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Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

drugs.com

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Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#61

Post by ackbar03 »

I have a separate question regarding generics.

I know a medication for a rare disease, which typically costs more than 6 figures, is having its patent expiring soon.

I would love for generic drug makers (ones in India for example?) to come in and start making the drug for cheaper so it is more affordable for families.

However, because it is a rare disease, I don't know if a drug maker would normally be incentivised to do this. But given the sky high costs of the drug pre patent expiration, I think there might be enough demand there for makers to make decent profit.

Say I wanted to give them a nudge, or maybe I get some people who I know are ready to pay for it if they make them, showing to the generic makers the demand is there. Does anyone know how I should go about this or if it's possible? Then again I don't know how regulations and stuff work but just hypothetically.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#63

Post by gremlinsinc »

mmmmkay wrote: post #4

the problem is most capitalists wouldn't dare venture into that arena due to how intrenched the incumbents are. This makes the market highly inefficient due to lack of competition. Good on Cuban for daring to go whether other capitalists will not. I hope it works out for him.

yeah, good on him, but it'd be so much better if it were an employee co-op. He's still making bank, and eventually could be the amazon of pharmacy undercutting everyone else, and still make a tidy profit.

A non-profit or co-op could do the same thing and only aim for a small revenue target in the green, so they stay afloat and can keep paying payroll, and providing good service as needed.

I'm eventually planning on branching into this area, if I can get my co-op CRM/ERP software platform finished. I'm wanting a system to manage a network of union/worker businesses that work in syndication and encourage loyalty to in-network brands, through benefits, discounts, etc. Think if you had a software to basically combine worker, consumer, and housing co-ops into a sort of network or social net or mutual aid network where volunteering, working as an employee, or just loyalty as a customer dictates if you've qualified to earn a dividend or free healthcare.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#64

Post by ceejayoz »

smugma wrote: post #45
ceejayoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't just let them fuck Medicare, it lets them fuck private insurance too. I'm on a med that's $12k every two months. If I were on a high deductible plan, they'll happily cover that $12k for the first go, because I meet my deductible and then insurance pays the other five doses. The cost to them is basically nil; chances are the actual one mililiter of fluid costs them a marginal $20 or so to make.

Like in software (less so in the cloud days), marginal costs are not particularly relevant.

It is when covering $20 of marginal costs gets you past to a bunch of non-marginal costs.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#65

Post by ceejayoz »

jahewson wrote: post #54
ceejayoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't just let them fuck Medicare, it lets them fuck private insurance too. I'm on a med that's $12k every two months. If I were on a high deductible plan, they'll happily cover that $12k for the first go, because I meet my deductible and then insurance pays the other five doses. The cost to them is basically nil; chances are the actual one mililiter of fluid costs them a marginal $20 or so to make.

The marginal cost of a cup of coffee is basically nil but I don’t expect a free cup every day from Starbucks.

Other way around.

Starbucks gives you the first cup free, because it means the rest of your cups that year are free to you - you've hit your deductible and soon after your out-of-pocket max - but Starbucks gets to charge insurance $500/cup for them.

If they didn't have the program, no one would pay the first $500 because it's out of pocket, and Starbucks gets nothing. By forgoing the first $500 of revenue they get the rest.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#66

Post by WesternWind »

ackbar03 wrote: post #61

I have a separate question regarding generics. I know a medication for a rare disease, which typically costs more than 6 figures, is having its patent expiring soon. I would love for generic drug makers (ones in India for example?) to come in and start making the drug for cheaper so it is more affordable for families. However, because it is a rare disease, I don't know if a drug maker would normally be incentivised t…

An interesting question that probably deserves it's own ask HN post.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#67

Post by daenz »

Clubber wrote: post #22
csours wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billion here, a billion there, soon you're talking real money

3.6b ($) / 258m (adults) = $14 in taxes per adult in the US, per year.

Death by a thousand paper cuts. No one cut is egregious enough to warrant an emergency, yet you still die.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#68

Post by hahaitsfunny »

If you're angry about this, I can't imagine how angry you'll be when you find out our government sent 40 billion to pay Ukranian pensions from another illegal proxy war they helped start and have funded for the past eight years.

The US government doesn't care about its citizenry and the two political parties play off one another to further enable their own agendas and further divide the citizenry. They are no different and neither has our best intentions in mind. They do whatever they can to retain and hold onto power, and once in positions of power they abdicate their duties and do whatever they want or fulfill the agenda of whomever they are bought by. The sooner people start realizing this, the better off everyone in this country, and the world will be. It's not like the US is the only country where corrupt and morally bankrupt leaders are running the show.

Re: Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs

#69

Post by KMag »

rayiner wrote: post #51
Spooky23 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federal government and government in general is really good at commodity procurement. The processes and legal requirements give them the ability to price and fairly procure even single source commodities. I’ve done scaled procurements at a very large, not federal level. We were almost always 10-20% lower unit cost than large corporate, and sometimes even better. At the Federal level, the law gives them “most favo…

Most drugs aren’t commodities.

The GP wasn't asserting that drugs are a commodity. They were arguing against the blanket implication that the federal government can't get efficient price discovery because it's the whale in the market. The GP is pointing out somewhat similar markets where the US is doing very efficient buying, even for single-source commodities (with parallels to single-supplier drugs), despite presumably also being the whale in the market.
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