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Can we just appreciate the level of moral depravity needed to price fix medication? In my opinion something this repugnant and egregious needs personal executiv

by warent 6y ago

Can we just appreciate the level of moral depravity needed to price fix medication? In my opinion something this repugnant and egregious needs personal executive accountability. I'm willing to wager that many human lives have been altered for the worse because of this, and there's nobody taking personal accountability. Imagine if Epstein wasn't personally charged, instead just his business was fined. To me, that's actually the level of crime we're approaching here. If you think this is tenuous, at least consider the fact that it is proven that poverty is correlated with human trafficking (due to desperation and vulnerability) and illegally high medical bills force people into poverty.

merpnderp 6y ago
Maybe people would have less problems with "corporations are just groups of people working together" if the people of a corporation were ever held accountable.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Sell your shares before it's getting caught and you won't even be affected by the heaviest fines. Absence of information asymmetry is a fiction.
tehwebguy 6y ago
Price doesn't even have to be fixed for it to be depraved! Good time to remind everyone that Shkreli is in prison for financial crimes largely unrelated to the pharma side of his businesses, the rest of the pharma industry continued doing the same things as him as usual.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fastball 6y ago
  That was kinda the point, no? Shkreli was made into a bogeyman, but he was just doing in the open what every other pharma was smart enough to keep secret (pricing things higher than necessary). He also did it an excessively bombastic way. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Fix the root causes, not the symptoms.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    The root cause, in that, medicine is a for-profit endeavor and people are not only profiting, but seeking to maximize their profits on other people's basic needs?
    - fastball 6y ago
      Pretty much. Other things that don't help (somewhat US specific): 1. Layer of indirection created by the entire insurance system, which at this point is clearly not a good model for healthcare. Everyone needs/should have some amount of healthcare, so a system built entirely around the idea that only a minority of people should need to take advantage of the system is silly. 2. The half-assed government intervention of Medicare/Medicaid/ACA/etc – worst of both worlds in that when a government just injects shittons of money into the private sector (without very strong controls on price and behavior), what you end up with is ballooning costs... and that's about it. See also the govt. guaranteeing student loans for another example of the same. Or the Military Industrial Complex. And so on.
    - chongli 6y ago
      It's a bit more complicated than that. Health care costs have skyrocketed in the US. One of the big contributors to that has been the explosion in testing, both routine and diagnostic. These large costs aren't always shared to the same degree with other countries that have socialized medicine. One example is with MRI scans. MRI machines, and the technicians and doctors who work with them, are insanely expensive. The US is, of course, not the only country with MRI machines. However, in countries with socialized medicine there may be a much longer wait for people to get an MRI scan for a non-critical issue. What about in the US? If you've got the money, you can get one right away. As a Canadian, I've seen tons of advertisements over the years targeting Canadians for MRIs as a cross-border service. So the question is: is getting an MRI now instead of waiting 6 months a basic need? Private MRI clinics are definitely profiting from it. It definitely seems frustrating for people on the waiting list who can't afford to cross the border and pay out of pocket. However, it doesn't seem nearly as bad as a company price-gouging people on life-saving insulin, for example.
bradlys 6y ago
This is really presuming people need to feel any kind of morals around healthcare or its costs to begin with. In America - barely enough people give a shit. If they did - we'd have universal healthcare. But because capitalism and strong individualistic spirit of Americans, there is no reason to care. Stonks must go up. If you think anyone should feel any kind of moral obligation to not do this kind of stuff - you're just out of touch with American society. It's a survival of the strongest capitalistic machine and you get away with as much as you can.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar (this is a bit of both). Those paths just lead to internet hell, and we're clinging to little clumps of grass and the occasional rock trying to stave off the downward slide into that abyss. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=stave%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Part of it may be lack of compassion but that it certainly not all. Part of it is that Americans have been led to believe that government can do nothing right and that the free market is all that is needed to solve the problem. Which is incorrect, but here we are.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    Certainly government is competent in many places, but the performance of the American national and many state governments throughout the pandemic hasn't exactly been confidence inspiring. I don't think Americans who believe that their government isn't capable of many simple tasks are delusional.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      They aren't delusional about the government. But there is some delusion that private business or the "free market" can necessarily handle all these same problems entirely better.
kortilla 6y ago
> least consider the fact that it is proven that poverty is correlated with human trafficking (due to desperation and vulnerability) and illegally high medical bills force people into poverty. This is pretty tenuous and would implicate a lot of other behaviors. You know what else causes poverty? - the ability to hire based on skill and lay off people when you don’t need them - alcohol - charging for housing - charging for food - charging for utilities - property taxes - charging for transportation If, “does something that could cause poverty” is the bar, then a huge chunk of market exchange of goods and services needs to stop.
- f-securus 6y ago
  You’re comparing the basics of a capitalism based society to a large company actively breaking the law (price fixing) on products that affect people’s lives and health directly.
adolph 6y ago
In evolution adaptation prevails over customary behaviors thought of as morals. The question is why have the generic makers continued to cooperate instead of defect? How is the cartel protected? In this thought I am reminded of the Econtalk podcast’s discussion of Martin Shkreli in the interview about the High Cost of Cancer Drugs with Vincent Rajkumar. http://www.econtalk.org/vincent-rajkumar-on-the-high-price-of-cancer-drugs/ http://www.econtalk.org/vincent-rajkumar-on-the-high-price-o... http://www.econtalk.org/extra/the-high-cost-of-cancer/ http://www.econtalk.org/extra/the-high-cost-of-cancer/
- ficklepickle 6y ago
  One tactic pharma companies use is playing games so generic makers can't get samples of the medication. These samples are required for making a generic version. I read this somewhere but don't have a link.
  - adolph 6y ago
    That seems like evolutionarily adaptive and expectable behavior for a corporate collective in that context, yes.
iancmceachern 6y ago
I agree - let's. Someone should make a list of the companies and executives implicated in generic drug price fixing. Shame is a very powerful tool...
at-fates-hands 6y ago
> Can we just appreciate the level of moral depravity needed to price fix medication? First thing I thought of: Valeant Pharmaceuticals
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932516.

