I saw this in my ECON textbook about industrial organizations, and figure it was interesting.
Monopoly Rent-Seeking in the Pharmaceutical Industry ;
Unlike the governments of most other countries, the government of the United States does not regulate prescription drug prices. Not surprisingly, then, prescription drug prices are higher in the United States than in other countries. For example, an online search in June 2017 found that 30 tablets of 20-milligram Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug made by Pfizer, could be purchased from a U.S. website for about $370 while Planet Drugs Direct, a Canadian online pharmacy, sold the same amount of the drug for about $60. This is not surprising: Prescription medications from U.S. suppliers often cost 40 to 70 percent more than in Canada.19 Because of this price differential, and because consumers are increasingly concerned about the high cost of their prescription medications, pressure has been building to change U.S. law to allow pharmacists and wholesalers in the United States to import cheaper drugs from Canada and from other countries. This effort surfaces regularly in Congress but has not yet been put into law. The pharmaceutical industry fights hard against legislation that would make the reimportation of drugs from other countries easier. In July of 2000, for example, when the House of Representatives passed legislation barring the Food and Drug Administration from enforcing a 1988 law banning reimportation of drugs, the pharmaceutical industry launched a major lobbying effort, sending lobbyists to Capitol Hill and running full-page newspaper ads warning that consumers’ safety would be threatened by counterfeit or substandard imports.
In 2003, Congress was again considering legislation to allow the importation of less expensive drugs from other countries; the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PhRMA), the industry’s trade group, spent $8.5 million in lobbying against the bill. Individual pharmaceutical firms also devoted funds to lobbying. Overall, the industry spent more than $29 million in lobbying in the first half of 2003, with Eli Lilly & Co. anteing up $2.9 million, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. spending $2.6 million, and Johnson & Johnson kicking in $2.2 million. The pharmaceutical companies continue the battle, running ad campaigns designed to raise concerns among consumers about the safety of imported drugs, even arguing that allowing imports of drugs would make it easier for terrorists to bring in biological weapons such as anthrax disguised as drugs. In February of 2015, a federal judge in Maine ruled against state law, the Maine Pharmacy Act, that allowed residents of Maine (which borders on Canada) to buy prescription drugs from pharmacies outside of the United States. Even though the Maine market is small, the pharmaceutical industry lobbied vigorously against the bill out of concern that the idea might spread to other states. The former Maine state senator who had introduced the bill, Troy Jackson, spoke about the ruling, saying, “The pharmaceutical industry wins these things 10 out of 10 times, so I’m not surprised.”20 Clearly, pharmaceutical industry executives are concerned about increased price competition from abroad and the loss of their economic profits. The expenditures on lobbying and advertising are a good example of rent-seeking costs by firms trying to protect their market power.
Waldman, Don E.; Jensen, Elizabeth J.. Industrial Organization (p. 63). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
The US is never getting lower drug prices unless we can fundraise tens of millions of dollars to outbid big pharma in a lobbying war against them.
And yes this is anti-woke to charge people a high price for drugs made in the US vs other countries because capitalism itself is anti-woke.
jezebel.com
