Insulin Wars: How insurance companies farm out dirty work to doctors patients

Post by briffle » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 12:17 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #29

jamroom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. The approach I like is what I call "lowest negotiated price". How it would work is that buyers (i.e. insurance companies) could still negotiate for a lower cost, but whatever that cost ends up being is the cost _everyone_ pays. This allows buyers to continue to try to get a better price if they can, while likely making sure the price that is agreed upon is fair to all.

There is evidence that this would actually increase prices across the board. How do we know? Such a system already exists. The price that Medicaid plans pay is either 23% less than the average price paid or the “best price” (if lower). When this was instituted, drug companies actually pulled back on their discounts to non-Medicaid accounts, so as to not trigger the “best price”.

Post by dreamcompiler » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 12:54 AM UTC

rbobby wrote: post #38

Why is insulin not an over the counter medicine? Would having it OTC cause problems on the scale of alcohol? What's the "value add" of having a doctor renew an insulin prescription?

Post by harry8 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 2:50 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #15

tomohawk wrote: post #5

This is exactly what you get when there is no transparency, and everything is driven by non-market forces. Why not create an actual market where all medications, medical services, tests, etc, have a known price and people can make decisions based on cost, quality, and other factors?

Kenneth Arrow showed in 1963 that markets can't work for Healthcare.

Post by refurb » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #47

refurb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s list price. Interestingly, net prices have barely budged in the last decade. Up only single digit percentage.[1] As the list price rose and rebates grew, Novo ended up paying more and more rebate money into the health insurance system. Employers used these extra payments to offset costs in any area, including hospital and physician payments. Health plans used them to reduce premiums and also offset other healt…

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/health/rebates-high-drug-... > Even as insurers’ drug spending has grown slowly, critics say the rebate game has served to inflate the list price of drugs, which consumers are increasingly responsible for paying. This is especially true for expensive specialty drugs, which treat serious conditions like cancer and multiple sclerosis — and whose prices have been skyrocketing. > As the…

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 3:08 AM UTC

amriksohata wrote: post #22

I always say this, but reading that makes me think thank God for the NHS in the UK. Health and education should never be a business. The pharmaceutical companies are so strong and greedy in the US they want people on their drugs, rather than look for preventing the problems. They often lambast and send confusing scientific studies out to ensure no alternative therapies succeed over their drugs.