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... And in the meantime, the same medicine (commercialised there as Indocid) costs €3.78 in France (https://www.vidal.fr/medicaments/gammes/indocid-4902.html ht
by otagekki 5y ago
... And in the meantime, the same medicine (commercialised there as Indocid) costs €3.78 in France (https://www.vidal.fr/medicaments/gammes/indocid-4902.html https://www.vidal.fr/medicaments/gammes/indocid-4902.html) provided you pay the full price.
That essentially means it's literally 10x cheaper to take a two-way ticket to France, have a doctor prescribe it there, buy 3 months worth of treatment and come back to the US.
I wonder how Americans can tolerate this situation.
- warent 5y ago[flagged]
- throw8932894 5y agobrainwashing that everyone needs health insurance paid by government. So printing presses can keep rolling... edit: an explanation; Activists never demand cheaper (or more transparent) health care. They demand state to pay for it! Same as with student loans.
- revolvingocelot 5y agoThere are, uh, several different first-world countries in which health insurance is paid by the government which you could scrutinize to see if your assumption is worth assuming. Or you could scrutinize the projected numbers, which conclude that it would be less expensive, in terms of government healthcare funding, to eliminate all of the ravenous middlemen causing all of the costs. Kinda like how it'd be cheaper to just give all the homeless people housing, rather than burn shitloads of social and criminal justice funding to keep them on the streets. These are ideological positions, though, so good luck changing any of them. So are the rolling presses -- they're not there to prop up a healthcare system, they're there to refill the troughs of irresponsible rich people whose enterprises have become "too big to fail". The problem is that the rich people have come to expect this windfall. Maybe we can save some money for them by cleaning up the healthcare and criminal justice systems!!
- metalliqaz 5y agonot to mention freeing up the costs paid by employers and employees, which would then be freed for commerce.
- revolvingocelot 5y agoAhh, but holding that Sword of Damocles over employees' heads is too valuable! Disincentives quitting, or even dissent. Not sure why the owner class would go for that, TBH.
- metalliqaz 5y agoindeed they lobby against it but imagine how much easier it would be to start a business if you didn't need to be a wage slave for the man to insure your family
- throw8932894 5y agoWho do you think pays that inflated price? Medicare and government. It is the same as gov backed student loans. It inflates price to sky high prices. Activists never demand cheaper (or more transparent) health care. They demand state to pay for it!
- revolvingocelot 5y ago>Activists never demand cheaper (or more transparent) health care. They demand state to pay for it! ...it's cheaper that way. That's-- that's why they say that. You can keep repeating yourself, but tell me, what makes almost every other first-world country better at this than the States? How is it that we can pay so much less and have, in aggregate, better health outcomes? It's a mystery!
- throw8932894 5y agoYou are out of reality. My country has public health insurance, but gov also works hard to keep costs down. If we paid for drugs like this, the public system would bankrupt.
- amusedcyclist 5y agoBasic economic theory and comparative studies will tell you that a single buyer for healthcare gives that single buyer a lot of leverage, which makes it cheaper.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoThe ol’ “why should I pay more to insure sick people when I’m healthy?”, followed by the “I’m sick now, can you donate to my GoFundMe treatment find?” routine.
- hellbannedguy 5y agoI am so disenfranchised with American medicine; I'm delaying a easy Chapter 7 bankruptcy just in case I get sick. This is not the America I raised a hand to. (Bankruptcy can only be used every 10 years.)
- mojzu 5y agoThe comments that get me are the replies to the insane bills along the lines of "don't worry about it, just spend 10's or 100's of hours on the phone/filling in forms/arguing with insurance reps and maybe, eventually they'll knock the price down by enough not to bankrupt you" Expecting sick people or their relatives to navigate that kind of bureaucracy to get the care they need and/or avoid dire financial straits just seems insane to me
- metalliqaz 5y agoLets be honest... we are all sociopaths. Our culture is a sickness.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoAre there telemedicine laws that prevent doctors from prescribing drugs to people in other countries? If not - this seems like an opportunity.
- otagekki 5y agoThe thing is, at that price, even without telemedicine, it's still profitable and in the process you've awarded yourself a small vacation to Paris.
- dmurray 5y agoThis only works if you were already in a financial position to take a small vacation to Paris. If the medicine was sold for $5 in the US, it would have a much larger reach.
