The easiest way to fix this is to have cost controls like every other 1st-world country in the world on drugs and medical procedures. Unfortunately, this is treasonous to Republicans and Democrats are spineless. The current system will be upheld until people get fed up enough to vote for real change.
Ignoring the incredibly loaded term "first world country", that's not true. Not all other "first-world" countries implement price controls on drugs.
Secondly, as explained below, the only reason that works for them is that the single largest consumer of patent-protected drugs (the US) does not, and thereby ends up subsidizing medical research for the rest of the world. (Half of all medical research in the world is funded by the US, and even many European pharmaceutical companies fund their research from the US).
..Sold!
Yes, which is why basically any American should support drug reimporting[0]. But pharmaceutical companies lobbied heavily against it, so it was taken out of the ACA, and it's been defeated in Congress (albeit by a narrow margin) each time it's come up since then.
[0] Conversely, countries which import drugs from the US (which includes all developed nations) have a very vested interest in not letting pharmaceutical prices in the US drop.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
It was clearly stated, over and over again.
"First world country" was the phrase they used, as well.