by warent 6y ago

merpnderp 6y ago

Maybe people would have less problems with "corporations are just groups of people working together" if the people of a corporation were ever held accountable.

usrusr 6y ago
Sell your shares before it's getting caught and you won't even be affected by the heaviest fines. Absence of information asymmetry is a fiction.

tehwebguy 6y ago

Price doesn't even have to be fixed for it to be depraved! Good time to remind everyone that Shkreli is in prison for financial crimes largely unrelated to the pharma side of his businesses, the rest of the pharma industry continued doing the same things as him as usual.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fastball 6y ago
That was kinda the point, no? Shkreli was made into a bogeyman, but he was just doing in the open what every other pharma was smart enough to keep secret (pricing things higher than necessary). He also did it an excessively bombastic way. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Fix the root causes, not the symptoms.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  The root cause, in that, medicine is a for-profit endeavor and people are not only profiting, but seeking to maximize their profits on other people's basic needs?
  - fastball 6y ago
    Pretty much. Other things that don't help (somewhat US specific): 1. Layer of indirection created by the entire insurance system, which at this point is clearly not a good model for healthcare. Everyone needs/should have some amount of healthcare, so a system built entirely around the idea that only a minority of people should need to take advantage of the system is silly. 2. The half-assed government intervention of Medicare/Medicaid/ACA/etc – worst of both worlds in that when a government just injects shittons of money into the private sector (without very strong controls on price and behavior), what you end up with is ballooning costs... and that's about it. See also the govt. guaranteeing student loans for another example of the same. Or the Military Industrial Complex. And so on.
  - chongli 6y ago
    It's a bit more complicated than that. Health care costs have skyrocketed in the US. One of the big contributors to that has been the explosion in testing, both routine and diagnostic. These large costs aren't always shared to the same degree with other countries that have socialized medicine. One example is with MRI scans. MRI machines, and the technicians and doctors who work with them, are insanely expensive. The US is, of course, not the only country with MRI machines. However, in countries with socialized medicine there may be a much longer wait for people to get an MRI scan for a non-critical issue. What about in the US? If you've got the money, you can get one right away. As a Canadian, I've seen tons of advertisements over the years targeting Canadians for MRIs as a cross-border service. So the question is: is getting an MRI now instead of waiting 6 months a basic need? Private MRI clinics are definitely profiting from it. It definitely seems frustrating for people on the waiting list who can't afford to cross the border and pay out of pocket. However, it doesn't seem nearly as bad as a company price-gouging people on life-saving insulin, for example.

