The US system of private, market-based pricing is the foundation of America’s global leadership in biomedical innovation. Proposals to import government price controls from wealthy foreign trade competitors ignore the extraordinary value that the US pricing system delivers to patients, employers, taxpayers, and health plans.

When measuring the value of new medicines, some countries rely on an outdated and incomplete methodology that understates the true value of innovative treatments. Setting prices in the U.S. based on these artificially low estimates of value would reduce investment in biomedical R&D and yield fewer novel medicines that address critical unmet needs of patients.

The methods many countries use to evaluate new medicines significantly underestimate the true societal benefits of innovative treatments. When high-income countries use traditional methods as a bargaining tool to deny coverage and/or secure lower prices, they free ride on the R&D investments of others and reduce patient access to novel medicines in their own countries.

Medicines help us feel better, but there are so many other things that make medicines valuable. Learn about the many benefits of medicines and the ways that insurers overlook their value to all of us.