Further to Lynne’s comment about Gleevec: It was developed to treat a chromosome defect (Philadelphia Chromosome, or ph) which is the hallmark of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). That it is not covered by Medicare is not surprising in view of its cost of $32,000 per year for a 400 mg/day dose.

As Megan McArdle has pointed out, under the European model, drugs such as Gleevec would not become cheaper and more accessible as some imagine, they would not have been developed in the first place. People would die for lack of these drugs and no one would be the wiser.