This drug is so important to the US, as well as the world, that subsidizing it with the idea of radically reducing the number of Hepatitis C carriers is not unreasonable. In the US it is pronounced among immigrants, with as many as 10 million infected. In turn, any blood transfer, as well as congenital transfer will work its way into our general population.
The most infected nation in the world is Egypt, a side effect of a humanitarian vaccination effort against a waterborne parasite that had tormented them since the time of the Pharoahs. In any event, some 10% of their population is infected with Hepatitis C.
In any event, if the price of a 12 week regimen could be reduced to a thousand dollars, it would go a long way to protecting our population from a nasty and often lethal disease.
Eventually the patent will expire and a cheap generic version will be available in the U.S.