- otagekki 5y agoSure, that was just to show how absurdly costly medical treatment has become in the U.S. Not so long ago I had seen a documentary about how American diabetics couldn't afford insulin and had to purchase their insulin pens in Canada. It's quite a shame for a first-world country with one of the highest per-capita income to have people give up healthcare because it's simply too expensive
- greenonions 5y agoThis exact argument has seemingly done absolutely nothing to sway politicians here. Because they do not have any shame whatsoever.
- DavidPeiffer 5y agoIt'd be interesting to scale it up significantly. Maybe it would carry more weight? I don't know the legalities involved, but I've heard of some international mail order prescription drugs getting intercepted by the government. Are the laws more permissive when bringing prescriptions prescribed to the traveler, on their person? Imagine a charter bus that takes a full load of people once per month from the US to Canada from regionally close cities (e.g. Chicago, Cleveland, Seattle, and New York) for insulin and other critical but expensive prescription drugs. The bus takes them to a pharmacy, everyone unloads and picks up their prescriptions, then loads back into the bus. Everything is called in, pre-arranged with the pharmacy for a streamlined operation. It's a really stupid situation and possible solution that shouldn't be viable. Unfortunately, it probably could be done.
- MichaelApproved 5y ago> I wonder how Americans can tolerate this situation. Several reasons this terrible system continues to exist but it essentially boils down to entrenchment. - The private healthcare industry pays politicians to maintain the status quo. The alternative government run solution does not. - The private healthcare industry creates propaganda and pays the media to spread it. An improved government run solution does not. - Many Americans have decent coverage from their employer. For them, it’s not worth upending the system for what might be moderate gains. More over, propaganda has made them expect worse coverage from any alternatives. - ACA gave many without employer coverage a good enough solution. It’s still expensive as fuck but it subdued enough voters. So, after considering voters who are happy enough with the devil they know, you don’t have enough votes left to overturn the system.
- G3rn0ti 5y agoIsn’t the biggest problem in the US health insurers operating on state level only? This is due to some regulation preventing formation of federal insurers. I never understood why there are no independent national health insurers (read Allianz for example) providing health care for self employed people like in Europe. Edit: A classic by John Mackey (Whole Foods Inc.) but still valid: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204251404574342... Quote: „Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.“
- ageitgey 5y agoThe US has states that are larger than countries in Europe. This may or may not contribute to the problem, but it is tiny in the big picture of US healthcare issues. The issue in the US is that the system is hugely inefficient compared to the models in Europe. There is an absolutely massive administrative layer between care providers and payers, price negotiations aren't transparent or efficient, the whole system is hugely complex, and the vested interests are incentivized to keep it that way.
- toast0 5y agoMost of the big insurers operate in multiple states. But operation in each state is regulated by that state, and I've heard, but not verified, that most ACA plans offer in-state coverage only, with some exceptions for communities at state borders (if you live near Lake Tahoe, an ACA plan probably covers doctors in the area in NV and CA) Shopping for plans on the marketplace is already terrible when they all cover the same stuff. It'll be way worse if I have to decide between terrible options for what's covered. Especially since we all know none of that is going to be clear or easily comparable, and certainly not pick the things you want covered.... It'll be like broken bones are in the package that excludes cysts, and brain cancer coverage is not available with any other cancers, and to get coverage for any sort of dermatology, you also need coverage for skiing and parachuting incidents. As-is, I can take my list of prefered facilities, look and see who has them in network, and then add the premiums to the out of pocket max to find my rough worst case cost and pick the one with the least worst case cost and call it a day. This is usually also the one with the least premiums, so it's also the least cost if I don't visit the doctor at all.
- Factorium 5y agoIs this the socialised price after Government subsidies? If so, the cost of medicine is just borne elsewhere: the average tax wedge is 38% in France vs 18% in the USA for a married couple with 2 children: https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf Sales tax is also 20% vs less than 10% in all US states.
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoStudy after study has shown that we pay more for medical care + taxes than other countries. As it stands, the excess gets syphoned off to feed the medical industrial complex.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoWe also pay doctors and nurses and techs significantly more than any other country. And part of that is because we pay pretty much all skilled labor more, so to attract nurses and doctors we need high pay....
- gilbetron 5y agoA fair comparison does, I agree, need to look at the actual costs paid by people, and not just the number they see at the doctor. But even taking that into account, the US still pays more: https://www.rand.org/news/press/2021/01/28.html https://www.rand.org/news/press/2021/01/28.html
- hadrien01 5y agoNo, it's before. After the Sécurité Sociale rebate, it's 0.28€ in Alsace-Moselle, and 0.97€ in the rest of France.
