> In the worst case (e.g. the only alternative is death), there is still a price because the drug company can't demand a billion dollars if the customer doesn't have a billion dollars.
There's a much stricter limit than that. I keep seeing people say that you can charge as much money for lifesaving medical care as the patient has, and it's nonsense. That hypothetical patient is choosing between whatever remains of their life and leaving an inheritance of $1 billion. I guarantee you that the world is chock full of people who would kill themselves for $1 billion. Life insurance policies exclude suicide for a reason, and they pay tens of thousands of times less than that.
There's a much stricter limit than that. I keep seeing people say that you can charge as much money for lifesaving medical care as the patient has, and it's nonsense. That hypothetical patient is choosing between whatever remains of their life and leaving an inheritance of $1 billion. I guarantee you that the world is chock full of people who would kill themselves for $1 billion. Life insurance policies exclude suicide for a reason, and they pay tens of thousands of times less than that.