Drugs Cheaper Than Threepenny: The Market of Extremely Low-Priced Drugs within the National Health Insurance in Taiwan

Table 1

Oral pills (tablets and capsules) reimbursable within Taiwan’s National Health Insurance in 2007.

Range of drug unit price in NTD^a	Number of items	Percentage	Cumultive number of items	Cumultive percentage
≤0.1	22	0.3%	22	0.3%
(0.1, 0.2]	168	2.1%	190	2.4%
(0.2, 0.3]	260	3.2%	450	5.6%
(0.3, 0.4]	336	4.2%	786	9.8%
(0.4, 0.5]	393	4.9%	1,179	14.6%
(0.5, 1.0]	1,886	23.4%	3,065	38.0%
(1.0, 2.0]	1,404	17.4%	4,469	55.4%
(2.0, 3.0]	730	9.1%	5,199	64.5%
(3.0, 5.0]	979	12.1%	6,178	76.7%
(5.0, 10.0]	895	11.1%	7,073	87.8%
(10.0, 20.0]	382	4.7%	7,455	92.5%
(20.0, 30.0]	189	2.3%	7,644	94.8%
>30.0	416	5.2%	8,060	100.0%
Total	8,060	100.0%

NTD: new Taiwan dollar.
^a(𝑥, 𝑦] that is denoted as the price is above 𝑥 and equal to or less than 𝑦.