Raping Americans? A bit dramatic, aren't we? Especially since Big Pharma didn't make us obese, we did.
I get a monthly supply of Mounjaro for $40, same with Ozempic if I wanted it. While buying drugs overseas shouldn't be illegal, the flipside to your argument is that Big Pharma needs to be incentivized to make mountains of money. Otherwise, they may not spend R & D dollars developing these drugs.
So when I can buy Symbicort in India for $12 but here in the USA I have to pay $500, that is not rape? In fact, I see it as being anal rape with no lube.
No Big Pharma didn't make us obese (some do have medical issues), but simple medicine needs like an asthma inhaler (
symbicort) for $500 is a bit challenge for all of those people with health problems that are out of work, or just can't afford health insurance, much use it due to the extremely high deductibles. Having an asthmatic attack could lead to death or a very expensive trip to the hospital. Budesonide-formoterol are commonly used and should be made available to asthmatics at a much less expense.
Why is it almost every country in the world has affordable medicine and American are getting gouged? Are we the worlds cash cow? Why do big companies like Eli Lilly do R&D in countries other than the USA. Eli Lilly is located in 125 countries. Their products in these countries are nowhere near as much as they are right here in the USA where they have their headquarters. Meds from Pfizer in Argentina and Brazil don't cost what they do here. I guess Americans have more money to spend so we get stuck with the R&D bill?
Now insulin comes to mind. Type I diabetes is genetic for the most part, we didn't cause that. Insulin was patented in 1923. Four companies own the patent, Eli Lilly, Sanofi,Novo 1Nordisk, and Pfizer. Yet the patent is not allowed to ever expire because these 4 companies conspire to slightly change the formula keeping insulin from ever going generic. Meanwhile the price of insulin per ml has increased by 197% over the time frame of 11 years. Why not, over 37 million Americans have diabetes and need insulin. This is just another gold mine big pharma has control of Americans One might think the money made in 1923 researching insulin has been paid for several times over. Yes, big pharma still wants to hold diabetics hostage. It always seems like the same old companies that do this. Humlin N using GoodRx is $107 for 10ml, 100iu/ml. The same insulin in Hong Kong goes for $10. Which goes back to @Readalots "Human Farming" comment.
Companies like Novartis brag about helping poor countries all over the world like Kenya who don't have money for medicine but guess who pays for this help? Not Novartis, AMERICANS are the cash cow. We pay inflated prices so the rest of the world can get affordable medicine. Meanwhile we have our share of poor and people who live pay check to pay check that also have no access to medicine because we are too busy making it affordable for the rest of the world.