bradlys 6y ago

This is really presuming people need to feel any kind of morals around healthcare or its costs to begin with. In America - barely enough people give a shit. If they did - we'd have universal healthcare. But because capitalism and strong individualistic spirit of Americans, there is no reason to care. Stonks must go up. If you think anyone should feel any kind of moral obligation to not do this kind of stuff - you're just out of touch with American society. It's a survival of the strongest capitalistic machine and you get away with as much as you can.

dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar (this is a bit of both). Those paths just lead to internet hell, and we're clinging to little clumps of grass and the occasional rock trying to stave off the downward slide into that abyss. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=stave%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
jjeaff 6y ago
Part of it may be lack of compassion but that it certainly not all. Part of it is that Americans have been led to believe that government can do nothing right and that the free market is all that is needed to solve the problem. Which is incorrect, but here we are.
- ksdale 6y ago
  Certainly government is competent in many places, but the performance of the American national and many state governments throughout the pandemic hasn't exactly been confidence inspiring. I don't think Americans who believe that their government isn't capable of many simple tasks are delusional.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    They aren't delusional about the government. But there is some delusion that private business or the "free market" can necessarily handle all these same problems entirely better.

kortilla 6y ago

> least consider the fact that it is proven that poverty is correlated with human trafficking (due to desperation and vulnerability) and illegally high medical bills force people into poverty. This is pretty tenuous and would implicate a lot of other behaviors. You know what else causes poverty? - the ability to hire based on skill and lay off people when you don’t need them - alcohol - charging for housing - charging for food - charging for utilities - property taxes - charging for transportation If, “does something that could cause poverty” is the bar, then a huge chunk of market exchange of goods and services needs to stop.

f-securus 6y ago
You’re comparing the basics of a capitalism based society to a large company actively breaking the law (price fixing) on products that affect people’s lives and health directly.

adolph 6y ago

In evolution adaptation prevails over customary behaviors thought of as morals. The question is why have the generic makers continued to cooperate instead of defect? How is the cartel protected? In this thought I am reminded of the Econtalk podcast’s discussion of Martin Shkreli in the interview about the High Cost of Cancer Drugs with Vincent Rajkumar. http://www.econtalk.org/vincent-rajkumar-on-the-high-price-of-cancer-drugs/ http://www.econtalk.org/vincent-rajkumar-on-the-high-price-o... http://www.econtalk.org/extra/the-high-cost-of-cancer/ http://www.econtalk.org/extra/the-high-cost-of-cancer/

ficklepickle 6y ago
One tactic pharma companies use is playing games so generic makers can't get samples of the medication. These samples are required for making a generic version. I read this somewhere but don't have a link.
- adolph 6y ago
  That seems like evolutionarily adaptive and expectable behavior for a corporate collective in that context, yes.

iancmceachern 6y ago

I agree - let's. Someone should make a list of the companies and executives implicated in generic drug price fixing. Shame is a very powerful tool...

at-fates-hands 6y ago

> Can we just appreciate the level of moral depravity needed to price fix medication? First thing I thought of: Valeant Pharmaceuticals

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932516.