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Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

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Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#161

Post by jcampbell1 »

relax88 wrote: post #154
skohan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the actual situation there? I have read that cheap insulin for example is available at WallMart, but for some reason the price of insulin seems to be a huge issue.

It’s the same reason why health care costs are out of control in general. It’s a for-profit system where literally every cog from drug company to pharmacist has an incentive to separate you from your money.

The entire hamburger market is for profit, but that isn’t a problem as I can buy good hamburgers at many different price points. The issue is that the industry is controlled by 1% of the population who have exclusive rights to decide what you buy, and a government agency that limits the hell out of who can sell anything in the name of safety.

When Europeans can pick from 5 different spring loaded epinephrine injectors and Americans can only legally buy one from a specific manufacturer, of course Americans pay 5x as much.

In plenty of places around the world you can buy all humulin you want without a doctor or the FDA for $30 vial.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#162

Post by DerpyBaby123 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #82
DerpyBaby123 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you doubt it was developed in 1996? Do you have evidence that the cost of production has significantly risen? Otherwise, you seem to be repeating the old economics joke: "The young economist looks down and sees a $20 bill on the street and says, “Hey, look a twenty-dollar bill!” Without even looking, his older and wiser colleague replies, “Nonsense. If there had been a twenty-dollar lying on the street, someone wo…

When there is a claim that there exists an arbitrage opportunity worth billions of dollars, I would consider it common sense to consider why has no one claimed the arbitrage opportunity yet. The world has many very smart people spending many hours working very hard to find these opportunities, so the likelihood of it just sitting there like a $20 bill on the street, and not being picked up, seems quite small. I do no…

Yes there is expertise and capital costs involved, which make it not an arbitrage play. It is more like a cartel, which seems to explain what is going on here, with the 3 insulin producing companies all fixing their prices together (at least in the US)

In theory there is 'nothing' stopping another company from coming along, even a group of Biohackers may try to do something - I wonder if that's been done... :)

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#163

Post by wwweston »

luffapi wrote: post #150
wwweston wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are more responsible for the extreme cost of healthcare in the US than any other political faction I await the explanation of your model revealing the drivers of healthcare costs and connecting them to predominately Dem responsibility with baited breath, nigh weeping for hope of policy-capable leftists in the meanwhile. > Mandatory insurance You know that's how socialized insurance works at one level or anothe…

What on earth is “socialized insurance”? The Democrats are the party who put massive amounts of effort into derailing the only viable candidate to argue for public healthcare. Maybe you don’t care about keeping predatory insurance companies afloat with COBRA payouts, or forcing healthy people to pay tens of thousands of dollars to insurance companies, but plenty of people do.

> What on earth is “socialized insurance”?

Sigh.

Look. I appreciate passion for the topic. I absolutely care about this too. I probably spend waaaay more time than a layperson should reading about healthcare problems and policy. Like a lot of other people here on an engineering forum like this, I know the power of approaching things as their own kind of system.

And it kinda looks like you don't yet. That's something I've no doubt you could fix, but you'd have to want it. Maybe even enough to google the term "socialized insurance." Or understand that when healthy people pay into risk pools... that's what insurance is.

> The Democrats are the party who put massive amounts of effort into derailing the only viable candidate to argue for public healthcare.

Presumably you're talking about Sanders. I encourage you to talk to his office while he's not running about other people who are supportive and enthusiastic about public healthcare efforts. There are plenty. Arguably not enough: if they'd had few more Senators to get past Joe Lieberman in 2010, Medicare-for-all-who choose would have been a reality then. As it was the ACA was a mixed but significant policy victory.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#164

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

KoftaBob wrote: post #128
api wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US health care system combines everything bad about government-run health care (slow progress due to heavy regulation, layers of bureaucracy, government-enforced drug monopolies) with everything bad about free-enterprise health care (inequality, market price fixing, uneven quality, lots of quackery at the edges of regulation). We need to pick something. If we're going the free enterprise way we need competition,…

Finally someone has put into words my frustration with this healthcare system.

Obamacare was widely derided by many Democrats as a worst-of-both-worlds plan when the public option was scraped.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#165

Post by luffapi »

wwweston wrote: post #163
luffapi wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth is “socialized insurance”? The Democrats are the party who put massive amounts of effort into derailing the only viable candidate to argue for public healthcare. Maybe you don’t care about keeping predatory insurance companies afloat with COBRA payouts, or forcing healthy people to pay tens of thousands of dollars to insurance companies, but plenty of people do.

