4 ms·

The rest of the world is so damn proud of their cheap universal health care. Little do they realize how much of it is subsidized by Americans. You're welcome wo

The rest of the world is so damn proud of their cheap universal health care. Little do they realize how much of it is subsidized by Americans. You're welcome world. You're welcome.

justthistime_ 11y ago
Yeah, because the price people are paying is related to the actual costs of researching and producing it. Hint: No, it's not.
- pixie_ 11y ago
  Biotech is a goldmine. Hint: It's not. R&D isn't guaranteed to pay off. Why even do it or invest in it if the chance of success is so low?
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    This would be easier to swallow if pharma companies weren't some of the most highly and consistently profitable companies on the planet. Or if they spent magnitudes more on research than they do on marketing, PR, and lobbying.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    >Why even do it or invest in it if the chance of success is so low? Because the payoff is high?
  - DasIch 11y ago
    Medical research is heavily government funded. I would be surprised, if the majority of the investment actually comes from pharma companies. Any R&D pharma companies invest in is also going to be heavily focused on areas that have a high likelyhood of paying off reasonably soon, much like R&D in any other company.
  - justthistime_ 11y ago
    They own more of your government than any other industry, which is incidentally how they managed to create their hyper-inflated prices in the first place. Their chance of success doesn't depend on R&D. God, some Americans are really cringe-worthy. Is it really necessary to get defensive just because other governments are more interested in representing the interests of their people?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
pcrh 11y ago
It is a common misconception that the US subsidizes others. Expenditures by US companies account for no more than 50% of pharmaceutical research among the top ten drug companies [0], so the rest of the world contributes as much as does the US. I don't think any other US spending could be considered a subsidy to others. [0] http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/23/the-pharmaceutical-industrys-10-biggest-rd-budgets.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/23/the-pharmac...
- nostromo 11y ago
  How does that refute his point? Take Roche -- based in Switzerland. Their largest market by revenue is... the US. Their US revenues are 63% higher than all of their European sales combined. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uNS_cQR0BtkJ:www.roche.com/med-cor-2014-10-16-e.rtf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uNS_cQR...
  - forrestthewoods 11y ago
    Ding ding ding, winner!!
    - antr 11y ago
      You might want to explain the USA's addiction to prescription drugs, and how your conclusion is hence, well, misguided https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216249/dh_117977.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
      - forrestthewoods 11y ago
        Yes. The USA is addicted to prescription drugs. That addiction puts significant money in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies. Those companies may or may not be American. Either way their pockets are lined with American dollars.
  - DasIch 11y ago
antr 11y ago
Don't confuse the pharmaceutical industry with any healthcare system. The quality and cost of hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc, in the RoW has nothing to do with how much Americans pay for drugs.
DasIch 11y ago
It has absolutely nothing to do with subsidization by Americans. It's simply that universal health care allows patients to be fairly represented as consumers via insurance agencies. The American health care system is a perfect example of what happens, if you confuse lack of government regulation with free markets. The resulting oligopoly and in some areas monopolys cause prices to increase massively, especially given the unique traits demand acquires when demand is literally wanting to survive. That's just basic economics and trivially easy to explain.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  FWIW, you have the exact same system with college textbooks: the International Edition we get in Europe is often 30-50% cheaper than the US Edition, and has big letters saying "Not for sale in the US or Canada". Then you also have a further Low Price Edition, saying "Not for sale outside India, Pakistan, ..." which I've seen at 1/10th of the US price, though usually printed on lower quality paper and lagging an edition behind. This suggests that pharma is not a special case. And you can't point to any huge R&D costs for textbooks that are subsidized by the US.
  - DasIch 11y ago
    That's easily explained though. Students don't have a lot of money and textbooks are next to rent and in some cases tuition the most expensive thing you're going to buy as a student. Students in the US are already comfortable paying enormous amount of money for the education, students in Europe much less so and students in India and Pakistan simply can't afford to pay what US students can. Still even if your profit margin is much smaller, that's still a large market, so you sell these books in India with a smaller profit margin and increase them in Europe and the US. Additionally universities in the US forcing students to buy certain textbook creating monopolies also certainly doesn't help prices to stay down.
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      > Students in the US are already comfortable paying enormous amount of money for the education, students in Europe much less so and students in India and Pakistan simply can't afford to pay what US students can. Yes, exactly. Substitute "people" for "students" and "health care" for "education" and you have also explained the price differences in the cost of drugs.
mikeash 11y ago
I've seen this argument before, from someone arguing against universal health care in the US in general, and Obamacare in particular. I said that one advantage of socialized medicine is cost, and they came back with this: it's only cheap because we pay for all their R&D. Except then I ran the numbers, and it turns out that medical R&D in the US amounts to only about $500 per person per year, while the gap in costs is many thousands of dollars. Perhaps it is you who does not realize how much of it (i.e. not that much) is subsidized by Americans.

