Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the United States averaging 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
The gap between prices in the United States and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 3.44 times those in comparison nations.
While some sensitivity analyses lowered the differences between U.S. prices compared to those in other nations, under all the scenarios overall prescription drug prices remained substantially higher in the United States.
The United States had consistently higher drug prices regardless of how the researchers calculated price indexes and treated outliers in the data.
Recent estimates are that prescription drug spending in the United States accounts for more than 10 percent of all health care spending.
The study was sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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