4 ms·

> But those who need it most are dying due to this pricing scam, which is standard for our healthcare in the US. Those who need it most are dying not due to th

> But those who need it most are dying due to this pricing scam, which is standard for our healthcare in the US. Those who need it most are dying not due to the "pricing scam", but because they're incarcerated and therefore prohibited from receiving curative HCV treatment, at any price. The sticker price is high, but it's meaningless, because almost nobody is going to be paying the sticker price. Also, if you want to make a statement about healthcare pricing in the US, Sovaldi is literally the worst example you could pick. For the first few years after it was available outside the US, Sovaldi was significantly cheaper in the US than in it was elsewhere.

metildaa 8y ago
There are 3 million people living in the US with Hepatitis C, many who are needlessly dying from it are not incarcerated. The sticker price is a scam to make insurers feel good when they get double digit percentage discounts, while still lining Gileads pockets.
- tptacek 8y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the argument, but it doesn't have much to do with my point, and I'm more interested in the economics of new therapies than I am in a moral or political debate about how medicine is financed.
- mrep 8y ago
  What's your alternative then?
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > There are 3 million people living in the US with Hepatitis C, many who are needlessly dying from it are not incarcerated. I was responding to the claim about people who need it the most. People who are incarcerated are, in fact, the people who benefit from curing HCV the most. And the price is not the reason they are unable to access it. > The sticker price is a scam to make insurers feel good when they get double digit percentage discounts, while still lining Gileads pockets. Even if you subscribe to the absurd notion that massive insurance companies incentivized by their bottom line could be oblivious to that dynamic and content with "feeling good" about an imaginary discount that lines their vendor's pockets, this argument falls apart when you look at how much the same medication costs in countries like Germany and France. Sovaldi costs about the same over there, and in fact, used to cost more than it did in the US (in addition to receiving approval much later than they did in the US).

metildaa 8y ago

There are 3 million people living in the US with Hepatitis C, many who are needlessly dying from it are not incarcerated. The sticker price is a scam to make insurers feel good when they get double digit percentage discounts, while still lining Gileads pockets.

tptacek 8y ago
I'm sympathetic to the argument, but it doesn't have much to do with my point, and I'm more interested in the economics of new therapies than I am in a moral or political debate about how medicine is financed.
mrep 8y ago
What's your alternative then?
chimeracoder 8y ago
> There are 3 million people living in the US with Hepatitis C, many who are needlessly dying from it are not incarcerated. I was responding to the claim about people who need it the most. People who are incarcerated are, in fact, the people who benefit from curing HCV the most. And the price is not the reason they are unable to access it. > The sticker price is a scam to make insurers feel good when they get double digit percentage discounts, while still lining Gileads pockets. Even if you subscribe to the absurd notion that massive insurance companies incentivized by their bottom line could be oblivious to that dynamic and content with "feeling good" about an imaginary discount that lines their vendor's pockets, this argument falls apart when you look at how much the same medication costs in countries like Germany and France. Sovaldi costs about the same over there, and in fact, used to cost more than it did in the US (in addition to receiving approval much later than they did in the US).