5 ms·

Considering the James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is having to hold a fundraising auction of his memorabilia to fund his cancer treatment, cancer is exp

Considering the James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is having to hold a fundraising auction of his memorabilia to fund his cancer treatment, cancer is expensive in the US.

fastball 11mo ago
Cancer is expensive everywhere, the difference is who pays for it.
- anonyfox 11mo ago
  actually a difference is also how many players along the supply chain siphon money out of the process. the more greed is allowed and acted on for the treatment, the more expensive it gets. introduce layers of insurances, hedgefonds, pension funds, lobbyism, ... it adds up to riddiculous amounts far beyond the original R&D/infrastructure/treatment costs.
  - simondotau 11mo ago
    And those are just the downsides of a market-based system. There are also upsides of single-payer systems, like monopsony buying power.
    - philipallstar 11mo ago
      And also downsides, e.g. many treatments just aren't available, and many others would never have had their discovery funded without the market-based system existing.
      - simondotau 11mo ago
        Nobody is advocating for eliminating a market-based system. My country (Australia) has both single-payer and a market-based private healthcare system.
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        You can imagine how that system, like most, is actually getting its medical advancements from the US.
        rsynnott 11mo ago
        This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that. Most basic research is universities, all over the place. Many drugs are developed in Europe. A lot of medical machinery is developed and made in Europe (Siemens, Philips and Roche are huge in this space). Like most things, med tech is fairly globalised.
        simondotau 11mo ago
        And let's not forget that a substantial amount of medical research performed in the USA is not market-based but rather publicly funded through the NIH.
        jjcob 11mo ago
        And performed by researchers that received free education in their home country before moving to the US because they hope for a better career there...
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        That's not an "and" - the NIH is funded by businesses in the US.
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        Most of that is funded by the NIH and not by the local systems. Spending money is easy.
        disgruntledphd2 11mo ago
        > This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that. This is a thing people believe because pharmaceutical companies keep repeating it. And to be fair, they're not entirely wrong in that getting a drug/treatment from the lab to the pharmacy is incredibly expensive because most drugs don't work and clinical trials are super expensive. It does seem to me that a better system would be to split out the research/development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals into the lab development (scientists), the clinical trials (should be government funded) and the manufacturing (this could easily be done via contract).
      - ben_w 11mo ago
        Governments can (and do) directly fund medical research including drug discovery. This is in part because governments of even just middling competence have an incentive to keep their workforce (which also includes their military) healthy.
- jrflowers 11mo ago
  This is either intentional bad faith trolling or you are not aware of the per capita spending on healthcare in the US. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20expenditures%20per%20capita,%20U.S.%20dollars,%202023%20(current%20prices%20and%20PPP%20adjusted) https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
  - fastball 11mo ago
    You don't think cancer is an expensive disease to treat? You don't think it involves a lot of inputs?
- kragen 11mo ago
  It's a lot more expensive in the US. Three years of ribociclib is US$100k here in Argentina, which dwarfs the usual costs of things like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical resection. (All of which is normally paid for either by a health plan or by the public hospital system.) In the US, if you have to go through all of that, I think the cost is going to be at least an order of magnitude higher.
latentsea 11mo ago
How'd the theme song to that show go again?

Considering the James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is having to hold a fundraising auction of his memorabilia to fund his cancer treatment, cancer is expensive in the US.

fastball 11mo ago

Cancer is expensive everywhere, the difference is who pays for it.

anonyfox 11mo ago
actually a difference is also how many players along the supply chain siphon money out of the process. the more greed is allowed and acted on for the treatment, the more expensive it gets. introduce layers of insurances, hedgefonds, pension funds, lobbyism, ... it adds up to riddiculous amounts far beyond the original R&D/infrastructure/treatment costs.
- simondotau 11mo ago
  And those are just the downsides of a market-based system. There are also upsides of single-payer systems, like monopsony buying power.
  - philipallstar 11mo ago
    And also downsides, e.g. many treatments just aren't available, and many others would never have had their discovery funded without the market-based system existing.
    - simondotau 11mo ago
      Nobody is advocating for eliminating a market-based system. My country (Australia) has both single-payer and a market-based private healthcare system.
      - philipallstar 11mo ago
        You can imagine how that system, like most, is actually getting its medical advancements from the US.
        rsynnott 11mo ago
        This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that. Most basic research is universities, all over the place. Many drugs are developed in Europe. A lot of medical machinery is developed and made in Europe (Siemens, Philips and Roche are huge in this space). Like most things, med tech is fairly globalised.
        simondotau 11mo ago
        And let's not forget that a substantial amount of medical research performed in the USA is not market-based but rather publicly funded through the NIH.
        jjcob 11mo ago
        And performed by researchers that received free education in their home country before moving to the US because they hope for a better career there...
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        That's not an "and" - the NIH is funded by businesses in the US.
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        Most of that is funded by the NIH and not by the local systems. Spending money is easy.
        disgruntledphd2 11mo ago
        > This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that. This is a thing people believe because pharmaceutical companies keep repeating it. And to be fair, they're not entirely wrong in that getting a drug/treatment from the lab to the pharmacy is incredibly expensive because most drugs don't work and clinical trials are super expensive. It does seem to me that a better system would be to split out the research/development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals into the lab development (scientists), the clinical trials (should be government funded) and the manufacturing (this could easily be done via contract).
    - ben_w 11mo ago
      Governments can (and do) directly fund medical research including drug discovery. This is in part because governments of even just middling competence have an incentive to keep their workforce (which also includes their military) healthy.
jrflowers 11mo ago
This is either intentional bad faith trolling or you are not aware of the per capita spending on healthcare in the US. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#Health%20expenditures%20per%20capita,%20U.S.%20dollars,%202023%20(current%20prices%20and%20PPP%20adjusted) https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
- fastball 11mo ago
  You don't think cancer is an expensive disease to treat? You don't think it involves a lot of inputs?
kragen 11mo ago
It's a lot more expensive in the US. Three years of ribociclib is US$100k here in Argentina, which dwarfs the usual costs of things like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical resection. (All of which is normally paid for either by a health plan or by the public hospital system.) In the US, if you have to go through all of that, I think the cost is going to be at least an order of magnitude higher.

latentsea 11mo ago

How'd the theme song to that show go again?