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

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

#141

Post by jsjohnst » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 6:22 AM UTC

notyourday wrote: post #42

jsjohnst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the examples you gave, they were huge markets and they were ripe for disruption. As the article laid out, most of the drugs which have experienced this huge hike are ones with very limited markets. It’s not worth it for a pharmaceutical company to jump into a new drug with almost no market for it.

Medications blow electronics market out the water.

That’s such a vague statement you could either be wildly wrong or mostly right. If you’re talking average profit margin, yes medications generally have higher, but electronics are fairly good margins generally too. If you’re talking market cap / overall market size, you definitely aren’t correct. Even the biggest pharmaceutical company pales in comparison to the electronics top three.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 9:41 AM UTC

turc1656 wrote: post #109

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by bufferoverflow » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 10:40 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #127

bufferoverflow wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way Americans pay more in taxes than most of Europe. That's absolutely not true. If you want to compare to third world countries, I suggest you try and live there before telling us how great it is. You also have to consider that the US develops most novel drugs and therapies, by a wide margin. Are you taking and Chinese or Russian or African drugs? Neither do I.

You can't compare Europe's total taxes with just American healthcare costs. They've made similar choices to pay for stuff like college via taxes instead of privately that heavily affect that comparison. Americans pay more than Europeans (and anyone else in the world) for healthcare . This is demonstrable fact. edit: Here, look at this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_health_expenditure_p... We're paying a…

Yes, but you're paying less taxes. So it's not as broken as people try to present.

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

#144

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 1:44 PM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #143

ceejayoz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare Europe's total taxes with just American healthcare costs. They've made similar choices to pay for stuff like college via taxes instead of privately that heavily affect that comparison. Americans pay more than Europeans (and anyone else in the world) for healthcare . This is demonstrable fact. edit: Here, look at this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OECD_health_expenditure_p... We're paying a…

Yes, but you're paying less taxes. So it's not as broken as people try to present.

As far as healthcare is concerned, we pay about the same amount of taxes as Europeans, plus more to private insurers/hospitals, for a total healthcare spending significantly larger than theirs.

We also have worse outcomes for all that extra spending - stuff like life expectancy, child mortality, etc.

I call that a broken system.

Your continued attempts to conflate total taxes with healthcare spending are either silly/odd or deliberately intellectually dishonest, as we'd have to factor in every other variable between us and Europe in that comparison - road funding, foreign aid, military spending, college costs, social welfare programs, etc.