3 ms·
The push from the market appears to mainly consist of a) engineering ways of preventing drugs coming out of patent b) absurdly increase margins on basic and nec
by NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The push from the market appears to mainly consist of a) engineering ways of preventing drugs coming out of patent b) absurdly increase margins on basic and necessary items c) insanely increase margins on items with limited competition, e.g. epipens, last but certainly not least, advertising to unbalance healthcare by encouraging the expensive over the appropriate treatment. Pharma prefers to find long term treatments rather than new antibiotics and other treatments that are a week or two then done. Much more money in an ongoing treatment than cure.
It's not the market, but far more US liability laws and willingness to sue that brings the US tendency to over investigate, diagnose and treat, is it not? That seems to be the sole advantage of the US approach over others, and even that can be questioned in many areas.
All of those market pushes seem to be in the interests of medical CEOs and stockholders, not patients and citizens. I am far happier with a system that tries to remove or limit those for benefit of everyone. That tries (fallibly) to achieve fairness on medical not solely market grounds. I would prefer more openness too, but after the infamous farce of monoclonal antibodies, that's not realistic.
Seems more like we need to keep that invisible, and very imperfect hand out of healthcare as much as possible. Then heavily constrain it where we can't keep it out.