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In normal countries they have price controls. That approach works extremely well, in fact so well that price controls on pharmaceuticals in America are politica
by HarryHirsch 10y ago
In normal countries they have price controls. That approach works extremely well, in fact so well that price controls on pharmaceuticals in America are politically unworkable.
- ikeboy 10y agohttp://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/07/reverse-voxsplaining-brand-name-drugs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/07/reverse-voxsplaining-br...
- HarryHirsch 10y agoThe vultures that trade in small-volume generics do innovation now? Turing and Valeant do R&D?! The bigger issue is the financing model that causes innovation to happen in all the wrong fields, but that is a different question and very complex.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- therpe1 10y agoThat article is long and completely without substance. I don't know why I didn't turn back sooner but lesson learned. Anybody who thinks the drug industry charges so much for "innovation" is just dumb. Like all sellers the drug industry charges exactly what buyers are willing to pay. When the buyer is the federal government (and make no mistake, the federal government is indeed the biggest purchaser of healthcare and healthcare has been thoroughly "medicalized" [1][2]) then there's absolutely no limit to what you can charge. This situation thoroughly accounts for the high drug prices unique to the US and there is no need to crap out a bunch of words about innovation. [1] http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/washington-health-policy-in-review/2016/dec/december-5-2016/federal-government-emerges-as-top-health-buyer http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/was... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_finance_in_the_United_States#Role_of_government_in_health_care_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_finance_in_the_Uni...
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago"Normal" countries also contribute very little to global pharma R&D.
- maxerickson 10y agoHow much are US generics contributing to R&D?
- _jal 10y agoI don't know the parent's goals in trotting that out, but in general, I love how often this line is used as a defense of the "free market" in drugs. Aside from the military[1], in what other categories of product do those waving that banner support mandatory payments to private entities supporting their preferred agenda[2]? Never mind that the military is the best comparison to drugs in terms of regulation - the only products less "free-market" in the US than drugs are military weapons. In a way, there's a funny symmetry there. [1] A huge amount of that money goes directly to private firms, just like pharma payments. [2] Well, I guess one can opt out of medical care.
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoI'm not defending a free market in drugs. I actually don't believe such a thing can exist. I'm simply observing the price board does what almost all price boards do: maximizing short-term political gains. It's a response to parent pretending a complex discussion has one true answer.
- HarryHirsch 10y agoIn Europe price controls have been in place since the War, if not earlier, and the pharma industry in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the UK did extremely well until the 1980s. Pfizer opened their Sandwich site in 1954 and when they closed it in 2011 it wasn't because of the NHS.
- swsieber 10y agoI'm not even sure you can call it "free market" because of the distortions that patents bring into it...