A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests • Hacker News Board

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#61

Post by kbenson » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #50

tuna-piano wrote: post #43

The thing that I think many people are ignoring is the positive effect that high drug prices (& profits) leads to in the economy. Economic resources such as entrepeneurs, capital, equipment and scientists follow the money. If there's money to be made on Wall street, resources go there. If there's money to be made in mobile apps, resources go there. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the price being so high now sh…

No offence to you, but you're so capitalist it's to the detriment of human health and you should be ashamed. I'm asthmatic, My life can cease in a pretty painful way if I'm denied access to drugs- my illness is an easily preventable one, so why should I die gasping? You're right I'll pay anything to keep living.. I'll literally starve before I stop paying for my medication. But why would you wish that upon me? Becaus…

There's nothing capitalist about allowing market manipulation. Real capitalism is about allowing markets to find efficient and effective agents through the use of money. Manipulating a market to arbitrarily increase wealth by reducing choices and information is not a feature of capitalism itself, it's a byproduct of markets that aren't incentivized (including mitigating negative incentives, as in this case) correctly.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#62

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #29

learc83 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough bad PR can mean things like congressional investigations and eventually even regulation.

So what specific regulation would fix this? The medical industry is too heavily regulated (see http://fdareview.org/harm.shtml ).

Actually, this is perfect evidence that it isn't heavily regulated enough. No one should be allowed to come into an established market, buy up life-saving drugs, jack up the prices hugely for no good reason, and kill those who can't afford the increased prices in the process. This is one of the best arguments for more regulation I can think of. He's a multi-multi-millionaire literally killing people to make even more profit, and he's doing it in an entirely rent-seeking manner that adds no value to humanity whatsoever.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#63

Post by zo1 » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

I kept writing, scrapping and re-writing responses to you. Trying different ideas/methods/examples, perhaps to hopefully enlighten you to alternative ways of thinking about this topic.

And then I realized that it probably won't work. You seem to be under the impression that this individual seeks ill towards you. That he values monetary profit over your well-being in some sort of immoral way, evil way. You've been heavily influenced, through many years I would assume, into this line of thinking. Nothing I could possibly say could sway you. No example, no idea, no persuasive argument. I believe this is due to your beliefs not being rational at all.

Instead, I'll just implore you to do one thing. Don't bring a child into this world without knowing you personally can take care of all it's basic needs (if it came to it), with minimal state intervention. Which is something your creators didn't do for you, but hopefully you'll learn something from that and break the cycle. Good luck to you.

*Edit. Added the word "basic" to clarify my point a little.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#64

Post by tim333 » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

>Doxycycline, an antibiotic, went from $20 a bottle in October 2013 to $1,849 by April 2014, according to the two lawmakers

wft? I'm kind of confused. Wikipedia says "Doxycycline is available as a generic medicine and is not very expensive. The wholesale cost is between 0.01 and 0.04 USD per pill." Why on earth are they paying $1,849 a bottle? Maybe they are only allowed to buy of certain suppliers with FDA licences or some such rather than just buying it from India for a few cents?

edit: I see the " $750 a tablet" "Daraprim, known generically as pyrimethamine" is avilable on AliBaba for "US $1-10 / Kilogram " http://india.alibaba.com/country/products_india-pyrimethamin...

Some weird import restrictions going on I guess?

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#65

Post by w1ntermute » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:08 PM UTC

steveeq1 wrote: post #22

Ok, I am somewhat ignorant about how the drug system works in america, but theoretically, can one buy the drug where it's cheaper (say, India) via the darknet markets like silkroad or whatever and have it shipped to the US?

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_import

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#66

Post by dang » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #6

dang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8302451 .

Feature request: Along those lines, I was trying to find an article (using algolia) which discussed different names for AWS service names confusion and it was useless for that purpose (given search terms I tried). Since I always clear my browser history I couldn't see the links that I had visited. A nice feature would be if there was a way to note which article links I clicked on or which comment threads I have visit…

We don't track what article links users click on. It might be nice data to have if it helped us measure story quality, but it would also cross a privacy line that doesn't feel right to us, either as HN users or community members or moderators.

I suppose we could save/serve which comment threads users have visited but that would be a lot of data, so I wonder if it wouldn't just replace one needle-in-haystack problem with another.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#67

Post by randyrand » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

pxndx wrote: post #20

ikeboy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, if it costs me X to make a product, and the value to you is 100X, who captures the 99X spread? I could charge 99X, you would pay it since the value is higher, and I'll capture most of it. I could charge 2X, it's still worth it to me to produce it, and you'll capture most of it. What value here is most fair? Why is one value fairer than another? The standard economic answer is "let the market decide",…

The thing is, the value for these products is infinite. If people don't have them, they'll die.

NOT TRUE! Sometime's it's the opposite. My grandfather routinely denies spending money on himself (medical or otherwise) since he won't be around much longer. He would rather have the money stay for his kids. He feels this way even about procedures that would save his life.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#68

Post by icebraining » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #26

ikeboy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It absolutely does, though. If he's able to exploit a pricing inefficiency as a producer, then the press can exploit him by hanging him out to dry in the public eye. Companies can, and should, face public relations campaigns against them for unethical, if legal, behavior. What does bad PR mean for them? Nobody's going to refuse treatment if they would otherwise afford it.

I don't know much about monopolies, but, didn't Microsoft get in trouble for creating one? Also, back in the days of trustbusting were there not penalties for such actions? Is it in anyway against the law to do what they did? I can't answer these questions... but what the eye of the press can do is look deep into all of his practices and if there is anything illegal going on it my get noticed far quicker.

Microsoft got in trouble for using a monopoly in a market (OS) to prop up a product in another market (Browsers), not just for having a monopoly.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#69

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #26

ikeboy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It absolutely does, though. If he's able to exploit a pricing inefficiency as a producer, then the press can exploit him by hanging him out to dry in the public eye. Companies can, and should, face public relations campaigns against them for unethical, if legal, behavior. What does bad PR mean for them? Nobody's going to refuse treatment if they would otherwise afford it.

I don't know much about monopolies, but, didn't Microsoft get in trouble for creating one? Also, back in the days of trustbusting were there not penalties for such actions? Is it in anyway against the law to do what they did? I can't answer these questions... but what the eye of the press can do is look deep into all of his practices and if there is anything illegal going on it my get noticed far quicker.

>didn't Microsoft get in trouble for creating one?

Sort of. Their competitor-plaintiffs are no longer going concerns, and MS are still going relatively strong; so one might argue that the "trouble" was of little consequence. The length of time all of that took to wind its way through the courts means that patients will die waiting for the market/courts to sort itself out.

Re: A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests

#70

Post by randyrand » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

ikeboy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is how we can fix this systematically without making bigger problems. Should a government agency set prices? What if the company stops making the drug, then? The price is high because no other companies are willing to make it for lower, after all. Note that the drug in question is not under patent. I don't think you'd advocate for literally forcing the company to make it and sell it for a specific price.…

> Should a government agency set prices? Yes. > What if the company stops making the drug, then? A non-profit government sponsored entity manufactures the drug at cost.

The only way to properly do this would then be to have the government become the only R&D and pharma company.

Doable. But I think you put too much faith in the government. The government is a natural monopoly itself. If they're doing a shitty job you don't get any other options.