Those are the numbers that always make one wonder. If you look at margins of pharma companies, you see the potential for price improvement: from 2% to about 20%.
And this is not what anyone of the people complaining are looking for. That would make somewhat optimistically make Remdesivir $350 per vial, and that pricing would cause ... exactly the same outrage.
The actual issue is "too many" medicines. More and more effective and specialized medicine. But, of course, that you can just sidestep as an individual (you'll have to have your doctor on board, but that may be doable). It boils down to the same thing: if you're willing to forego the most expensive treatments and best possible outcomes you can avoid a lot of the financial problem. There's just zero willingness to do that.
Best possible treatments, no matter the human effort required to do that, at zero cost to anyone (not carried by the actual patients, not collectively carried by insurance, not carried by government, not by church, institutions or charitable giving). And we're not willing to give anywhere (for instance, cheaper drug trials, something the government could simply decide to provide at frankly minimal costs). This is not happening.
There just doesn't seem to be any solution here that I can see.
