The pharmaceutical industry has a simple tool at its disposal to lower health care costs for patients: It can simply reduce the prices they set for prescription drugs. Instead, the industry uses the market power granted by its patents to keep drug prices high, and when those expire pharmaceutical companies often resort to various machinations to keep the cost of brand-name medicine high.
For instance, drug companies often offer copay coupons to steer patients away from cheaper generic options with the promise of deep discounts for their own, more expensive medicine. Then, once the patient has become accustomed to using their product, it stops honoring the coupons and leaves the patient with significant out-of-pocket costs. It also forces the employer or health plan to cover the rest of the cost of the expensive drug, which ultimately leads to higher insurance costs for everyone.
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