4 ms·
I love how circular neoliberals argue, lobbying and regulatory capture are a real problem with big pharma, to fix it the government really should put them under
by lyu07282 3y ago
I love how circular neoliberals argue, lobbying and regulatory capture are a real problem with big pharma, to fix it the government really should put them under heightened scrutiny and regulation. These politicians are really corrupt, they should really stop being corrupt.
Here is a wild idea: Perhaps the core of the problem just simply IS for-profit health care itself. Perhaps if someone has cancer, nobody should profit?
- mlrtime 3y agoYou use cancer as an example, but what about other meds? Is it ok to profit off ED meds or ADHD meds? Note, just cherry picking a few that are arguably not life saving for most.
- ejb999 3y agomaybe if someone is hungry, farmers and supermarkets shouldn't profit? maybe if someone needs a place to live, builders and realtors shouldn't profit? maybe if my gas tank is empty, oil companies shouldn't profit. Where do you draw the line?
- ako 3y agoYou draw the line when the basic requirements for a free market aren’t available: transparent pricing, customers that have a choice between different providers, customer that actually have the time to shop around.
- nradov 3y agoThe vast majority of prescriptions are for treating chronic conditions. Those patients have time to shop around and consult with their physicians to decide on a course of treatment. There are multiple drugs available for most conditions, often including generics. Statins are some of the most heavily prescribed drugs and there are at least seven on the market now.
- ako 3y agoHardly, often drugs treating same condition have different side effects, or different effect on patients. Physicians usually search for the drug that works best on a specific patient. Once you find a drug with the desired effect, it’s usually not a good idea to switch to another with different side effects.
- bart_spoon 3y agoThat’s all fine, except those are all issues with our insurance model as opposed to the pharmaceutical industry. Why not fix the actual problem by addressing the labyrinth of middlemen in between the person consuming the medication, the doctor prescribing it, and the company producing it? That seems like a far better idea than making drug development non-profit, reducing the incentives for innovation and new discovery.
- ejb999 3y ago>>Perhaps if someone has cancer, nobody should profit? Does that mean the doctors and nurses and others should all work for free to? If individual people can 'profit' by providing care, i.e. a doctor, why can't a collection of people providing the same service, but as a company be allowed to profit as well?
- insane_dreamer 3y ago"not profit from" != "work for free" The healthcare system in Europe doesn't gauge its sick citizens the way the U.S. healthcare system does, and yet, last I checked, doctors in Europe, while certainly earning less than in the U.S., do not "work for free" or are unable to provide for themselves and their families.
- anonuser123456 3y agoWhy aren’t the Europeans cranking out new medications at cost then?
- insane_dreamer 3y agoNo one is saying that drugs have to be provided "at cost" (that's very similar to the fallacy of the "do you expect us to work for free?" argument).
- bart_spoon 3y agoIs not the definition of profit the excess charge after removing costs? By definition “no one should profit” does mean “at cost”.
- insane_dreamer 3y agotechnically yes, but sometimes people think of "at cost" meaning that people aren't getting paid (the price covers the material costs). But what I really meant "inordinately profit from" so I should have specified that
- anonuser123456 3y ago> Here is a wild idea: Perhaps the core of the problem just simply IS for-profit health care itself. Perhaps if someone has cancer, nobody should profit? So your idea is, rather than address known issues in the system, replace the system with one that is known not to work?
- ako 3y agoDo you have proof that non-profit health care does not work? I’d say there are plenty country that show proof that nonprofit health care works better for the majority of people then for profit health care.
- nradov 3y agoThere are no countries with non-profit healthcare systems which develop as many new drugs as the USA on a per capita basis. Non-profit or socialized systems can work reasonably well for care delivery but no one has figured out how to productively develop new drugs under such systems. The profit motive is highly effective.
- ako 3y agoMaybe we don’t need all those new drugs? Are they helping patients, or are they just slightly changed existing drugs that allow the industry to ask for more money?
- bart_spoon 3y agoGood thing they have to go through some of the most extensive efficacy trials of virtually any products in existence. If they aren’t more effective, the generics are still available for cheaper. This seems to be a common paradoxical argument made whenever drug prices get brought up, particularly insulin. I’ve seen people make the argument numerous times about how outrageous it was that Eli Lilly, which was sold the patent for insulin in the early 20th century for a dollar, is charging hundreds of dollars for insulin today. And yet when it is pointed out that they sell insulin for $20 at Walmart, and the insulin that costs hundreds are newer synthetic versions, the response is that people can’t be expected to use the old stuff because the new stuff is much safer, effective, and easy to use. Which is it? If the new medicine is ineffective, then why do you need to buy it over the older, cheap options? If it is truly an improvement, then why is it wrong for the producers to charge more to account for the R&D costs required to create the new medicine?