4 ms·

For a tl;dr, an article by a left leaning magazine saying that drug companies should make drugs and not be allowed to charge exorbitant prices or the government

by Vaslo 6y ago

For a tl;dr, an article by a left leaning magazine saying that drug companies should make drugs and not be allowed to charge exorbitant prices or the government should get involved. Between that and the Trump bashing, shockingly original.

GiorgioG 6y ago
I don't care what side of the political aisle you side with: It's insane that pharma companies and the healthcare system in general can hold people hostage. A friend of mine has Leukemia and takes Gleevec. Thankfully he has a good job because it costs something like $14,000/month. Yep, you read that right, $14,000. Yes it's covered by insurance. But that's not some magical money tree paying for it, we're collectively paying for it. My son's a type 1 diabetic and we hit our out of pocket max of about $9,200 every single year to pay for his insulin pump & glucose monitor supplies. An older family member of mine had cancer surgery - in the hospital for 5 days total and came out with a $150k bill. America's great as long as you're not sick. I lean left and right on many different issues, but holy shit America's healthcare system is ass-backwards compared to the rest of the world, which has figured out how to keep people alive if some unfortunate event happens without making them worry about deciding to pay for groceries or pay for medicine/healthcare. Anyone that thinks otherwise is brainwashed. Yes there are horror stories in other countries, but they don't include bankrupting people who were grossly overcharged for their care, or people rationing their medication because they can't pay for it. Fuck the current US healthcare system. A single-payer system makes sense and it works everywhere else on the planet. The American people's refusal to get it reminds me of the not-invented-here syndrome we see in tech everyday.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It's difficult to say whether other countries are just dealing with the financial side of this better or if the US is basically subsidizing the low prices elsewhere by paying the exorbitant prices here.
  - henrikschroder 6y ago
    > or if the US is basically subsidizing the low prices elsewhere by paying the exorbitant prices here. Nope, you're just being taken for a ride because they can. Remember that the biggest line item for pharmaceutical companies is their advertising budget, not their research budget. Also, this kind of thinking is some weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome, you're basically trying to frame being taken advantage of as some sort of altruism.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      > the biggest line item for pharmaceutical companies is their advertising budget There seems to be some tension between that and a $14,000/month leukemia drug. The drug companies shouldn't really need to advertise life saving medication. The world is full of surprises, but I assume the advertising budget is more for the less important medications where people have to be more active in seeking them out.
    - jandrewrogers 6y ago
      The reason their advertising budget is so high is that they have a small number of years within which to recover a billion dollars in development costs. They have to find customers fast for new drugs, they have no time to waste, and that requires aggressive marketing. Companies don’t advertise for laughs since it costs money, it has a concrete ROI. It is a matter of incentives. If you want them to spend less on advertising, you’d have to provide them with a much longer time to recover development costs. Which also has significant downsides.
      - GiorgioG 6y ago
        I'm just going to leave this here: http://www.drugood.com/2018/07/15/gleevecs-cost-and-price/ http://www.drugood.com/2018/07/15/gleevecs-cost-and-price/ Gleevec did not take many years at all for Novartis to recover its trivial relative costs and generate billions of dollars of profit for nearly 2 decades. The problem is when you have a disease and there's only one treatment around, you'll literally pay whatever it costs - because not having it means you're dead. These companies then turn around and extract as much money as they possibly can. They're monopolies, pure and simple. I've seen this with my son's diabetes as well. The costs continue to rise (insulin, Dexcom sensors/transmitters, etc.) I've turned down jobs because their health benefits only covered a lousier insulin pump / glucose monitor due to an exclusive agreement with their chosen health insurer. The problem is if you or a loved one isn't sick, this doesn't affect you one damn bit. My dad (an italian-born immigrant) has always complained to me about our healthcare system (and he had a great healthcare plan as a GM employee.) I didn't really paid it much attention because I was young and healthy. Now, quite a bit older and with family members with a variety of health issues, I realized that he (in my opinion) was right.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  > Yep, you read that right, $14,000 There's a lot wrong with US healthcare, but IMO a sticker price of $14,000 is actually a signal of a different problem, which is... that the prices are fake. Nobody is actually expecting individuals to pay $14,000/mo. In the circumstance that an uninsured individual is on the drug, they'll be put on a payment plan which works out to an income-based-repayment: they know they won't get half a million from the patient, they'll get what (they think) the patient can afford. For insured patients (realistically, almost everyone who could have afforded such a high sticker, because of employer-based healthcare) the sticker price is meaningless, because there's a negotiated rate between the insurance company and the provider. Likely negotiated inefficiently with each individual insurer, but the end money transfer a small fraction of $14,000. I'm not trying to argue that there's not a ton of waste here. It's dumb and the lack of price visibility means nobody at any level makes informed choices. But the $14,000 price shouldn't be viewed as a real price in any meaningful sense.
- newyankee 6y ago
  The primary incumbents interested in keeping the status quo are not merely US companies though, quite a few EU companies especially Swiss figure in the list too. This is a field where developed countries do not want to give any perceived advantage over up and coming countries. For better or worse, only country that can break the monopoly is China imo. I hope they follow a different model of rewarding useful research.

