The claim I want evidence for is that people are somehow not benefitting from the 4x lower prices of medicine on other developed world countries, or it is harming innovation and healthcare there.
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Harris Snatching Patents
- Thread starter Clizby Wampuscat
- Start date
I'm not claiming that.
Low prices are great. I enjoy cheap drugs.
Especially the many Covid, flu, pneumonia,
shingles, RSV shots I've gotten.
But if drug companies see lower profit from
products they develop, there's less incentive
to develop new ones. That concerns me.
Does it concern you?
It does not concern me as they are already selling the same products at much much lower prices through Europe, Canada and East Asia. So they can afford to do it. It's just that they are hiking prices in US because that can get away with it.
Further, largest RnD spender in pharma in 2023 is Merck, which is a German company. 2nd is Roche, which is Swiss. So clearly lower prices in Europe is not affecting RND there...
The top pharmaceutical companies by R&D expenditure
Merck Group - Wikipedia
Roche - Wikipedia
That's useful info. But the picture is larger.
Do they have an easier regulatory environment?
For example, the FDA didn't approve thalidomide pregnant
women because it hadn't been tested adequately. But in
Europe, it got the OK. You know what happened next.
I'm not making an argument against all regulation.
But I'm skeptical of the leap to much greater government
power over pricing & ownership. US government
has a long record of messing things up when it
intervenes. I urge caution & consideration.
So you are urging more regulation oversight on drug testing in Europe? At least you are acknowledging the more oversight from the government here actually helped?
Maybe that should be coupled with more oversight on drug pricing during monopoly period as well?
No.
Haven't you noticed that I often advocate useful regulation?At least you are acknowledging the more oversight from the government here actually helped?
And I even urge increasing it in some areas.
I'm open to thoughtful proposals.
BTW, a Marxist friend in CA says that Harris
has backed off of advocating price controls
on groceries. Perhaps she finally realized
how stupid that would be?
Price controls on groceries is stupid. Better adjust food stamp allowance with food price inflation index.
I only advocate price regulations on inherently monopolistic systems.
I Am Hugh
Researcher
The Bayh-Dole act (Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act) passed in 1980, allows universities, businesses and non-porofits to own inventions that result from federal government funded research. The taxpayers fund the discoveries and then are charged 10,000 times the amount they should have to pay for those discoveries they paid for.
Although I don't believe in the false promises of the politicians if this act were repealed it would be a great thing, not only to prevent the aforementioned theft by the greedy pharmaceutical corporations but it would also reinvigorate the cooperation and sharing of data that used to take place between government funded science before Bayh-Dole was passed and probably do a great deal to illiminate the conflict of interest that is currently destroying science.
Although I don't believe in the false promises of the politicians if this act were repealed it would be a great thing, not only to prevent the aforementioned theft by the greedy pharmaceutical corporations but it would also reinvigorate the cooperation and sharing of data that used to take place between government funded science before Bayh-Dole was passed and probably do a great deal to illiminate the conflict of interest that is currently destroying science.
I largely agree.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
The R+D etc is funded worldwide so a more successful negotiation on the US's part will mostly result in an increase in prices elsewhere as Corporate figures out how to keep the profit levels up. Right now there is a cash cow in uninsured US citizens and a fool government with too many bought politicians. Otherwise R+D will probably proceed as usual especially as significant ground breaking research is done at university level that then gets developed by little pharma. which when it shows real sales promise gets bought by big pharma.
How is it that the uninsured are a "cash cow".
People who can't afford insurance don't strike
me as a big market for spendy drugs.
BTW, they're a major financial burden for hospitals.
Evidence that this is how the system works?
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Well. all I know is that both my boys kept theirs intact! Zero issues or problems.
You would be referring to surplus cash that could be invested. That wouldn't be profit since profit is taxed, and reinvested cash isn't. So how much profit is acceptable for products that are crucial to saving lives or maintaining health?
Like the deaths of those who can't afford medicine? Is it immoral tat insulin prices were regulated just so those on limited incomes can more easily afford it, and not risk health, and even death, just so a company can claim more profit?
