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ExplainerPrescription Drugs

Prescription Sticker Shock: Who Sets the Price?

A plain-language walkthrough of why the same drug costs a fraction as much abroad.

Download the Report8 min read · Web
Explainer

Prescription Sticker Shock.

8 min read · Web

The topline

2–4×

What Americans pay vs. peer countries for the same drug

1 in 4

Adults who skip or ration a prescription over cost

$0

Difference in the pill — only the price tag changes

A plain-language walkthrough of why the same drug costs a fraction as much abroad. This explainer pulls together what families across the country are actually paying — and lays out where the system is failing them.

The squeeze on prescription drugs isn’t an accident or a force of nature. It’s the product of specific choices about how our economy works and who it works for. Understand the choices, and you can change them.

What we found

  • The same medication, made in the same plant, costs far less across the border.
  • Middlemen and opaque rebates inflate what patients pay at the counter.
  • Rationing life-saving drugs like insulin is a policy choice, not a necessity.

I ration my insulin some months. That's not a choice anyone in America should have to make.

— James T., Columbus OH

Methodology: figures shown are illustrative sample data for this design mockup. The published report draws on public price indexes, wage data, and first-hand accounts collected from families across all 50 states.

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