Live data from Hacker News

Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

bloomberg.com

91–100 of 128 posts

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#91
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has not done a single thing he said he would. He is all talk. This is just another issue that he will just talk and nothing will happen.

He has done loads of things he said he would http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer... Promise kept - 5 Compromise - 1 Stalled - 1 In the works - 14 Promise broken - 0

A few examples from what this site defines as a "kept promise":

"I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership."

I am sure this was an incredible difficult problem to solve. The renegotiation will be a walk in the park.

“I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia. I'm looking for judges — and I've actually picked 20 of them so that people would see.”

Again, another masterpiece, he managed to write 20 people on a list. Unbevlievable this creativity. And because everybody is so impressed by this the rest will be another walk in the park.

"Place lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying for foreign government."

Lobbyist aren't needed anymore anyway. The administration is now run directly by corporations. Again, genius idea, will save a lot of money.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has done loads of things he said he would http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer... Promise kept - 5 Compromise - 1 Stalled - 1 In the works - 14 Promise broken - 0

A few examples from what this site defines as a "kept promise": "I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership." I am sure this was an incredible difficult problem to solve. The renegotiation will be a walk in the park. “I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia. I'm looking for judges — and I've actually picked 20 of them so that people woul…

I purposely picked an anti-trump site - TPP is dead, what do you mean renegotiate?

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#93
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All software is different. I'm only replying because my first answer is "nothing", then I thought about it. One data point from my experience: - developer time to prepare, document a build, release notes - build engineer to submit, check build, co-ordinate - build machine hardware - build machine OS license - cryptographic signing hardware - QA engineer time to test - QA automation engineer's time to set up tests and…

I'm pretty sure getting to the final version of the pill pretty much has similar processes/iterations. Its really not like they arrive one morning to the office, mix a few chemicals in a test tube, file a patent and then start selling them.

My post was about manufacturing, not development. That's a whole other story.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#94
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It costs a quarter to manufacture each pill but the >manufacturers charge several dollars for that pill. What are the manufacturing costs for software?

Shhh! Our whole racket is based on pricing our services on value while pricing our cost of goods on production inputs. It's not "fair" to let other industries do that right?

Pricing based on value provided to the customer makes a lot of sense for phones and web apps and cheetos.

But how much do you value being alive? The "value" of a lifesaving drug is essentially unbounded, most people will pay anything to stay alive. That's one of the reasons healthcare is an edge case where the typical rules of capitalism don't work.

So yes, it is unfair to have some industries price their products based on "value".

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few examples from what this site defines as a "kept promise": "I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership." I am sure this was an incredible difficult problem to solve. The renegotiation will be a walk in the park. “I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia. I'm looking for judges — and I've actually picked 20 of them so that people woul…

I purposely picked an anti-trump site - TPP is dead, what do you mean renegotiate?

Uniliteral Renegotiations with those asian TPP members.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#96
post #22
post #12

Having lived in both the UK and US I find the cost of medicines very hard to understand here. For example in the UK I can buy a ventolin inhaler for £10 over the counter (if I went to the Doctor it would be free). But in the US, an inhaler costs me $60 (with insurance). Why is it that much more expensive here?

In UK government has almost a monopoly for buying drugs, so they have a leverage in negotiation and there is a lower overhead with paper work. Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world.

"Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world"

Don't believe this one second. It's just self-serving nonsense to justify overcharging Americans.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#97
post #80
post #7

It costs a quarter to manufacture each pill but the manufacturers charge several dollars for that pill. But they don't just price gouge. Drug companies need to file patents on their drug almost as soon as they sketch they come up with drug. From there they need at least 8 years to get through the FDAs approval process, so the manufacturers don't get nearly as much exclusive time with their IP as other industries. (Th…

We have evidence that the FDA errs too conservatively and doesn't approve (or delays) drugs that would have turned out totally safe and helped people. I'd like to see evidence for that. My impression, from all that I've read on the subject, the truth is quite the opposite. The FDA's funding has steadily been cut over the years and the restrictions on drug trials have been more lax over time. For example, drug trials…

completely run by the companies themselves

That's an odd criticism. Who would run the trial if not for the sponsor?

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#98
post #94
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh! Our whole racket is based on pricing our services on value while pricing our cost of goods on production inputs. It's not "fair" to let other industries do that right?

Pricing based on value provided to the customer makes a lot of sense for phones and web apps and cheetos. But how much do you value being alive? The "value" of a lifesaving drug is essentially unbounded, most people will pay anything to stay alive. That's one of the reasons healthcare is an edge case where the typical rules of capitalism don't work. So yes, it is unfair to have some industries price their products ba…

> Pricing based on value provided to the customer makes a lot of sense for phones and web apps and cheetos.

> But how much do you value being alive? The "value" of a lifesaving drug is essentially unbounded, most people will pay anything to stay alive. That's one of the reasons healthcare is an edge case where the typical rules of capitalism don't work.

> So yes, it is unfair to have some industries price their products based on "value".

The problem with that logic is that taken to the extreme it means that everyone is entitled to every possible treatment, regardless of cost, and the rest of society must be the one that bears it.

If a treatment exists to extend the life of a terminally ill person for 1 more day at a cost of $100K should the rest of us pay for it? How about $1M? The numbers are purposely ridiculous but it's not that far out of reality.

At some point you need to draw the line and make the (not fun) decision of what's in and what's out.

I'm convinced the bulk of this could be solved with some common sense planning:

- Create an opt-in single payer plan at the federal level

- Use the existing Medicare booking codes for identification and list prices for covered treatments (prices to be paid to service providers)

- Service providers could opt in or out of the plans but couldn't do so on a per patient basis (i.e. similar to Medicare)

- Only include medication and treatments that are out of patent protection

- Only include medication that has at least N providers (was going to put three but may not exist for all generics)

Anything else would be purely out of pocket and not covered by the plan. Fyi, that last one means that if we started today, you'd have access to everything up to approximately 1997. I'm not a doctor and honestly don't know much about the medical field, but I'm pretty sure that pre-1997 medications should cover the vast majority of healthcare use cases.

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#99
post #94
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh! Our whole racket is based on pricing our services on value while pricing our cost of goods on production inputs. It's not "fair" to let other industries do that right?

Pricing based on value provided to the customer makes a lot of sense for phones and web apps and cheetos. But how much do you value being alive? The "value" of a lifesaving drug is essentially unbounded, most people will pay anything to stay alive. That's one of the reasons healthcare is an edge case where the typical rules of capitalism don't work. So yes, it is unfair to have some industries price their products ba…

Go talk to the NHS. They value a year of healthy human life at 30,000 GBPs.

And if you take your idea to the extreme, then every person should have access to every type of medical care regardless of the value offered?

Re: Trump Sends Pharma Stocks Down with New Tweet on Drug Prices

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great, we're trying everything except what the real problem is! Look at the Martin shkreli situation, there was another one like that before too. How did patents play a role there? High profit margins are not a bad thing, as long as people can still afford them. What we need is the proper type of regulations, I agree we need to streamline the fda process, but that alone is not going to solve things. There are…

I like the march-in rights idea. It sounds similar to eminent domain. If eminent domain can be used to expropriate private property for public use, it seems like there could be something similar for intellectual property.

And what do you think the impact on biotech VC money will be? Would you invest in a company if the gov't could confiscate the intellectual property?
Post reply on HN