I do not believe this is generally true.
In any case, it clearly doesn't apply to insulin provision for diabetes patients - a captive market.
The US is one of like 2 countries that even allow TV commercials for drugs, yet all those other countries (and their Not for Profit or universal healthcare systems) work better than the US.
If I'm told to ask my doctor if [DRUG] is right for me, shouldn't they already be aware of the option and if beneficial brought it up vs staying quiet and endangering my health? The marketing budget is way out of line.
Because it requires time and effort to educate providers on state-of-the-art medications and the marketing that goes to them is often educational.
I understand the frustration around the healthcare situation in the US, but the argument that marketing is bad, or that profits are bad, or that the private market cant service are frankly trying to reinvent the economic wheel.
In an industry with high fixed costs, marketing may in fact reduce the cost per consumer. Using software as an example, you can't just take the marketing costs per customer and subtract that from the price. If 1,000,000 in marketing brings in 3,000,000 in extra revenue, that marketing didn't cost customers anything. It could even allow the software company to charge less per copy.
There are some real differences between software and medicine. And I'm not sure increasing users of a drug is a good thing in many cases. But I doubt prilosec commercials are increasing the price I pay.