Prescription drug prices in the United States

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Prescription drug list prices in the United States continually are among the highest in the world.^[1][2] The high cost of prescription drugs became a major topic of discussion in the 21st century, leading up to the American health care reform debate of 2009, and received renewed attention in 2015. One major reason for high prescription drug prices in the United States relative to other countries is the inability of government-granted monopolies in the American health care sector to use their bargaining power to negotiate lower prices, and the American payer ends up subsidizing the world's R&D spending on drugs.^[3][4][5]

According to a comprehensive 2021 review of the existing literature, the United States had higher prescription drug prices than all 32 comparison countries.^[2] The United States had 256% higher prescription drug prices than the comparison countries.^[2]