Even if insurance companies will pay whatever is demanded from drug companies, how is it not a cash cow that drug companies take advantage of? The insurance company doesn't want their customer to die, they want their profits. The drug companies want their profits, so where is the balance? Two patients that need the same drug to stay alive sees one who is wealthy and has no problem paying the bill, and the other facing bankruptcy. Would you oppose a pricing system that is adjusted to income?
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
We chose not to have our son circumcised, despite some whining from her side of the family (religious conservatives).
There are IRS limitations on this.
Another view is that they die because
government won't buy & provide the drugs.
It's easier to take someone else's property
using the law than it is to pay for it.
It's like the military draft....don't have to
pay conscripts as much as volunteers.
I can't speak to insulin prices.
But I can say that where there is a need,
government can satisfy it without stealing
from anyone.
Insurance companies negotiate with drug companies.
I've received detailed statements about what they're
charged, what they pay, & what I pay.
Do you suggest this is wrong?
For example, Virronx is a company that provides home
services designed to improve health outcomes, reduce
health care costs, & make a profit. Government wasn't
doing this. They left it up to private companies.
That's not a question I can answer.
I say this because I can't tell if your
question is rhetorical or not.
Government should be assisting people via
broadly based taxation....not by taking assets
from individual companies.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
The ones that don't have insurance to cover whatever procedure or service that they got, are the only ones that really pay the imagined list price, the insurance companies all have prenegotiated discounts, so does Medicare for most things, it looks like they are finally extending it to drugs as well.
Yes the indigent cost hospitals money, but the government reimburses indirectly at least partially in many cases.
It works in that even if you declare bankruptcy, you still end up paying a fraction, they just make a long term loan out of part of it, something like what the fraction of the thousands of dollars that the ambulance charged that the ambulance would have gotten from their negotiated rate with the insurance companies.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
TRUE STORY TIME!
I had BCBS of Texas insurance at the time, about ten years ago. Talk about a shell game! But this is a true story.
So I took fluoroquinolones and both my Achilles tendons sort of disintegrated, which was shocking to me. So anyway, I had to get them debrided and sort of rebuilt, and the surgery on ONE cost about $12,000 plus the PT. So meanwhile, my yard guy was limping around and I said to him, "You need to go get that checked out," and he said, "I know what's wrong with my foot, it's my Achilles tendon, but they are going to make me have surgery and I don't have insurance." HIS SURGERY, AT THE VERY SAME HOSPITAL, COST HIM $3500 AND HE DIDN'T PAY FOR IT ANYWAY.
I had BCBS of Texas insurance at the time, about ten years ago. Talk about a shell game! But this is a true story.
So I took fluoroquinolones and both my Achilles tendons sort of disintegrated, which was shocking to me. So anyway, I had to get them debrided and sort of rebuilt, and the surgery on ONE cost about $12,000 plus the PT. So meanwhile, my yard guy was limping around and I said to him, "You need to go get that checked out," and he said, "I know what's wrong with my foot, it's my Achilles tendon, but they are going to make me have surgery and I don't have insurance." HIS SURGERY, AT THE VERY SAME HOSPITAL, COST HIM $3500 AND HE DIDN'T PAY FOR IT ANYWAY.
I know many people who weren't insured, & incurred
high medical bills. Because they couldn't pay for
insurance, they couldn't pay the full cost of the bills.
All of them settled with either the provider or a
collection agency for a fraction of the cost.
I'm glad that I always managed to get insurance
somehow. Negotiating the price after receiving
the service would be troubling.
Evidence for this?
What I observe is that hospitals pass the cost of
non-payers to those who do pay, eg, insurers.
OK.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
It is a big game of getting whatever money out of whomever they can with all of the overhead involved with that. As @Kathryn just said, the same procedure was quoted at two very different prices, what she saw may well have been the "list" price and the landscaper what the hospital actually expected the insurance company to actually pay. Anyhow, we have the most expensive version of health care of any major western country all in the name of freedom and private enterprise and what have you.