If the economy can't support peoples' lives, what's the point of having an economy in the first place? Is it just so a very few people can accumulate most of the available wealth and leave everyone else unable to access vital goods and services?
That said, let the billionaires spend their money on such cures if they wish (and they do). If we talk about what is the role of government in spending money to save lives, expensive pharma isnt one of them.
Now, we're in a situation similar to this, although much much less extreme. But the point is, trade-offs exist. And this is one of them.
Ask yourself who established the rules for our economy and who stands to benefit from them. If you ask them, things are working just as they are meant to.
Our country owes its roots to a wealthy, merchant class uprising. The system they setup benefited people like themselves.
This is a key point and one I see a lot of people lose track of in these debates. Nobody is entitled to have millions and millions spent on keeping them alive, and this is one of the key moral hazards of public healthcare (though one we mostly bear the cost of already with Medicare).
We have to bear the cost of accepting that lives are not worth infinite, and that its not okay to spend irrationally to save one.
That said, the US has deep issues in its pharma, like extreme regulatory restrictions and importation restrictions that can be tear down overnight and would drop drug prices to the floor very quickly.