3 ms·
Further to that point, there is radically more money in big healthcare than there is in big pharma. In the US big healthcare is 8x-10x larger than big pharma.
by adventured 7y ago
Further to that point, there is radically more money in big healthcare than there is in big pharma. In the US big healthcare is 8x-10x larger than big pharma.
There is a lot of money to be made by big healthcare in any procedure in the US, including one as described by the article. Hospitals, admin, doctors, nurses, techs, medtech, they'll all be thrilled to ring the cash register instead of big pharma.
- dmix 7y agoAnd “big pharma” or “big health” isn’t a homogenous unit protecting their own interests (well not entirely). There’s no way one firm won’t pass up on a hundred million to save 50 firms from losing a billion. The only time that happens is when BigCo gets the government to ban things, regulate the small firms out before they can even start selling stuff, or when the FDA drags its feet for a decade. The fact the latter happens so often is one of the best reasons for public health insurance (IMO) because the US health industry is in many ways very far from a market where competition can efficiently account for stuff like this. But it’s not as bad to completely squeeze out whole new classes of treatments (new patented drugs is another story) which would be worse case scenario. Instead it tends to work through a million small rules but that only let the big guys exploit new stuff while potentially dragging their feet or charging 10x the cost, rather than completely excluding the market from it.