61–70 of 131 posts
However expensive it is, it should cost the same in all markets globally, whether it's being purchased by a patient in cash, by an NGO, by a state Healthcare system, or by an insurance company. I'm tired of paying a five hundred percent markup to subsidize markets thousands of miles away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This quote was in reference to trying to grow the Chinese economy after Mao. Given how many people go bankrupt for drugs, and how much high drug prices distort the economics of healthcare overall, id argue our current setup is not catching mice. A good alternative would be Public investment in healthcare to add fluidity to the labor market, and to prevent a single sectors profiteering from dragging down overall econo…
Drug costs are ~10% of all healthcare spending in the US. Even if the gov't created all the drugs and made them "free", we'd still be spending double the next closest developed country. Drug spending might be very visible to the public, but it's not a major contributor to healthcare costs.
So then we’re talking about a market that’s just under 2% of the GDP if your 10% number holds.
At these scales nothing is trivial.
This is such a complicated issue, I'd highly recommend the following as a primer: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/10/13/four-r... Also Derek Lowe is invariably awesome in this space, one highlight: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/02/05/ta... Drugs occasionally need to be expensive, particularly on-patent drugs, to make the endeavor worthwhile. That said, it's a two-way street. Maki…
This is such a complicated issue, I'd highly recommend the following as a primer: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/10/13/four-r... Also Derek Lowe is invariably awesome in this space, one highlight: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/02/05/ta... Drugs occasionally need to be expensive, particularly on-patent drugs, to make the endeavor worthwhile. That said, it's a two-way street. Maki…
> (I've heard quotes in the 100's of K even in the 1-2 M)
The thing is that no one+ has that kind of money. So it ends being your money or his life, over and over again. This has long since moved from the space of individual decision making to public policy. But we in the United States refuse to face up to that. We like to pretend that the doctor and patient should be the only ones that have any say in deciding what to do and if anyone outside that room balks at the price tag, no matter how high, they are an evil insurance company or government bureaucrat that doesn't care about human life or something. That's naive and silly. Spending $1 million of public or collective funds on a single individual isn't something that should be done automatically or that we should do out of a sense of guilt.
+Okay a few, but not enough to make a market.
This is such a complicated issue, I'd highly recommend the following as a primer: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/10/13/four-r... Also Derek Lowe is invariably awesome in this space, one highlight: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/02/05/ta... Drugs occasionally need to be expensive, particularly on-patent drugs, to make the endeavor worthwhile. That said, it's a two-way street. Maki…
> "your money or your life" > (I've heard quotes in the 100's of K even in the 1-2 M) The thing is that no one+ has that kind of money. So it ends being your money or his life, over and over again. This has long since moved from the space of individual decision making to public policy. But we in the United States refuse to face up to that. We like to pretend that the doctor and patient should be the only ones that ha…
The answer will always be, "more expensive than they are now". It's not like there will ever be a point at which more money, if available, could not in any way be used for some kind of drug research that might be useful. It's like saying "how much money do you need in order to keep from ever dying?" There will always be health problems, and there will always be some at least semi-plausible way in which we could spend…
> after accounting for the costs of all research—about $80 billion a year—drug companies had $40 billion more from the top 20 drugs alone, all of which went straight to profits, not research. More excess profit comes from the next 100 or 200 brand-name drugs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "your money or your life" > (I've heard quotes in the 100's of K even in the 1-2 M) The thing is that no one+ has that kind of money. So it ends being your money or his life, over and over again. This has long since moved from the space of individual decision making to public policy. But we in the United States refuse to face up to that. We like to pretend that the doctor and patient should be the only ones that ha…
That's what insurance is for . When you buy insurance you're making an agreement to socialize risk, so you're never faced with a $1M bill to save your life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Price caps play a role, but rationing plays an even bigger role. Google search for the McKinsey paper on US healthcare costs. The volume of outpatient procedures in the US is quite shocking compared to other countries. Yes, things cost more in the US, but the volume is also quite a lot higher.
Interesting about the volume being higher. In most logistical systems that would drive avg price down.
The opposite is often said for the NHS in the UK - certainly a smaller buyer than the US aggregate, but maybe a larger player than any one of them?
It’s weird to say this, but maybe the world needs more Martin Shkreli’s. That way there’s no room to doubt the motivations of virtually all large drug companies (at least in the US).