Strange Pharma Pricing

[Thermal]

Anyway, getting back to the OP:

How does it make sense to charge people who have health insurance $90 but only $10 for people who don't have health insurance?

For the same reason some kids get free lunch at school and others pay the full price?

 

[Puppycow]

For the same reason some kids get free lunch at school and others pay the full price?

Not exactly, no. That's a government decision not motivated by solely by maximizing profit.
It does sort of look that way, and that's a feature that the pharma companies like about it. They can say "Look, here's what we're doing to help out the poor folks. We're doing a good deed here." In reality though it is charging the real price to one set of people while charging a vastly inflated price to another. It's still profitable for them even when they charge $10. They are still making more on that transaction than it costs them to produce the drug.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

The £9.90 is the maximum the patient will pay even if for example the cost of the drug would be £99,000.

To the highlighted If they want their drug to be prescribed by the NHSs then yes, the NHS won't prescribe drugs if they are deemed too expensive for the benefit they offer. There are also voluntary agreements between NHS England and the pharmaceutical companies that "regulate" the pricing. There is a really good short summary here:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/how-are-medicines-prices-set-in-the-uk/

I

Don't forget generic prescribing.

Once a drug is out of patent, there will be a generic equivalent for most and that is what pharmacists will supply, unless a medic can come up with an incredibly good reason for continuing to use the more expensive version.

Most of my drugs are cheaper than chips, but a couple are not. However, as they are NICE mandated...

 

[ahhell]

I've had doctors give discounts for paying in cash, the lack of hassle from dealing with insurance is probabably part of it.

Best argument for the US to switch to a unversal healther care, we already pay for it and more but don't get it. To be fair we don't actually pay for it, we are going in debt for it.

 

[Helen]

Sweden has caps on medical costs, no one pays more than 340 euro per year for meds, and 125 euro for medical care.

 

[Darat]

Don't forget generic prescribing.

Once a drug is out of patent, there will be a generic equivalent for most and that is what pharmacists will supply, unless a medic can come up with an incredibly good reason for continuing to use the more expensive version.

Most of my drugs are cheaper than chips, but a couple are not. However, as they are NICE mandated...

I joke that my biologic injections I take - that have to be stored in my fridge - that if the house is burgled the single most expensive thing is the injections in the tupperware box in the fridge! (They have dropped significantly in price as NHS England has moved to an equivalent of a "generic" version of the biologic.)