> What on earth is “socialized insurance”? Sigh. Look. I appreciate passion for the topic. I absolutely care about this too. I probably spend waaaay more time than a layperson should reading about healthcare problems and policy. Like a lot of other people here on an engineering forum like this, I know the power of approaching things as their own kind of system. And it kinda looks like you don't yet. That's something…

Health insurance is a commercial industry. There is absolutely nothing socialized about it. The CEOs of these companies are getting paid tens of millions of dollars. They are INCs. They are not socialized in any way shape or form.

They do have regulatory capture, mostly given to them by the Democratic Party.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#166

Post by nceqs3 »

arcticbull wrote: post #122
nceqs3 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.

Luckily people can, and corporations are people. That is to say, corporations can donate to PACs and PACs can donate to candidates.

not true. PACs cannot donate more than a pretty low limit to candidates.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#167

Post by pm90 »

coliveira wrote: post #160
HarryHirsch wrote: post #9

Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare. But in America you are supposed to take "personal responsibility" for your own health and biohack your way ouf of type 1 diabetes?! Srsly? This s a political, not a scientific problem. Call your congresscritter.

Congress has been bought by big pharma. There is nothing the American people can do at this point other than revolting on the streets.

I mean, that’s not nothing. Maybe not revolt, but organize, pressure sitting politicians and encourage better candidates to run.

Americans vilify their politicians and then expect that somehow really “good” people will get into that profession. I don’t get it…

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#169

Post by mikepurvis »

roywiggins wrote: post #123
nceqs3 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.

Sure, they make donations to super PACs, which ""don't coordinate""[0][1][2][3] with campaigns. [0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-and-democratic-polit... [1] https://www.rollcall.com/2019/06/06/what-is-mcconnelling-how... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/10-ways... [3] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-politics-superpacs-impa...

I can't find the link now, but something that really opened my eyes on terrifying PACs are was someone pointing out how they manipulate the political discourse without even spending a dime. They just sit there on a gigantic warchest and send out gangster-style missives like "hey it sure would be a shame if you supported X or Y and we had to drop $10M on pummeling you with primetime TV ads in the week before your reelection."

This kind of influence is completely untraceable through all the normal disclosure mechanisms since no money actually gets spent. And worse still, it offers enormous leverage— once you have that war chest, you can use it to issue hundreds of threats and only occasionally have to actually follow through.

It's just a completely different ballgame compared to a "normal" campaign finance option that directly spends donations.

Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin

#170

Post by burkaman »

RHSeeger wrote: post #142
pimeys wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask, are you suffering from a Type 1 diabetes? If not, at least for me, this answer kind of misses the point completely. Type 1 is a hell to manage. It is REALLY hard. Like I actually use an open source pancreas to control my glucose levels so now I can sleep every night without having to worry about dying. This is in Europe where the insurance covers everything and prices are cheaper than in US. Using the…

I do have type 1 diabetes, and I lived on R/L for over a decade. The point being made here is > The high price of tier 1 insulins is killing people Is (more or less) a lie. While > The high price of tier 1 insulins is making people's lives considerably worse and their diabetes harder to manage. Is (more or less) true. When you try to push for change and use, as part of your argument, a lie, you sabotage yourself. Peo…

It is not a lie if you think about real human behavior, rather than a theoretical rational automaton. There are real, documented cases of people who were prescribed insulin they could not afford, tried to ration it, and died as a direct result. Maybe their doctor told them not to use it, or they didn't live near a Walmart, or they didn't know it existed. Maybe they tried the Walmart stuff and almost died because it's so difficult to manage, so their doctor told them to switch back to the best treatment available. I promise they did not die to make a political point.

One in four patients in the US have rationed insulin because of the cost: https://news.yale.edu/2018/12/03/one-four-patients-say-theyv...

It is simply untrue to say the high cost only forces people to use the cheaper Walmart generic. That isn't what happens. They ration it, and sometimes they die.

Finally, it doesn't make sense to say that the high price is making diabetes harder to manage, but isn't killing people. That's like saying speeding doesn't kill, it just makes the car harder to manage.

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