Sneaky deals are keeping cheaper generic medicines off the market
&gt; The Federal Trade Commission estimates that pay-for-delay deals cost American consumers $3.5 billion a year in the form of higher drug prices.<p>Pay for delay is bad, but let’s put it into perspective. This is 0.1% of healthcare spending.<p>That’s the most frustrating thing about the healthcare debate in the US. Nobody has a clear idea of where all the money is going.<p>Germany spends 1.56% of GDP on pharmaceuticals. The US spends 2%. If we forced drug makers to give us discounts to German levels, we’d save $86 billion. To get our overall healthcare expenditures down to German levels (11% of GDP), we need to cut $1.4 trillion. Where is the rest coming from?