Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Can Mark Cuban Make Prescriptions Affordable Again?
Hey, Reason Roundtable listeners, we’ve got a special bonus episode for your Friday afternoon this week!
Why are prescription drugs so expensive in the United States?
“Drug prices in this country are so high because there is zero transparency in the system, and when there’s zero transparency in a market, there is no way for it to be efficient,” says Mark Cuban, the serial entrepreneur, investor on Shark Tank, and guest on the first episode of the second season of Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.
When a market is inefficient, adds Cuban, “people learn very quickly how to take advantage of those inefficiencies to their own profit, and that’s exactly what’s happened in the health care and pharmacy side.”
Cuban is trying to do something about the lack of transparency in the prescription drug market. In 2022, he launched CostPlusDrugs.com, a website that offers low prices and direct shipping for hundreds of pharmaceuticals and generics. By showing their markup—a standard 15 percent on everything—and encouraging consumers to make their purchases without going through insurance plans, Cuban’s project is attempting to inject a bit of capitalism into a health care market that sorely needs it.
It’s the perfect story to kick off the new season of Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, which focuses on how bad regulations and anticompetitive rules are making Americans poorer and sicker. Over the next six weeks, this limited-run Reason podcast series will dive into some of the acute problems with the American health care system, examining how poor policy making is keeping doctors from treating patients and blocking patients from getting needed treatment.
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