Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance • Hacker News Board

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#101

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

RandomTisk wrote: post #86

threezero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your anecdotes aside, the vast majority of Canadians approve of their healthcare system, something you can’t say about the US.

Which the ACA has made decidedly worse for nearly everyone. The costs have gone though the roof and since at least 2014 or so, I can only get high deductible plans though my employers.

Any system that increase the amount of healthcare being provided without a corresponding increase in supply of healthcare providers would have done the same.

Life was greatly improved for those who didn’t have employer sponsored insurance and pre-existing conditions. And women of child bearing age. Now that they can actually get healthcare, someone has to pay for it, which is everyone.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#102

Post by idrios » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #59

Irene wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandmother was denied drugs by government-run healthcare and died in severe pain.

That is awful and I'm so sorry to hear. :( It also doesn't invalidate my point, although it highlights that I should have said the government should run its own competent R&D

I believe what you just described is the NIH.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#103

Post by jdsully » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

tasty_freeze wrote: post #36

One entirely maddening thing is that the ACA was labeled as having "death panels" that would decide who lives and dies. That phrase was powerfully effective in making large group of Americans strongly oppose the ACA. Even if they knew nothing else about the ACA, they knew they didn't want death panels. But as this article demonstrates, if we care to use the inflammatory "death panels" label, we already have them. It…

Canadian here. We also have decision makers that decide what gets covered or not. It's stupid not to. We shouldn't plunder health care funds on $1m per year of life saved interventions when you can spend that on 100 interventions costing $10k per year of life saved. It works pretty well (something like 15th longest life expectancy). Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that is…

> Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that isn't covered by your insurance

With the big caveat that you cannot pay for "higher quality" of any services that are covered even if you want to.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#104

Post by mrtksn » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #103

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here. We also have decision makers that decide what gets covered or not. It's stupid not to. We shouldn't plunder health care funds on $1m per year of life saved interventions when you can spend that on 100 interventions costing $10k per year of life saved. It works pretty well (something like 15th longest life expectancy). Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that is…

> Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that isn't covered by your insurance With the big caveat that you cannot pay for "higher quality" of any services that are covered even if you want to.

of course you can, there’s this thing called plane and you jump on in and go to wherever the treatment you want is performed, pay up and get it. There’s absolutely no laws preventing you from getting payed care in the USA or anywhere.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#105

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #103

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here. We also have decision makers that decide what gets covered or not. It's stupid not to. We shouldn't plunder health care funds on $1m per year of life saved interventions when you can spend that on 100 interventions costing $10k per year of life saved. It works pretty well (something like 15th longest life expectancy). Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that is…

> Of course, you're always free to pony up your own cash to pay for a treatment that isn't covered by your insurance With the big caveat that you cannot pay for "higher quality" of any services that are covered even if you want to.

90% of the population lives within 100km of the US border.

Unless it's a life-or-death emergency (where the ED has guidelines to see you right away anyway), every Canadian has the option of paying for any level of service they want, even otherwise covered services.

Then there are the firms that walk the line and charge you as "preventative health" services.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#106

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

Irene wrote: post #52

taneq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rational, informed decision is that the government should run its own medical R&D. But no, we can't do that because muh freedums.

My grandmother was denied drugs by government-run healthcare and died in severe pain.

[deleted]

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#107

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

Having a national health care system administered by the government is the ultimate monopoly. It necessitates a gigantic bureaucracy, which will decide what you get and what you don't get according to their standardized rules.

Since it will be impossible to provide everyone with the best health care, it'll get allocated according to bureaucratic rules, not what you or your doctor want.

These allocations will inevitably be done based on political decisions, and how politically connected you are.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#108

Post by Irene » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #59

Irene wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandmother was denied drugs by government-run healthcare and died in severe pain.

That is awful and I'm so sorry to hear. :( It also doesn't invalidate my point, although it highlights that I should have said the government should run its own competent R&D

You are right, according to medical journal "The Lancet", 85% of (government-funded) research funding is “avoidably wasted across the entire biomedical research range (e.g., clinical, health services, and basic science)” Government-funded medical R&D (budget for the NIH: $34.4 billion for 2019) needs smarter spending.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#109

Post by calgoo » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #107

Having a national health care system administered by the government is the ultimate monopoly. It necessitates a gigantic bureaucracy, which will decide what you get and what you don't get according to their standardized rules. Since it will be impossible to provide everyone with the best health care, it'll get allocated according to bureaucratic rules, not what you or your doctor want. These allocations will inevitab…

As someone who lives in a system with national healthcare I can say it’s not a problem like you state. We have both private and public healthcare, and You can use both or just the public one. If you have a life threatening illness then you get priority treatment over illnesses that are more of a inconvenience. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better then having admin people deny you treatment based on cost alone.

Re: Cancer patients are being denied drugs, even with prescriptions and insurance

#110

Post by tryptophan » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

chroem- wrote: post #68

IanDrake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples of prodects created by government run medical R&D?

Tofacitinib is one that I am familiar with. I am sure there are many more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofacitinib Also, I think it's a valid question that doesn't deserve downvotes.

>Pfizer worked with O'Shea's [NIH funded] laboratory to define the structure and function of JAK3 and its receptors, and then handled the drug discovery, preclinical development, and clinical development of tofacitinib in-house.

This says the exact opposite...