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We should do the same thing for software development. If an entrepreneur can afford the full cost of a top development shop, then fine. If he or she has no mone

We should do the same thing for software development. If an entrepreneur can afford the full cost of a top development shop, then fine. If he or she has no money, the shop's hourly rate would be radically reduced by law and ideally paid through programs designed to promote new business creation. See how this works?

oconnor663 11y ago
You could model it as a subsidy or a transfer instead of a price control. Then the shop wouldn't have to turn itself into a charity. (You'd have the opposite problem though. The shop would lobby for higher transfers.)
mhuffman 11y ago
Except no one dies if you don't get to make your new killer javascript framework.
takeda 11y ago
That's a terrible simplification. When a developer does not receive adequate salary s/he can look for work at another place, that might pay better. This makes companies try to have competitive salaries to retain their employees. The whole thing self regulates. When you have a disease that might cripple or kill you you bet you are willing to bankrupt yourself to cure it. The regulations are absolutely necessary. Currently companies are utilizing this and charge significant amount of money for a cure. On top of that they prefer medication that doesn't treat the sickness and instead just keeps it under control, because that way they make more money. It is easy to sympathize with pharmaceutical companies unless you have to get one of those diseases.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
  I had a family member who nearly died from end-stage liver disease caused by Hepatitis C. He received a life-saving liver transplant with probably only days left to live. From the article: There’s a drug called Sovaldi that works astonishingly well to cure people with the liver disease Hepatitis C. The rub? It costs $1,000 per day for all 12 weeks of treatment. 12 x 7 x $1,000 = $84,000 I saw the bill for my family member's liver transplant. The total cost for the transplant was over $500,000 and that doesn't include the pre-transplant and post-transplant treatments and hospitalizations. At $84,000 for a cure, Sovaldi is an absolute bargain. Of course, not everybody has $84,000. That's why we have insurance. Unfortunately, the payers in this article, state Medicaid programs, are in many cases heading down a path to insolvency. That's the bigger issue. In private insurance markets, most drug makers provide significant discounts to incentivize payers. These discounts often amount to 50% or more. So you can't address the issue of access to treatment without acknowledging that insurers, not drug makers, ultimately decide which patients have access. Gilead has a program that provides Sovaldi free of charge to patients who are uninsured or have been denied treatment. For those who cannot obtain Sovaldi, there are a variety of other Hepatitis C treatments available, so it is unlikely that somebody with a need will go untreated, even if their payer won't give them access to the treatment they prefer or which may be most effective. This is a much more complicated issue than the article here suggests, and it's easier to find a scapegoat than to honestly address the complexities of this market.

oconnor663 11y ago

You could model it as a subsidy or a transfer instead of a price control. Then the shop wouldn't have to turn itself into a charity. (You'd have the opposite problem though. The shop would lobby for higher transfers.)

mhuffman 11y ago

Except no one dies if you don't get to make your new killer javascript framework.

takeda 11y ago

That's a terrible simplification. When a developer does not receive adequate salary s/he can look for work at another place, that might pay better. This makes companies try to have competitive salaries to retain their employees. The whole thing self regulates. When you have a disease that might cripple or kill you you bet you are willing to bankrupt yourself to cure it. The regulations are absolutely necessary. Currently companies are utilizing this and charge significant amount of money for a cure. On top of that they prefer medication that doesn't treat the sickness and instead just keeps it under control, because that way they make more money. It is easy to sympathize with pharmaceutical companies unless you have to get one of those diseases.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago
I had a family member who nearly died from end-stage liver disease caused by Hepatitis C. He received a life-saving liver transplant with probably only days left to live. From the article: There’s a drug called Sovaldi that works astonishingly well to cure people with the liver disease Hepatitis C. The rub? It costs $1,000 per day for all 12 weeks of treatment. 12 x 7 x $1,000 = $84,000 I saw the bill for my family member's liver transplant. The total cost for the transplant was over $500,000 and that doesn't include the pre-transplant and post-transplant treatments and hospitalizations. At $84,000 for a cure, Sovaldi is an absolute bargain. Of course, not everybody has $84,000. That's why we have insurance. Unfortunately, the payers in this article, state Medicaid programs, are in many cases heading down a path to insolvency. That's the bigger issue. In private insurance markets, most drug makers provide significant discounts to incentivize payers. These discounts often amount to 50% or more. So you can't address the issue of access to treatment without acknowledging that insurers, not drug makers, ultimately decide which patients have access. Gilead has a program that provides Sovaldi free of charge to patients who are uninsured or have been denied treatment. For those who cannot obtain Sovaldi, there are a variety of other Hepatitis C treatments available, so it is unlikely that somebody with a need will go untreated, even if their payer won't give them access to the treatment they prefer or which may be most effective. This is a much more complicated issue than the article here suggests, and it's easier to find a scapegoat than to honestly address the complexities of this market.