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Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

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Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#121

Post by llbeansandrice »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #96
arcticbull wrote: post #48

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

> Socializing the whole thing is significantly better. As a Canadian I highly disagree. And anecdotally many health care providers from Canada agree with my take. People frequently die, or get sicker, as they wait their turn in months long queues or lack of supply due to government quotas. There is nothing stopping the government from substituting lower-quality, less effective procedures when their MBAs come in an co…

> People frequently die, or get sicker, as they wait their turn

This also happens in the US. Plus, if you do happen to get care you can go bankrupt!

>when their MBAs come in an consult about how to reduce costs.

The US is far far past this point already.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#122

Post by tomp »

arcticbull wrote: post #117
tomp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? In theory, free market healthcare should improve alignment. Insurance companies pay procedures and make money when people are less sick. Hospitals make money when they perform procedures. Insurance companies are therefore incentivised to only pay procedures from competent hospitals, the ones that won’t result in more follow-up costs. The problem is, of course, it’s not a free market - neither on the hospita…

'A key feature of free markets is the absence of coerced (forced) transactions or conditions on transactions.' [1] Healthcare is not such a market. If you have a stab wound and you're bleeding out, there's no supply and demand, there's no ability for you to have market participants compete for your business. It's 'pay me or die.' Ditto substantially any major medical issue. This is, in my opinion a coerced transactio…

I’m a huge advocate for private (non-socialized) healthcare.

People always twist this into “you’d have to pay so much more for healthcare”.

No! I never had to pay anything substantial for healthcare. I pay for insurance. But I prefer private insurance (to improve competition, performance, quality, accessibility, …)

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#123

Post by [deleted] »

arcticbull wrote: post #117
tomp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? In theory, free market healthcare should improve alignment. Insurance companies pay procedures and make money when people are less sick. Hospitals make money when they perform procedures. Insurance companies are therefore incentivised to only pay procedures from competent hospitals, the ones that won’t result in more follow-up costs. The problem is, of course, it’s not a free market - neither on the hospita…

'A key feature of free markets is the absence of coerced (forced) transactions or conditions on transactions.' [1] Healthcare is not such a market. If you have a stab wound and you're bleeding out, there's no supply and demand, there's no ability for you to have market participants compete for your business. It's 'pay me or die.' Ditto substantially any major medical issue. This is, in my opinion a coerced transactio…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#124

Post by xyzzyz »

user_7832 wrote: post #94
baby_wipe wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If for-profit companies keep doing all these awful things, why people keep paying them money?

Because, in an economic sense, of asymmetry between the parties. You only have a handful of car companies to buy a $30k green 5-door sedan from. But Ford can easily afford to lose you as a customer - Ford is more important to you than you are to them. An extreme case of this (in some places) is the internet provider. If they know they're the only ones they can basically charge much more than if you were living in an…

Ford can easily afford to lose me, individually, but typically things that will cause them to lose me, will also cause them to lose many other customers. In practice, there is no actual asymmetry: if I don’t like Ford, I can just go to dealership next door, and so can millions of other customers, which means Ford needs to be careful.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#126

Post by criddell »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #96
arcticbull wrote: post #48

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

> Socializing the whole thing is significantly better. As a Canadian I highly disagree. And anecdotally many health care providers from Canada agree with my take. People frequently die, or get sicker, as they wait their turn in months long queues or lack of supply due to government quotas. There is nothing stopping the government from substituting lower-quality, less effective procedures when their MBAs come in an co…

Your experience with the Canadian system is going to vary greatly depending on the kind of care you require and where you are. Frankly, the same is true in the US.

> their MBAs come in an consult about how to reduce costs

You don’t think the big health insurance companies in the US do the same thing?

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#127

Post by ihattendorf »

sct202 wrote: post #101
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you looking at the right place? I clicked on the medication's link (just for lookup), and it took me to a page which listed Manufacturing, 15% Markup, Pharmacy Labor and in a circled blue box: "* additional cost at checkout Shipping $5.00".

That's what I mean, the list price in the big box is just the mfg, markup and labor. You have to add on $5 to the 'Transparent Pricing' that they put in the giant box in the center of the page, you only see that there is an additional shipping fee if you click thru the little slider or submit an order.

Do they discount shipping for multiple items ordered? In that case I personally think having shipping separate makes sense, as 2 $5 items shipped might be e.g. $16 total not $20.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#128

Post by tluyben2 »

nkrisc wrote: post #73
tluyben2 wrote: post #63

From the faq; > Why are your prices so cheap? Not native English, but that is not English right? Edit; guess my school English told me that is wrong ; - prices are low - this medicine is cheap So learned something ;) thanks

Unless it's just because it's early, I can't find anything wrong with it and I've been reading it over for minutes now trying to find what someone might think is wrong with it. EDIT: As an American, "Why is it so cheap?", and any variant, is completely normal.

> Why is it so cheap

That seems different ; ‘it’ refers to the goods, not ‘price’.

Didn’t know it was common, like said, not native english.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#129

Post by abfan1127 »

Arubis wrote: post #81
baby_wipe wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If for-profit companies keep doing all these awful things, why people keep paying them money?

In the case of healthcare, it’s because crippling, inescapable debt that spans multiple generations is still usually preferable to actual death.

where in the US is there inescapable debt that spans multiple generations? What debt (other than IRS and student loans) are not dischargeable via bankruptcy?

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#130

Post by tluyben2 »

core-utility wrote: post #84
tluyben2 wrote: post #63

From the faq; > Why are your prices so cheap? Not native English, but that is not English right? Edit; guess my school English told me that is wrong ; - prices are low - this medicine is cheap So learned something ;) thanks

It may not be proper, but I'd say it fits for common language. Alternative would be "How are you able to sell for such a low cost?", but that's almost double the number of words.

Could’ve said; why are the prices so low? Not so different.

It just sounds weird to me, because I think I was thought this is wrong a long time ago in school.

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