Live data from Hacker News

The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

jhsph.edu

21–30 of 537 posts

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what kind of R&D the $800 or whatever it costs now Epipen is paying for. R&D for lobbyists? Or profits because the company gamed the market.

I don't know about Epipen, but it can cost billions to bring new drugs to market https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Find...

I don't know if it still the case but advertising costs were previously considered r&d so grossly inflating those numbers.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#22
Like the article says, previous research has come to the same conclusion.

We pay much more, and are ranked nowhere near the top for lifespan, childhood mortality, and other measures.

Obamacare was a great first step. Define what basic healthcare is and form markets that encourage apples-to-apples comparison. Let the free market work.

Sucks that one party used this as a weapon to wrestle power.

Oh well.

Not going to argue here about healthcare reform, though. So if you disagree, don't expect a response.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#23
post #17

It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs, effectively funding a significant portion of R&D that benefits the whole world years later when generics come into market (at least for those drugs which are not costly to manufacture, which happen to be the majority). I'm not saying this model is right. I'm just saying that doing away with it will have fundamental consequences to…

Do you have any sources/data for this? I would be very curious to see it. The mentioned costs in this article only point to > higher drug prices, higher salaries for doctors and nurses, higher hospital administration costs and higher prices for many medical services I’m not sure if R&D costs are factored in at all for this particular study.

> Do you have any sources/data for this?

Basically all equity research in the Pharma space backs up this view. Unfortunately I don't have any public data that I can share.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what kind of R&D the $800 or whatever it costs now Epipen is paying for. R&D for lobbyists? Or profits because the company gamed the market.

The EpiPen is one of the "hard to manufacture" drugs I mentioned. Although it is top of mind to many, it is not representative of the market. EDIT: "hard to manufacture" is in quotes because it's what I said in my parent comment (though to be fair I said "costly to manufacture"), but I meant it as an umbrella term for everything that can't be substituted by generics

If it was hard to manufacture, why is it cheaper in Europe?

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#26

It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs, effectively funding a significant portion of R&D that benefits the whole world years later when generics come into market (at least for those drugs which are not costly to manufacture, which happen to be the majority). I'm not saying this model is right. I'm just saying that doing away with it will have fundamental consequences to…

I’m not sure what kind of R&D the $800 or whatever it costs now Epipen is paying for. R&D for lobbyists? Or profits because the company gamed the market.

I don't understand your point. Obviously it's going toward R&D of new drugs unrelated to the EpiPen. What does the price of an EpiPen have to do with how the money is spent?

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#27

Everyone wants to blame drug prices but let's not ignore the problems of obesity, diabetes, etc. Much of which is a result of urban sprawl, poor diet (both in food culture, and in crop subsidies), and poor work culture.

As a U.S. immigrant who struggles to find truly healthy food choices in Manhattan of all places, I couldn't agree more.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Epipen, but it can cost billions to bring new drugs to market https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Find...

I don't know if it still the case but advertising costs were previously considered r&d so grossly inflating those numbers.

Do you a source?

As far as I know, R&D never included advertising.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#29

It's worth noting that the U.S. market does pay for the lion's share of patented drugs, effectively funding a significant portion of R&D that benefits the whole world years later when generics come into market (at least for those drugs which are not costly to manufacture, which happen to be the majority). I'm not saying this model is right. I'm just saying that doing away with it will have fundamental consequences to…

I would like to see some hard numbers for this. Otherwise I believe this is just self-serving propaganda by drug manufacturers.

Re: The US spends more on healthcare for no gain says new report from Johns Hopkins

#30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources/data for this? I would be very curious to see it. The mentioned costs in this article only point to > higher drug prices, higher salaries for doctors and nurses, higher hospital administration costs and higher prices for many medical services I’m not sure if R&D costs are factored in at all for this particular study.

The US spends more on biomedical R&D and produces more drug patents than the entirety of the world combined. https://assets1b.milkeninstitute.org/assets/Publication/Rese... As far as it’s implications on the cost of healthcare in the US I don’t think there is data for it since it’s pretty hard to measure.

Good to know, but my question really has to do with if the extra cost for doctors, hospitals, drugs, etc. is used to offset R&D costs.

What I am getting at is that in theory, it should still be possible to do a lot of great R&D work while still providing affordable health care to citizens. I don’t think they are necessarily tied together.

Also more patents is not necessarily a good thing since they can create more legal hurdles and red tape for other pharmaceutical companies who may want to build on top of the ideas and inventions.

Post reply on HN