What if we didn’t require insurance companies to cover all drugs? As this article suggests, companies are taking advantage of a mix of laws in the US that force insurers to include essentially all expensive drugs in their policies, and a philosophy that demands that every new health care product be available to everyone, no matter how little it helps or how much it costs.

Many European countries say “no” to a handful of drugs each year. For those of you who worry this would eliminate availability to crucial medications, of the 29 major cancer drugs included in the study that are available in the United States, about 97% and 86% are also available in Germany and France, respectively. As a consequence of the stand taken by those countries, prices in Europe for prescription drugs are 50 percent below what we pay in the US.

Because they can say no, “yes” is not a guarantee the drug will be covered, so drug companies are pushed to offer competitive pricing to ensure coverage.  A recent survey of cancer drug policies revealed you don’t have to say no very often to get discounts for saying yes, as demonstrated by Express Scripps and CVS Caremark. Read more…