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Good point. Set aside Bernie's worthless statement about Wegovy costing only $5 to make, which ignores the immense cost of research and regulatory compliance.
Let's say that Americans paid the same price for medication as Germans do. The pharma industry would no longer be profitable and drug development would slow to a crawl. Why must the entire global pharma industry be dependent on a single country with less than 5% of the world's population? How do we make Germans pay their fair share?
Because America by being willing to pay 1000 more is showing they value it at that price. And they can value it at that price because they are richer.
In theory the best pricing practice for companies is to sell their product at 100 bucks to people who will pay that, then 60 to whover will pay that and then 40 and so on, down to where the price still creates profit per unit. In practice that is tricky because fluctuating prices is something direct consumers don't like. But when selling to different countries you can set your prices depending on what the local market will bear in each one.
So the US pays more because it is richer and therefore is willing to pay more. That is the market signal the companies are following. And arguably the US is richer because it interferes in market signals less than other countries.
In that case asking about paying their fair share is looking at the question the wrong way round. How do you get Germany to be richer so that they too value the product equally is the more accurate question. And the answer would seem to be, promote more free market principles.
Of course if Germany gets richer that may have other knock on effects on the US economy. No free lunches here unfortunately.
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