Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker & Aaron Kheriaty
“For the same pharmaceutical products, US prices can be anywhere between two and ten times higher in US markets compared to prices across the border. Nor is importation allowed, even though this would drive prices toward equilibrium by facilitating market competition. This problem has persisted for decades. US taxpayers and health insurance subscribers subsidize pharmaceutical products for the rest of the world. While many politicians have denounced this problem, and sworn to fix it with a genuine competitive market, the barriers have traced to the same source: entrenched industrial interests that like the rigged monopolistic system of price gouging as it is. This has long been the status quo. This has now been shattered by a new executive order from the Trump administration. The order requires government agencies to be better stewards of tax dollars by only paying the lowest prices for drugs on international markets.” (05/15/25)