The launch of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company is one of those news stories so rife with ambiguity and mixed emotions that it's hard to even pay attention to the actual headline.
For context, multi-billionaire and convicted NBA ref abuser Mark Cuban is starting a new online pharmacy selling generic drugs and medications at only a 15% markup from their manufactured cost (plus a few other small fees for labor and shipping), allowing these drugs to be LEAGUES more affordable than the astronomically priced branded drugs most pharmaceutical companies sell.
And unsurprisingly my first reaction to hearing this announcement was overwhelmingly positive. It's amazing seeing billionaires like Mark Cuban put their wealth toward solving such a suffocating issue and leaving a positive impact on the country they amassed that wealth in.
But once you get over this initial hit of faith in humanity, you begin thinking, "Isn't it pretty sad that we have to rely on the benevolence of billionaires so that poor people can afford Prozac? How did we possibly build a healthcare system where the only solution to skyrocketing drug prices was Mark Cuban swooping in with a price slashing sword to save the day?"
And then you begin looking at what Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Merck, and every other pharmaceutical giant is charging for essential medications and thinking, "Clearly these companies don't have to charge this much for the drug if Mark Cuban's new company is selling it for literally less than 1% of that price...so why did they set that price in the first place?"
And then naturally you start asking, "Wait, why didn't someone start a company like Cost Plus Drug earlier?", which is about the time you realize the healthcare system is meticulously constructed with so many roadblocks instituted by these pharmaceutical companies that you literally have to be a billionaire to have the funds to sort through it all.
And by this point you're so deep down a rabbit hole of digesting how utterly absurd and abusive the American healthcare system is that you decide to stop pissing yourself off and instead just thank Mark Cuban once again for being the one billionaire who seems to have a wallet, a head, and a heart all at once.
Comments