By Sally Pipes
Americans hear a lot these days about how Europe has healthcare all figured out. Progressives love pointing to countries like Britain, France, and Canada as models America should follow — especially when it comes to prescription drug prices. What they rarely mention is the price those countries pay for government-controlled healthcare.
Patients overseas routinely wait years longer than Americans for access to breakthrough medicines. In many cases, they never get access at all.
A new report shows just how stark the gap has become. Nearly 9 in 10 of the 477 new medicines launched globally over the past decade were available to Americans through public insurance programs as of the end of last year. Across 19 other wealthy countries — including Germany, Spain, Britain, and France — the average was just 36%.
And it’s not just about access. It’s about speed.
Americans wait an average of just three months between the global launch of a new medicine and reimbursement through Medicare. Patients in comparable countries wait nearly three years, on average.
That delay can mean the difference between life and death — especially for patients battling cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, or rare illnesses with few treatment options.
These disparities are not accidental. They are the predictable result of government price controls and healthcare rationing. Countries with government-run healthcare systems keep drug spending down by empowering bureaucrats to decide which medicines are “worth it.” If a treatment is considered too expensive, patients abroad simply do without.
Britain offers a telling example. The National Health Service recently declined to broadly cover the breakthrough Alzheimer’s drugs Leqembi and Kisunla after government regulators concluded the treatments were not “cost-effective.” British cancer patients have faced similar barriers.
Last year, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence — the government body that effectively determines which medicines the NHS will cover — initially denied broad access to Enhertu, a treatment for advanced breast cancer. Officials decided the benefits did not justify the price. Only after public backlash did the government reverse course.
Canada’s system produces similar delays. Patients there wait an average of 49 months — more than four years — for public insurance coverage of new medicines.
That is how price-controlled healthcare systems work. Governments suppress prices by limiting access. And when countries impose aggressive price caps, drugmakers often delay launching new medicines there altogether because the economics no longer make sense.
Patients ultimately pay the price through fewer treatment options and slower access to medical breakthroughs.
America’s system works differently. The United States still rewards medical innovation. Pharmaceutical companies can earn meaningful returns on successful therapies, which gives investors a reason to fund the extraordinarily risky process of developing new medicines. Bringing a single drug to market costs roughly $2.6 billion, on average, and can take more than a decade.
Only about 1 in 10 drug candidates that enter clinical trials ultimately reaches patients. But the payoff from that risk-taking has been extraordinary.
According to the report, 71% of medicines launched globally over the last decade debuted first in the United States. Over the last three years, that figure climbed to 77%. America also develops most of the world’s innovative medicines — an advantage that matters not just medically, but strategically, as China pours resources into biotechnology and pharmaceutical research.
For decades, America has served as the world’s medicine chest and the first destination for cutting-edge therapies.
