If the government really wants to reduce the price of medicine, it should bring down exorbitantly high government referential prices for some medicines, said an article in Southern Metropolis Daily (excerpts below).

The government should then improve its subsidy for cheap medicines.

The government must investigate the cost of products made by at least 60 pharmaceutical factories.

This is not the first time that investigations have been launched and previous investigations did bring down the price of some medicine.

The government investigation indicates it suspects some prices are not rational.

The government's referential medicine prices were largely fixed according to the prices reported by factories.

There are many factors but costs at each stage keep going up.

There is cost price, factory price, wholesale price, bidding price, government referential price, hospital purchasing price, and retail price.

Each step increases customer price.

The government should replace the factory-price-reporting system with the government-investigation model to lower referential prices.