- vidarh 5y agoA quick google has found pharmacies in the UK selling it privately, unsubsidised, for around $40 for a pack of 10. Much more expensive than the quoted price for France, but certainly nowhere near the current US list price.
- 5y ago
- city41 5y agoWe recently moved to Michigan and a factor in doing so was being near the Canadian border for pharmacies. The University of Michigan's health website even talks about this as a possible strategy. This shouldn't happen in a civilized country. https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/te7832 https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/te7832
- notquitehuman 5y agoWe don’t live in a civilized country. Civilized countries don’t have violent elections.
- postalrat 5y agoOr rigged elections.
- krainboltgreene 5y agoGo back to patriots.win.
- postalrat 5y agoI'm not in their clan or yours.
- notquitehuman 5y agoDid that happen in the US in 2020? I thought the overwhelming majority of those claims were dismissed. The real crime is calling bribes “campaign contributions” and pretending that our politicians (of all parties) aren’t selling their votes to the highest bidder.
- Asooka 5y agoIt was probably not rigged. Both sides were really shady, with lots of evidence just disappearing. My opinion, as someone from a Soviet country with actual widespread voting fraud, is that the way your election went was a bit suspicious. It was weird in the same way we see when the side that's supposed to win stuffs ballots from dead people, people who didn't turn up, etc. The large sudden bump in votes for Biden also seems suspicious. The fact that Trump got a record number of votes during a pandemic in which his voters almost all voted in person and still lost, is a bit suspicious. The fact that you need to only rig a few counties with a few votes to secure the thin margin by which Biden won, is suspicious. Many things are weird and suspicious. It is possible actual well intentioned people rigged the election to "save America". Whether they did and if it was right, I cannot say, I am not an American, I cannot judge your country. All that said, based on actual available evidence, I cannot conclude that the election was rigged. It was probably the most scrutinized election in recent memory, leading to us seeing a bunch of suspicious events that probably happen pretty often. Similar to how the 2000 election, Bush vs Gore, was a bit suspicious.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cma 5y agoFDA production approval for a drug is expensive. If a competitor pays and gets a new line approved, the prize is zero, because of competition from the other line. If no competitor pays the prize is almost unlimited, because of no competition. The government or a charity should fund another line, and should in general provide incentives to companies to not shut down existing approved lines if it would leave only one company standing.
- shadilay 5y agoI tend to think if the government is paying to develop new drugs they might as well do the manufacturing too.
- vidarh 5y agoIt's not just drugs either. If I was uninsured in the US for whatever reason and needed elective surgery for something with a short enough recovery period, I'd look up UK hospitals. They're often similarly cheap enough to justify a flight and a hotel stay. Especially as many of them leverage excess capacity at NHS Trusts (some are even operated by NHS Trusts, as the trusts are allowed to offer private services within certain constraints)
- csa 5y ago> That essentially means it's literally 10x cheaper to take a two-way ticket to France, have a doctor prescribe it there, buy 3 months worth of treatment and come back to the US. I wonder how Americans can tolerate this situation. I believe that this may be what pushes the American system to change. I know of several not-rich people, sometimes who have decent or good insurance, who have chosen to go abroad for medical care. The care they get abroad is typically cheaper as well as better. Given the amount of money the US spends on healthcare, this should rarely be true. The insurance companies have set up a good gig for themselves, but I think that they may be feeding at the trough a bit too aggressively. When the economy has a big downturn, I think some hard questions will be asked.
- Apofis 5y agoCan't you order most medicines online if you have a prescription? So you don't even need that plane ticket or to leave your home.
- xtracto 5y agoOr make a quick short trip to Tijuana with a cheap flight, buy the medicine for $4 dollars (for 15 suppositories) [1] without any prescription and go back to your home within the same day. [1] https://www.fahorro.com/indometacina-100-mg-15-supsension.html https://www.fahorro.com/indometacina-100-mg-15-supsension.ht...
- pliftkl 5y agoWhile I realize that this particular drug is just an example, we could run some numbers here. The current owner of the drug made $27M in sales this year in the US. At $10k per 30 day supply, that implies that there are at most 2700 people in the US who use this drug (if all of them used it only once per year). If this is a drug that most of its users take all year, then we're now talking about a drug that is taken by very few people every year. The $5 French price point wouldn't be worthwhile for any US based pharma company to take on. This isn't a defense of anyone's pricing model, but I could see very easily why pricing models for very rarely prescribed drugs would naturally start to shoot through the roof in the US. Why is it tolerated? Most people don't feel like they are impacted by it.