by Vaslo 6y ago

GiorgioG 6y ago

I don't care what side of the political aisle you side with: It's insane that pharma companies and the healthcare system in general can hold people hostage. A friend of mine has Leukemia and takes Gleevec. Thankfully he has a good job because it costs something like $14,000/month. Yep, you read that right, $14,000. Yes it's covered by insurance. But that's not some magical money tree paying for it, we're collectively paying for it. My son's a type 1 diabetic and we hit our out of pocket max of about $9,200 every single year to pay for his insulin pump & glucose monitor supplies. An older family member of mine had cancer surgery - in the hospital for 5 days total and came out with a $150k bill. America's great as long as you're not sick. I lean left and right on many different issues, but holy shit America's healthcare system is ass-backwards compared to the rest of the world, which has figured out how to keep people alive if some unfortunate event happens without making them worry about deciding to pay for groceries or pay for medicine/healthcare. Anyone that thinks otherwise is brainwashed. Yes there are horror stories in other countries, but they don't include bankrupting people who were grossly overcharged for their care, or people rationing their medication because they can't pay for it. Fuck the current US healthcare system. A single-payer system makes sense and it works everywhere else on the planet. The American people's refusal to get it reminds me of the not-invented-here syndrome we see in tech everyday.

ineedasername 6y ago
It's difficult to say whether other countries are just dealing with the financial side of this better or if the US is basically subsidizing the low prices elsewhere by paying the exorbitant prices here.
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  > or if the US is basically subsidizing the low prices elsewhere by paying the exorbitant prices here. Nope, you're just being taken for a ride because they can. Remember that the biggest line item for pharmaceutical companies is their advertising budget, not their research budget. Also, this kind of thinking is some weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome, you're basically trying to frame being taken advantage of as some sort of altruism.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    > the biggest line item for pharmaceutical companies is their advertising budget There seems to be some tension between that and a $14,000/month leukemia drug. The drug companies shouldn't really need to advertise life saving medication. The world is full of surprises, but I assume the advertising budget is more for the less important medications where people have to be more active in seeking them out.
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    The reason their advertising budget is so high is that they have a small number of years within which to recover a billion dollars in development costs. They have to find customers fast for new drugs, they have no time to waste, and that requires aggressive marketing. Companies don’t advertise for laughs since it costs money, it has a concrete ROI. It is a matter of incentives. If you want them to spend less on advertising, you’d have to provide them with a much longer time to recover development costs. Which also has significant downsides.
    - GiorgioG 6y ago
      I'm just going to leave this here: http://www.drugood.com/2018/07/15/gleevecs-cost-and-price/ http://www.drugood.com/2018/07/15/gleevecs-cost-and-price/ Gleevec did not take many years at all for Novartis to recover its trivial relative costs and generate billions of dollars of profit for nearly 2 decades. The problem is when you have a disease and there's only one treatment around, you'll literally pay whatever it costs - because not having it means you're dead. These companies then turn around and extract as much money as they possibly can. They're monopolies, pure and simple. I've seen this with my son's diabetes as well. The costs continue to rise (insulin, Dexcom sensors/transmitters, etc.) I've turned down jobs because their health benefits only covered a lousier insulin pump / glucose monitor due to an exclusive agreement with their chosen health insurer. The problem is if you or a loved one isn't sick, this doesn't affect you one damn bit. My dad (an italian-born immigrant) has always complained to me about our healthcare system (and he had a great healthcare plan as a GM employee.) I didn't really paid it much attention because I was young and healthy. Now, quite a bit older and with family members with a variety of health issues, I realized that he (in my opinion) was right.
bpodgursky 6y ago
> Yep, you read that right, $14,000 There's a lot wrong with US healthcare, but IMO a sticker price of $14,000 is actually a signal of a different problem, which is... that the prices are fake. Nobody is actually expecting individuals to pay $14,000/mo. In the circumstance that an uninsured individual is on the drug, they'll be put on a payment plan which works out to an income-based-repayment: they know they won't get half a million from the patient, they'll get what (they think) the patient can afford. For insured patients (realistically, almost everyone who could have afforded such a high sticker, because of employer-based healthcare) the sticker price is meaningless, because there's a negotiated rate between the insurance company and the provider. Likely negotiated inefficiently with each individual insurer, but the end money transfer a small fraction of $14,000. I'm not trying to argue that there's not a ton of waste here. It's dumb and the lack of price visibility means nobody at any level makes informed choices. But the $14,000 price shouldn't be viewed as a real price in any meaningful sense.
newyankee 6y ago
The primary incumbents interested in keeping the status quo are not merely US companies though, quite a few EU companies especially Swiss figure in the list too. This is a field where developed countries do not want to give any perceived advantage over up and coming countries. For better or worse, only country that can break the monopoly is China imo. I hope they follow a different model of rewarding useful research.