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Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

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Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#101

Post by ZeroGravitas »

harryh wrote: post #94
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACA reduced the rate of price rises, so it can't possibly be the cause of the price rises.

You and sol_remmy are talking about two different things. You are talking about overall expenditures in the health care system. He is talking about insurance prices charged to individual purchasers, in particular ones that are relatively young and healthy.

I'm not sure that's a fair characterisation of either position.

sol_remmy seems to be making the case that lots of sick people didn't have coverage before ACA (Which would be a massive plus point for it if true) and that the number of new sick people buying insurance outweighed the number of new young, healthy people entering the pool, driving costs up.

There seems to be a lot of conflicting info on this, but at least Brookings made the case that the expected effect of ACA did actually happen, lots more people started paying for insurance and the average cost paid by individuals therefore went down (even while the average coverage they could recieve went up).

So we seem to be talking about the same thing, just with radically different facts about the same situation.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#102

Post by maxerickson »

mabbo wrote: post #97

This is a great case where unregulated free markets absolutely fail to solve the problem. Companies like Impax Laboratories are sole-suppliers, and the cost to produce is the smallest cost, once initial capital costs are laid down to build the factories to produce them. What would happen if a challenger appeared? A new company gets some funding to try to make a small number of high profit drugs, competing with Impax?…

Drugs are heavily regulated in the US.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#103

Post by ceejayoz »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #67
geekamongus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please let us know what is "working" for US citizens about the current system.

You pay, you get healthcare. Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150. https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

> Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150.

That's not counting premiums, and that's just for a one-person household.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#104

Post by huherto »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #73
huherto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is really really suggesting to burn it down. It is just an expression of how frustrated we are becoming with a system that is not working out. It is hurting us. It is hurting the country.

The comment I replied to said "needs to be burned to the ground". And now you're telling me no one really suggested it.

haha. I know. I am just telling you to look beyond the words.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#105

Post by bufferoverflow »

ceejayoz wrote: post #103
bufferoverflow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay, you get healthcare. Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150. https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

> Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150. That's not counting premiums, and that's just for a one-person household.

Ok, for two+ person household it's $14k, but then it's double income.

And the premiums are not horrible either. It took me two minutes to find a bronze level plan for $398.56 ($4782 per year). It's not much at all. It's cheaper than paying much higher taxes in most of the EU.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#106

Post by ceejayoz »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #105
ceejayoz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150. That's not counting premiums, and that's just for a one-person household.

Ok, for two+ person household it's $14k, but then it's double income. And the premiums are not horrible either. It took me two minutes to find a bronze level plan for $398.56 ($4782 per year). It's not much at all. It's cheaper than paying much higher taxes in most of the EU.

> It's cheaper than paying much higher taxes in most of the EU.

This is demonstrably false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#107

Post by snarf21 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #89
snarf21 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is true. There are other things that would change too. We could have these (or other) pills for pennies. However, we can't have a 24 hour drive through pharmacy on every other corner and an Urgent Care on the other AND pills for pennies. Yes, the companies are making tons but a lot of that money pays for people to make it convenient for you to get your pills. And as someone else commented, we are basically…

Even if it was true that the extra money paid for pharmacuticals in the US was funding 24hr drive-through pharmacies, that would still be an idiotic system that needs burned to the ground. People who need drive through pharmacies should pay for them. People who want to order things online shouldn't be subsidizing them. Hiding the cost in a pill helps no-one and is obviously sub-optimal. Similarly, if you really wante…

I was exaggerating slightly. I was mainly trying to make the point that pills for pennies comes with other consequences. There are indeed better ways to do it but those have ripple effects that people ignore. If you change the rules, the companies will adjust and our access and jobs will change too. You can't just say I want all the good things of today and none of the bad and lower costs.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#108

Post by mikeash »

notyourday wrote: post #99
mikeash wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safety might be a good reason to prohibit imports from a place like Tanzania, but it makes no sense as a reason to prohibit imports from Canada. Canada has some equivalent to the FDA which is about as good as ours, so there should be no safety problem when it comes to importing their medicine.

We do not have reciprocity agreement with Canada regarding drug approvals.

Anything approved in both countries ought to be OK, no?

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#109

Post by turc1656 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #95
turc1656 wrote: post #68

What the article leaves out is that the real reason is that there are laws that were specifically passed to make import of drugs nearly impossible and illegal in most cases. The system is tightly controlled such that no price arbitrage can be had. This shit wouldn't fly with any other product. If it wasn't illegal, companies would be buying in bulk and importing to the US since the US price is literally 10,000x highe…

This seemed a great comment until the very last sentence. Are you really claiming that Congress wanted to fund the advancement of medicine globally, and they did so by banning imports of pharmaceuticals? Surely there's simpler explanations for this that fit the facts better?

No, that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that pharmaceutical companies wanted a way to increase profits. They concluded that if they raised prices that would be bad PR because of the poorer nations that couldn't afford it and they would be seen as villains. Yet, the US had the potential to pay more. So they found a way to go right down the middle and lobbied congress hard to pass those laws. Now they get to be the benevolent rich guys who get to prattle about how many doses they donate globally and how cheap they can make the pills in the lesser developed nations while simultaneously ripping off US citizens to cover all that, and more.

Re: Why a Pill That's 4 Cents in Tanzania Costs Up to $400 in the U.S

#110

Post by bufferoverflow »

vorotato wrote: post #83
bufferoverflow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay, you get healthcare. Yeah, it's not cheap, but your max out of pocket for 2017 with a marketplace plan is just $7150. https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

When you get robbed, you pay and you don't get shot. Yeah it's not cheap....

There's no free healthcare. You either pay it directly, or through taxes. Europeans pay high taxes, social security and VAT on most things. My brother in law pays almost 55% on his 80k salary in Italy. I don't think I ever paid over 38% even when I was making $160K in the US.

If you look at the median salaries, $4.7K in premiums over a year is not a big deal, and then you spend another $7K in case you need to max out your insurance, which most people don't do until much later in life.

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