Why do Americans pay much more prescription medicine

President Donald Trump’s latest application for reducing prescription prices has again shocked the hot discussion about the high costs paid by US patients.

White House leader on Monday signed an executive order for Low drug costs Setting prices to some medicines in the US to much lower abroad.

Trump said the move that revives and expands the controversial policy from the first term known as the “most supportive nation” policy was to bring “justice to America” ​​and reduce prices by 59% or more.

The US consistently paid the world most for many prescription medicines.

A 2024 report The Rand Corporation found that the US drug prices were almost three times higher than in 33 other high -income countries. Price for branded remedies in the US were more than four times higher.

This is largely due to the very complex and fragmented compensation system and lack of national pricing control.

Drug prices in the US are usually set by pharmaceutical companies and negotiates with private insurers. This contrasts with many other countries, such as in Europe, where governments are directly negotiating with drug addicts to stop what their health systems pay.

Private American insurers tend to rely on intermediaries known as Pharmacy Payment Heads (PBMS) for costs as they are usually greater and have great pricing. However, they often do this with limited transparency and can stimulate medication fees with higher prices.

Meanwhile, drug manufacturers, for their part, protect the higher expenses of the United States, claiming that they help finance critical research and development – that Trump has long criticized for imposing an unfair load on US consumers.

“Americans pay more than drugs than Europeans. Full stop. That’s right,” said the head of European pharmaceutical studies in Barclays on Tuesday.

“Trump doesn’t like it (they) get a bad thing,” she added.

However, Field noted that although US consumers usually pay more branded drugs, the picture is far from clear.

“Although the brand market for the US Pharmaceuticals is very expensive and very perverted with very little price transparency, when you take a step back, there are surprisingly parts of the US system that are very, very effective and good when reducing costs,” she said.

According to Rand, non -rendering genetic drugs make up 90% prescription volumes compared to 41% on average in other advanced countries. These drugs are usually cheaper for patients with the United States, about two -thirds of the cost paid by other countries.

Plans are regarded as exposure to popular pharmaceutical firms such as drug reduction manufacturers Novo nordisk and Eli Lily.

Formatics, however, bounced off the losses earlier this week, as the measures were considered less serious than expected, and most likely to face legal issues. Trump’s similar steps in his solid period were ended in the courts.

“We expect the introduction of MFN (the most committed nation) will require the legislation, and Trump refers to to include in the official bill, where we believe that the industry has more opportunities to resist, and wrote an analyst at UBS Trung Huynh on Monday.

“Prices for our sector will remain overhanging, but we see the tone of President Trump relatively positive for the industry.”

However, Field noted that one measure that is aimed at limiting the role of the APM of the private sector may eventually go in some way to reduce US costs.

“We will cut out the mediators and promote the direct sale of drugs at the most useful price of the nation,” President Trump wrote on Monday.

PBMS transition efforts have been gaining pursuit in recent years as they have encountered regulatory pressure from the Federal Trade Commission. But despite its two -party support, legislators have so far struggled to convey any changes to Congress.

According to the executive order, the Government Department of Health will create a mechanism for patients to buy more drugs directly from manufacturers.

“It seems more effort to make these pharmaceutical payments (PBMS) a bad guy,” Field said.

“I think you will probably see an increase in the dialog that calls the value of PBMS to the system, and whether they really increase costs rather than save them for users as they claim.”