So reads the cover of the MIT Technology Review this month. The article is available for free online. The article begins with the story of Kalydeco, which is priced at $294,000 per year.
The company also pledged to provide it free to any patient in the United States who is uninsured or whose insurance won’t cover it. Doctors and patients enthusiastically welcomed the drug because it offers life-saving health benefits and there is no other treatment. Insurers and governments readily paid the cost.
Hold on. If patients can get the medicine for free even when their insurers decline to pay the cost, why would insurers “readily pay the cost?”