story if we were talking about smartphones or running shoes, but it is an especially bad story when we are talking about drugs that people need for their health or even their life.” (09/16/24)