A Painful Pill to Swallow: U.S. vs. International Prescription Drug Prices

"Americans pay on average nearly four times more for drugs than other countries – in some cases, 67 times more for the same drug.

The United States (U.S.) spent $457 billion in 2016 on combined retail (dispensed at the pharmacy) and non-retail (dispensed in physician offices) drugs.1 Medicare alone spent nearly $130 billion on prescription drugs that year, $99.5 billion of which was for Part D pharmacy drugs and $29.1 billion of which was for Part B physician-administered drugs.2 In the five years between 2011 and 2016, drug spending nationwide grew by 27 percent – more than 2.5 times the rate of growth in inflation.3 According to a 2018 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 79 percent of Americans believe the costs of prescription drugs are unreasonable – and 26 percent are worried they cannot afford the prescription drugs they need.

Given the rise in prescription drug costs and the associated out-of-pocket burden on consumers, U.S. policymakers and experts are considering models that successfully lower costs. This report examines patterns of drug pricing in the U.S. relative to other international comparator countries through a six-part analysis examining price differentials among 79 drugs sold in 11 countries and the U.S. in 2017 and 2018. The non-U.S. comparators in our analysis were: the United Kingdom (UK), Japan, Ontario, Australia, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland..."
Prescription drugs