Coronavirus - are we all doomed? (1 Viewer)

[Uncle Gizmo]

Emails indicate COVID was man made by China... Will this statement get me canceled?

 

[NauticalGent]

And funded by the US..

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The medical/pharmaceutical field is already regulated about 1000x more than I think is necessary.

On the tech side, probably so. On the financial side? Do you recall the furor over the sudden massive increase in the cost of insulin? A lot of drugs cost thousands of dollars a month long after their initial release. I think the Big Pharma financial model still needs regulation. They are scared witless (or something that rhymes with that) over the idea of allowing foreign competition and they DON'T want you to know what they actually charge in foreign countries for the same drug that costs $500 per dose here in the USA.

 

[Pat Hartman]

A HUGE part of the problem with drug prices here in the US is Congress. They passed laws that prevent Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies the way they negotiate rates for other providers. That's why we pay $100 per pill for something that costs $5 per pill in France. Congress seems to take care of corporations rather than "we the people".

 

[Jon]

Wasn't Trump supposed to be doing something on drug prices, or did it never quite get done?

 

[NauticalGent]

Wasn't Trump supposed to be doing something on drug prices, or did it never quite get done?

There is nothing ANY President can LEGALLY do about commercial prices - they could perhaps get congress to subsidize the cost but that is just transferring the burden to a wider base: Socialism

 

[moke123]

I remember reading an article about a Hep-c drug that's wicked expensive. The jist of the article was that it would be cheaper for the government to buy the company, sell off all its parts and retain the patent for the one drug which then could be made generically. I think it also said that the government would make a profit off the purchase and sale of the company.

 

[Pat Hartman]

@moke123 Much as I dislike government interference in public commerce, that sounds like a fabulous idea. BUT, somehow, the government agency in charge would hire thousands of bureaucrats and turn it into a permanent program and we'd end up losing money in the process. We can't even run the post office at a break even let alone make a profit.

 

[Isaac]

The situation with drug prices (and all American healthcare, BTW) is horrible - but, we should try to do everything in our power to come up with solutions that are as agreeable to the free market as we can. As soon as a great lifesaving or life-improving drug comes out, it's tempting to get the feeling as human beings "Oh, how did we ever live without it?" - But we did. We lived, or died, without it, all this time.

We lived without cars for most of human history too, and now it feels like everyone really ought to have at least some car, but not everyone does. Society churns on.

I do support the government severely limiting the patent time for new drugs; yet, the profit has to cover R&D - and certainly do more than that, it has to fund more R&D, and actually provide the incentive to plan for more R&D. A lot of focus is on the drugs that succeed, but there are thousands of busy little scientists with white coats working all day long, all their life long, on a bunch of stuff that fails, too - to come up with the one that succeeds. (or succeeds until we find out it's killing us, like Zantac).

Like Pat said, many things "sound" good on paper. Welfare sounded compassionate to some people in the 60's and 70's, but now in multiple states you can make $80-$100k/year by not working. Of course, those benefits are paid for by robbing those of us who ARE working and the even FEWER who are BOTH working AND paying taxes. We continue to allow the people who pay no taxes - and even the people who don't work - to have the same equal vote as everyone else, in passing laws to demand more taxes to give them more stuff. It's an unfair system that makes no sense. Where that is going to lead (and has) is so obvious a 10 year old could predict it: Slowly, the % of the voting populace who sees it as a no-brainer to earn none-to-low amounts (paying no taxes), yet voting for more taxes on those who pay taxes to give them more stuff, will and has increased. Eventually the minority who is paying for everything will no longer tolerate doing so. People don't like being robbed. Perhaps they'll dump tea in the water or something, I dunno ...

 

[AccessBlaster]

And funded by the US..

Funded by deranged socialists

 

[NauticalGent]

Funded by deranged socialists

Synonymous terms...

 

[moke123]

but now in multiple states you can make $80-$100k/year by not working.

Where might that be?

 

[NauticalGent]

Where might that be?

I'd be interested too!

 

[moke123]

I'd be interested too!

Cool, when you get your bike we can go house shopping together.

 

[Isaac]

This guy did some research

Casey Mulligan | Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics

economics.uchicago.edu

It's not just traditional welfare, it's the combination of things like welfare, extended/glorified unemployment benefits, and Obamacare subsidies.

In Washington state, the annualized value of these healthcare subsidies and unemployment benefits for a family of four can exceed 122,000.

 

[ColinEssex]

. . . we pay $100 per pill for something that costs $5 per pill in France.

So youre saying in the USA, the patient needing the prescription has to pay this?
Col

 

[Isaac]

Generally speaking, a normal working person gets insurance through their employer. The insurance isn't perfect, but it takes care of people's needs, with perhaps the exception of the absolute newest and most experimental or expensive drugs - but even those are often covered if they are necessary and there is no generic (non-brand) equivalent.

That "normal working person" scenario also covers the working person's family.

For many years, this scenario worked fine. Two people got married and had a family as you normally would. At least one of the married couple worked full time and took care of their family. Insurance did its part. When the people got older and no longer worked, Medicare (and in some cases Medicaid) took over their insurance needs. They had options to pay a very small fee to improve the Medicare coverage somewhat.

As the USA (along with most other highly developed countries) moved more and more away from the nuclear family model, this -- along with a thousand other benefits of life that made families prosperous, stable and peaceful--no longer worked so well. The percentage of the population that no longer takes care of a normal family or belongs to one has increased drastically. Many people aren't working at all, or are working only a little at a part time job with limited insurance options.

But Pat was talking more about the cost of drugs broadly speaking. "We" meaning whoever pays for it - regardless of who.
The exact same pharmaceutical company will charge USA a lot more to purchase the drug than it does France.
Also, different pharma companies will charge the USA more for essentially the same thing, because perhaps in the USA the drug company is still allowed to hold an exclusive patent, meaning there are no generic (non-brand) equivalents being manufactured for sale to the USA.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Depending on your drug plan and the "tier" of the drug, the insurance plan pays between 0 and 80% of the cost of the drug. So if the drug in question is tier 1 (usually a generic and I don't know what else goes into setting the tiers), the insurer will pay 80% of the cost, but if the drug is tier 7, then the insurer will only pay 30% of the cost. And some drugs are not covered at all. For example, when Viagra was introduced, it was years before insurance companies would cover it.

 

[ColinEssex]

Pat says some pills cost $100 each. Also, insurance companies pay from 0 to 80% of the cost. So let's say a patient is prescribed 28 pills (a 4 week supply at one a day) total cost = $2800. Presumably the patient has to pay the spare 20% not covered by insurance. So it costs the patient $560 for the 28 days supply. Maybe even more if the insurance percentage is less than 80%.
How are repeat prescriptions covered? Like heart drugs etc etc.
Col

 

[moke123]

The newly weds who bought my old house from me both had health insurance through their work. He was a NYC cop, she worked for a supermarket chain in management. They never switched her insurance over to his because they had to save money to pay their $3000+ a month mortgage. She wound up getting sick and found out just how lousy her employer based insurance was. It had a $1000 a year cap including prescriptions. Turned out her medication was a $1000 a pill, which she had to take weekly. Since it was pre-Affordable care act, his insurance wouldn't cover her pre-existing illness when they did switch her over. Needless to say they didn't last long in the house.