The rest of the world is so damn proud of their cheap universal health care. Little do they realize how much of it is subsidized by Americans. You're welcome world. You're welcome.

justthistime_ 11y ago

Yeah, because the price people are paying is related to the actual costs of researching and producing it. Hint: No, it's not.

pixie_ 11y ago
Biotech is a goldmine. Hint: It's not. R&D isn't guaranteed to pay off. Why even do it or invest in it if the chance of success is so low?
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  This would be easier to swallow if pharma companies weren't some of the most highly and consistently profitable companies on the planet. Or if they spent magnitudes more on research than they do on marketing, PR, and lobbying.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  >Why even do it or invest in it if the chance of success is so low? Because the payoff is high?
- DasIch 11y ago
  Medical research is heavily government funded. I would be surprised, if the majority of the investment actually comes from pharma companies. Any R&D pharma companies invest in is also going to be heavily focused on areas that have a high likelyhood of paying off reasonably soon, much like R&D in any other company.
- justthistime_ 11y ago
  They own more of your government than any other industry, which is incidentally how they managed to create their hyper-inflated prices in the first place. Their chance of success doesn't depend on R&D. God, some Americans are really cringe-worthy. Is it really necessary to get defensive just because other governments are more interested in representing the interests of their people?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

pcrh 11y ago

It is a common misconception that the US subsidizes others. Expenditures by US companies account for no more than 50% of pharmaceutical research among the top ten drug companies [0], so the rest of the world contributes as much as does the US. I don't think any other US spending could be considered a subsidy to others. [0] http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/23/the-pharmaceutical-industrys-10-biggest-rd-budgets.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/23/the-pharmac...

nostromo 11y ago
How does that refute his point? Take Roche -- based in Switzerland. Their largest market by revenue is... the US. Their US revenues are 63% higher than all of their European sales combined. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uNS_cQR0BtkJ:www.roche.com/med-cor-2014-10-16-e.rtf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uNS_cQR...
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  Ding ding ding, winner!!
  - antr 11y ago
    You might want to explain the USA's addiction to prescription drugs, and how your conclusion is hence, well, misguided https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216249/dh_117977.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
    - forrestthewoods 11y ago
      Yes. The USA is addicted to prescription drugs. That addiction puts significant money in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies. Those companies may or may not be American. Either way their pockets are lined with American dollars.
- DasIch 11y ago

antr 11y ago

Don't confuse the pharmaceutical industry with any healthcare system. The quality and cost of hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc, in the RoW has nothing to do with how much Americans pay for drugs.

DasIch 11y ago

It has absolutely nothing to do with subsidization by Americans. It's simply that universal health care allows patients to be fairly represented as consumers via insurance agencies. The American health care system is a perfect example of what happens, if you confuse lack of government regulation with free markets. The resulting oligopoly and in some areas monopolys cause prices to increase massively, especially given the unique traits demand acquires when demand is literally wanting to survive. That's just basic economics and trivially easy to explain.

semi-extrinsic 11y ago
FWIW, you have the exact same system with college textbooks: the International Edition we get in Europe is often 30-50% cheaper than the US Edition, and has big letters saying "Not for sale in the US or Canada". Then you also have a further Low Price Edition, saying "Not for sale outside India, Pakistan, ..." which I've seen at 1/10th of the US price, though usually printed on lower quality paper and lagging an edition behind. This suggests that pharma is not a special case. And you can't point to any huge R&D costs for textbooks that are subsidized by the US.
- DasIch 11y ago
  That's easily explained though. Students don't have a lot of money and textbooks are next to rent and in some cases tuition the most expensive thing you're going to buy as a student. Students in the US are already comfortable paying enormous amount of money for the education, students in Europe much less so and students in India and Pakistan simply can't afford to pay what US students can. Still even if your profit margin is much smaller, that's still a large market, so you sell these books in India with a smaller profit margin and increase them in Europe and the US. Additionally universities in the US forcing students to buy certain textbook creating monopolies also certainly doesn't help prices to stay down.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    > Students in the US are already comfortable paying enormous amount of money for the education, students in Europe much less so and students in India and Pakistan simply can't afford to pay what US students can. Yes, exactly. Substitute "people" for "students" and "health care" for "education" and you have also explained the price differences in the cost of drugs.

mikeash 11y ago

I've seen this argument before, from someone arguing against universal health care in the US in general, and Obamacare in particular. I said that one advantage of socialized medicine is cost, and they came back with this: it's only cheap because we pay for all their R&D. Except then I ran the numbers, and it turns out that medical R&D in the US amounts to only about $500 per person per year, while the gap in costs is many thousands of dollars. Perhaps it is you who does not realize how much of it (i.e. not that much) is subsidized by Americans.