Letters: Pricing problem

A dialogue with the manufacturers - at least the domestic ones - to stamp reasonable MRPs should also help

With reference to “A punitive overdose” (December 12), the balanced and well-researched editorial sadly stops short of discussing one of the core reasons that make expensive the “‘five star’ private hospitals which automatically exclude the lower middle class and poor people”.
 
The villain in this crucial matter is the pricing strategy followed by the manufacturers of medicines, implants and other hospital consumables — which, to say the least, is atrocious! The MRPs printed on most of these products are often between 1.5 to 10 times higher than what the hospitals have to actually pay. This huge gap — discounts