Why YSK: Most hospitals send a summary bill (for example pharmacy: $5,000) hoping you’ll panic and just pay it. These are usually full of errors or huge markups. Before you pay anything, call the billing department and ask for an itemized bill with CPT codes. This will not only force a human to review it, but it also gives you the ability to spot BS. I tried this last year and the bill dropped by about 30% literally just because I asked, so don’t let them rip you off.
Universal healthcare providers sometimes choose to cover drugs or treatments that have slightly worse outcomes instead. The treatment that was state of the art 10 years ago probably still works just fine.
Patents last 20 years. But most of that time, a drug is in trials.
Providers can also choose not to cover other drugs by the same company, if they refuse to budge. Not being able to sell any drugs across an entire country would be a big problem for companies.