4 ms·

We (the guy in the article and myself) live in a nation where insurance companies would rather see you die than pay out, insulin is $350/bottle when it's $7 to

by zenonu 7y ago

We (the guy in the article and myself) live in a nation where insurance companies would rather see you die than pay out, insulin is $350/bottle when it's $7 to produce, and politicians that we elect are entirely for it all. We have ourselves to blame for setting the moral standard.

Yuioup 7y ago
"Yes Officer, we were breaking the speed limit because, let's not kid ourselves, everybody breaks the speed limit."
jmull 7y ago
Other people are bad so it's OK for you to be bad? The basic moral standard is don't be an asshole, especially not when people are desperate. You're failing that.
listsfrin 7y ago
If it's $7 to produce why there are no new companies that sell it for $100? They'd make quite some profit.
- hawkice 7y ago
  Intense regulatory barriers. For a longer comment from a healthcare worker of note, see section 2 here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/30/buspirone-shortage-in-healthcaristan-ssr/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/30/buspirone-shortage-in-...
  - listsfrin 7y ago
    What do we understand from this?
    - hawkice 7y ago
      Probably that if someone wants to make cheap lifesaving medicine they should have an easy way to do that instead of a Kafkaesque hellscape to navigate, but I'm not sure that insight generalizes beyond "make good things easy".
      - listsfrin 7y ago
        We understand that currently it costs a lot more than $7 to produce insulin.
        peteradio 7y ago
        Thats 99% profit chucklehead.
dHarbing 7y ago
I am genuinely curious about your position on this because it baffles me. This may be censored by the thought police here since it’s the truth no one wants to face, but what would one expect when a system that has to compensate for MASSIVE costs and losses from being required to take care of tens of millions of foreign nationals who have paid essentially nothing into the system built up and paid into over many decades and generations? I would expect such a system to produce $300 insulin that costs $7 (regardless of whether those numbers are accurate) To me, it makes perfectly rational and logical sense that it would be the inevitable consequence that $7 insulin would cost $300, because that is consequences of reality … also known as basic accounting. It’s no different than if, e.g., you have a store in some corrupt cartel controlled territory where they extorted your for protection money, which makes you have to increase your prices in order to recover that cost from everyone else’s. No different in terms of accounting, even if you try to absorb some of the costs to not make others suffer as much and you and your family take on even more individual suffering for it. These are all logical and predictable things, seeing the future level predictable, they’re so basic. You clearly seem to think that it’s somehow not the logical consequence of the system as it is. Why is that? What we are actually facing and what Europe will unfortunately for them soon enough face, is a shift from a kind of preemptive system to a reactionary system, the consequences and costs of immediate gratification drawing down on the reserves built up through delayed gratification and forward thinking; the fable of the grasshopper and the ants. Insulin can only be $7 when all other costs of the system are covered; they are not, so insulin costs $300 instead to make up for the massive losses elsewhere taking care of tens of millions of foreign nationals in the USA who have never paid into the system that is being destroyed by their drawing down the reserves and capacity. It’s all very clear and logical, and inevitable, regardless of the fact that I don’t like it either. We seem to have a far bigger problem with misunderstanding of the facts and reality though. You want $7 insulin?figure out how to make all the foreign nationals pay up for the system built and paid into over many decades and generations, or at least for the full cost of the services they consume. That is the only way you get $7 insulin, or even cheaper insulin.
- mercora 7y ago
  i honestly don't get what people you are talking about... who did not pay into what system and why does that drive prices for insulin up? I mean i get that 7$ production cost does not translate into a 7$ price tag even without a profit but what is driving the cost of these people that has to be compensated for in insulin pricing?

by zenonu 7y ago

Yuioup 7y ago

"Yes Officer, we were breaking the speed limit because, let's not kid ourselves, everybody breaks the speed limit."

jmull 7y ago

Other people are bad so it's OK for you to be bad? The basic moral standard is don't be an asshole, especially not when people are desperate. You're failing that.

listsfrin 7y ago

If it's $7 to produce why there are no new companies that sell it for $100? They'd make quite some profit.

hawkice 7y ago
Intense regulatory barriers. For a longer comment from a healthcare worker of note, see section 2 here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/30/buspirone-shortage-in-healthcaristan-ssr/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/04/30/buspirone-shortage-in-...
- listsfrin 7y ago
  What do we understand from this?
  - hawkice 7y ago
    Probably that if someone wants to make cheap lifesaving medicine they should have an easy way to do that instead of a Kafkaesque hellscape to navigate, but I'm not sure that insight generalizes beyond "make good things easy".
    - listsfrin 7y ago
      We understand that currently it costs a lot more than $7 to produce insulin.
      - peteradio 7y ago
        Thats 99% profit chucklehead.

dHarbing 7y ago

I am genuinely curious about your position on this because it baffles me. This may be censored by the thought police here since it’s the truth no one wants to face, but what would one expect when a system that has to compensate for MASSIVE costs and losses from being required to take care of tens of millions of foreign nationals who have paid essentially nothing into the system built up and paid into over many decades and generations? I would expect such a system to produce $300 insulin that costs $7 (regardless of whether those numbers are accurate) To me, it makes perfectly rational and logical sense that it would be the inevitable consequence that $7 insulin would cost $300, because that is consequences of reality … also known as basic accounting. It’s no different than if, e.g., you have a store in some corrupt cartel controlled territory where they extorted your for protection money, which makes you have to increase your prices in order to recover that cost from everyone else’s. No different in terms of accounting, even if you try to absorb some of the costs to not make others suffer as much and you and your family take on even more individual suffering for it. These are all logical and predictable things, seeing the future level predictable, they’re so basic. You clearly seem to think that it’s somehow not the logical consequence of the system as it is. Why is that? What we are actually facing and what Europe will unfortunately for them soon enough face, is a shift from a kind of preemptive system to a reactionary system, the consequences and costs of immediate gratification drawing down on the reserves built up through delayed gratification and forward thinking; the fable of the grasshopper and the ants. Insulin can only be $7 when all other costs of the system are covered; they are not, so insulin costs $300 instead to make up for the massive losses elsewhere taking care of tens of millions of foreign nationals in the USA who have never paid into the system that is being destroyed by their drawing down the reserves and capacity. It’s all very clear and logical, and inevitable, regardless of the fact that I don’t like it either. We seem to have a far bigger problem with misunderstanding of the facts and reality though. You want $7 insulin?figure out how to make all the foreign nationals pay up for the system built and paid into over many decades and generations, or at least for the full cost of the services they consume. That is the only way you get $7 insulin, or even cheaper insulin.

mercora 7y ago
i honestly don't get what people you are talking about... who did not pay into what system and why does that drive prices for insulin up? I mean i get that 7$ production cost does not translate into a 7$ price tag even without a profit but what is driving the cost of these people that has to be compensated for in insulin pricing?