Comment by renewiltord
17 days ago
Well, 67% of Americans are overweight and the mandatory drug costs $1k. So premiums must be $670 per person or higher to cover nothing but this drug. The drug manufacturers will know that the insurers must provide it so they’ll use the highest price they used at scale: $1k.
That means that every healthy person is also paying $670 per month just so that the 2/3 of the country can get this drug. But current medical loss ratios are at least 85% and if we did nothing but pay $670 we’d be at 100% loss ratio and the drug paid for.
Boy the economics for the average person look pretty bad, considering they can just get it off the internet for a fraction. I have 240 mg of retatrutide in my fridge for about a dollar a mg in comparison.
I like the way you're thinking about it, but worth mentioning that the net prices paid are likely in the $200-500 range, similar to the cash pay. List price doesn't mean much
This calculation is incorrect because the medicines cost significantly less than $1k per month, and there there would be cost savings from people being less overweight needing less healthcare.
For decades now, every single healthcare study seems to say overconsumption is the root cause, and now that there is a way to combat it, the government is saying the fix to overconsumption at a few hundred dollars per month is not worth it?