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I am not arguing for or against the drug industry, but naming a few drugs with price increases is meaningless. Telling me some random generic has gone up in pr

by steve19 11y ago

I am not arguing for or against the drug industry, but naming a few drugs with price increases is meaningless. Telling me some random generic has gone up in price means nothing to me . For all I know, that might be an old fashioned drug hardly any doctors prescribe and the price increases is required in order to keep it available for the few people who require it... or it could just as easily mean the company has a monopoly and is price gouging consumers. There needs to be a weighted index, or multiple indexes, of drugs weighted by how important they are. Not sure how to define importance in this context, but quantity sold would be a good start, maybe another index weighted by average expenditure per patient per year and another weighted by lives saved. Edit: Downvoters, I did read the article. An unweighted group of any product is not very useful from an economics perspective. That is why the CPI is weighted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index

phkahler 11y ago
>> Telling me some random generic has gone up in price means nothing to me . They state that the average price of a group of over 220 drugs has been increasing faster than inflation for some time. That's hardly "some random generic". In fact they say generics tend to drop in price, it's the name brands that are rising.
refurb 11y ago
You raise a good point and percentage increases can be deceiving. If a drug cost $0.01/tablet and now it's $0.03/tablet, yes that's a 300% increase, but it still costs pennies per day to treat someone. Unfortunately I can't find it right now, but the Us gov't did a study into generic drug price increases. There is no one reason why they went up. For some drugs it was because a company decided to stop making it and there were shortages. For other companies, they had manufacturing problems and shortages resulted.
- developer1 11y ago
  Shortages don't seem like they should a valid reason. Choosing to no longer produce a needed drug shouldn't even be a legal option - free market shouldn't be allowed to trump health. I don't know how you write laws to require a corporation to produce a drug they own, and perhaps that isn't the right approach; but it doesn't seem morally acceptable to let this happen. Capitalism should be taking a back seat here compared to the common good. "Manufacturing problems" just seems ripe for abuse. "Oh, we fired 90% of our production line, and now we just can't seem to pump it out anymore". Manufacture should have safeties and redundancies in place to prevent the sudden inability to produce whatsoever. It's unfortunate that money trumps all, even for the health industry.
ksk 11y ago
You're expecting the article to say something else, when the point of the article is clearly laid out in the headline itself. Which is that this particular case is not the 'odd one out', but common, or common enough in the drug industry. Obviously, the drug companies want to scapegoat this dude and avoid any negative press for the other times they bump up prices. I agree with you that to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate price increases is needed. But then again, I'd say the fact that healthcare is a for-profit industry has already put the incentives in place necessary for anyone interested in dabbling on the dark side.

by steve19 11y ago

phkahler 11y ago

>> Telling me some random generic has gone up in price means nothing to me . They state that the average price of a group of over 220 drugs has been increasing faster than inflation for some time. That's hardly "some random generic". In fact they say generics tend to drop in price, it's the name brands that are rising.

refurb 11y ago

You raise a good point and percentage increases can be deceiving. If a drug cost $0.01/tablet and now it's $0.03/tablet, yes that's a 300% increase, but it still costs pennies per day to treat someone. Unfortunately I can't find it right now, but the Us gov't did a study into generic drug price increases. There is no one reason why they went up. For some drugs it was because a company decided to stop making it and there were shortages. For other companies, they had manufacturing problems and shortages resulted.

developer1 11y ago
Shortages don't seem like they should a valid reason. Choosing to no longer produce a needed drug shouldn't even be a legal option - free market shouldn't be allowed to trump health. I don't know how you write laws to require a corporation to produce a drug they own, and perhaps that isn't the right approach; but it doesn't seem morally acceptable to let this happen. Capitalism should be taking a back seat here compared to the common good. "Manufacturing problems" just seems ripe for abuse. "Oh, we fired 90% of our production line, and now we just can't seem to pump it out anymore". Manufacture should have safeties and redundancies in place to prevent the sudden inability to produce whatsoever. It's unfortunate that money trumps all, even for the health industry.

ksk 11y ago

You're expecting the article to say something else, when the point of the article is clearly laid out in the headline itself. Which is that this particular case is not the 'odd one out', but common, or common enough in the drug industry. Obviously, the drug companies want to scapegoat this dude and avoid any negative press for the other times they bump up prices. I agree with you that to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate price increases is needed. But then again, I'd say the fact that healthcare is a for-profit industry has already put the incentives in place necessary for anyone interested in dabbling on the dark side.