Comment on If you receive a high medical bill, don't pay it immediately. Ask for an itemized bill first.
Abundance114@lemmy.world 5 days agoHowever the biggest difference between those health systems still seems to be how providers bargain for lower prices.
I disagree, that would be true if they were selling televisions or something, if you don’t like the price buy a different brand; but this isn’t possible on exclusive drugs. Hospitals have zero room negotiate by shopping around on a patented medication. Their literal only trick to lower prices is by government legislation.
Flauschige_Lemmata@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Universal healthcare providers sometimes choose to cover drugs or treatments that have slightly worse outcomes instead. The treatment that was state of the art 10 years ago probably still works.
Patents last 20 years. But most of the time, a drug is in trials.
Providers can also choose not to cover other drugs by the same company, if they refuse to budge. Not being able to sell any drugs across an entire country would be a big problem for companies.