Oh, You're welcome. This is a great crime because this is hell.

And a great fortune is being made in the pharmaceutical industry, especially here in the United States.

Why the United States?

Because unlike many other countries, we do not allow a national health care agency to negotiate

drug prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers.

So why don't we allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies in a way

that would drastically lower the price of life-saving drugs, thus making them

accessible to the people who depend on them to, you know, live?

Well, according to today's guest, a big part of what makes pharmaceutical prices so much higher in the United States than the rest of the world is,

among other things, we allow pharmaceuticals to engage in stock buybacks, which drive shareholder demand for higher prices, higher prices

that benefit top executives.

According to our guest today in 2021, the average annual compensation for highest paid executives at these pharma

companies was 61 million dollars in one year 93% of which came from realized gains from

stock-based pay that's like 55 million of the 61 million.

Why then do we put up with these high prices in the US but elsewhere consumers pay much less for pharmaceuticals?

That's because we've apparently fallen for the very

misleading claim by the industry that they need those high prices to pay for all

their amazing innovations, innovations which are funded far less than stock buybacks and are funded at about the same rate as industry lobbying.

Innovations that are actually funded through the public are what we actually use.

In a few minutes, we'll find out how and why big pharma sets its prices so high here in the U.S. of A,

but not so much elsewhere.

When we speak with a reporter at the lever, the lever.com,

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