What leverage does the US government actually have?
Is "we just won't fund your drug, even though people will die and you're the only option on the market" actually something that could happen? Would that be politically palatable to anybody?
I guess there's patent invalidation and forced genericization, but that would kill innovation real quick.
I think a far better idea would be to impose very strict caps on admin / non-medical costs, potentially at the expense of paying a bit more to fraudsters, changing FDA regulations to minimize (death from side effects + death from no available drugs) instead of just the former, as well as becoming a lot more aggressive about expensive and unnecessary procedures that doctors perform to get rich quick.
Is "we just won't fund your drug, even though people will die and you're the only option on the market" actually something that could happen? Would that be politically palatable to anybody?
I guess there's patent invalidation and forced genericization, but that would kill innovation real quick.
I think a far better idea would be to impose very strict caps on admin / non-medical costs, potentially at the expense of paying a bit more to fraudsters, changing FDA regulations to minimize (death from side effects + death from no available drugs) instead of just the former, as well as becoming a lot more aggressive about expensive and unnecessary procedures that doctors perform to get rich quick.