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Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

beckershospitalreview.com

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Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#161

Post by bushbaba »

friedturkey wrote: post #118
csdvrx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a person with enough money he seems to work harder than he should to obtain more and more. Some people like to max their points in videogames. Other like to max their $ in real life. The beauty of capitalism is that the effort of the latter end up benefiting us all.

Capitalism is what got America into its health care mess. Other countries aren't paying thousands for simple pills or insulin.

It’s not capitalist. Heck try even getting a price quote online for a pharmaceutical drug. Oh wait you can’t as “it depends”.

Why the government hasn’t stepped in, is pure corruption.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#162

Post by s1artibartfast »

alphabettsy wrote: post #155
s1artibartfast wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This Is I why I think it is good that someone is cutting insurance and PBMs out of the supply chain.

They’re not being cut out though for most people. For many or most employed people medication will be cheaper through their insurance.

Correct, It is not a universal fix, but a step in the right direction.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#163

Post by friedturkey »

csdvrx wrote: post #159
friedturkey wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think dropping regulations and making it a free for all for multi-billion dollar corporations to fiddle with our health would improve anything, you're simply lying lol Countries with more regulation and more control by the state have... prices that are a fraction of the US. Surprise. Just like countries with stricter environmental restrictions have fewer clear-cut forests, less polluted water, etc. Unbr…

> Countries with more regulation and more control by the state have... prices that are a fraction of the US. Funny enough, the quality and ease of access (delays for procedures etc) also "are a fraction of the US"

Nice baseless FUD that's completely wrong. :)

As an American, my longest waits and worst care were all in the US. I pay just a couple bucks in Japan and get far better, far faster care. Pissing blood from a major kidney infection and hospitals politely turning me away because my insurance was out of network and "oh this is too expensive for you. Try (next hospital that rejected me)" wasn't fun. Never had an experience like that outside the US. Here it’s “Do you have an appointment? No? Okay, we’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Not sure why Americans believe this meme, but it's very apparent that someone hasn't spent any significant time outside the country and is informed exclusively by facebook fearmongering when they say that. It's always "yeah, I know a guy who knows a guy who read an article saying the UK is worse!" America has massive delays for procedures already--the excuse doesn't work anymore.

But yes, the delays in Japan and the cost are a fraction of the US, and it's because there's more regulation. It's wonderful.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#164

Post by bushbaba »

purplepatrick wrote: post #126
ALittleLight wrote: post #76

Either I don't understand the phrase "Vertical integration" or Mark Cuban doesn't. Cuban says "We basically created a vertically integrated manufacturing company." But, they don't do manufacturing, because later Cuban says "The manufacturers love what we're doing for that reason". They also apparently don't do the pharmacy aspect because Cuban says his company "charges a $3 pharmacy fee to pay the pharmacists it work…

It’s a startup, so it’s an iterative approach. They launched with a setup that gets them into the market fast. However, you are right in that this ain’t that big of a deal. Pharmacies pay the acquisition price for the drugs. Then, they make up a fictitious price (called the Usual & Customary price). The U&C is intentionally very high, because it forms the basis for negotiating with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). T…

Wouldn’t Amazon be doing the same thing with their pharmacy?

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#165

Post by s1artibartfast »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #154
s1artibartfast wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is who you buy from and how difficult they are to go around to get to the manufacturer.

The difference would appear to be whether you buy a name-brand drug or a generic equivalent.

I don't think that has any impact whatsoever. If people think they are buying a drug from a manufacturer they are wrong. Typically they are paying insurance who pays the pharmacy, who pays the PBM who pays the Manufacturer. This is true for generics and brand-name. Each step has price negotiations and a bunch of mixed incentives.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#166

Post by fastball »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #153
fastball wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So hospitals and drug companies in the US are operating at peak efficiency without bilking anyone unnecessarily and yet a huge variety of procedures are more expensive than in the rest of the developed world. That definitely passes a smell test.

A big driver is staff salary, which are 2-3X that in Europe. Another is technology with more expensive procedures, implants, tools, ect.

So GC claimed that some US Medicare/aid prices would cause HCW to make less than minimum wage, yet now you say salaries are 2-3x higher than Europe, which generally has higher minimum wages.

Somehow all these excuses are still not jiving.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#168

Post by moralestapia »

lmm wrote: post #146
dahdum wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why they formed as a public benefit corporation, it makes it more difficult to pivot towards pure profit seeking.

Does it? I remember when Etsy was making a big fuss about being a public benefit corporation and then a couple of years later they just quietly dropped it.

See also "Open"AI.

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#169

Post by weird-eye-issue »

bobthepanda wrote: post #139
adam_arthur wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should cut out the doctors for most of these too... Or at least allow people to continue to renew their medications after prescribed one time, rather than requiring further doctor's visits. Most things in medicine are expensive due to legal monopolies/improper regulations. e.g. no reason you shouldn't be able to buy prescription glasses for $10-20 dollars off the shelf. The main problem with medical costs is that it'…

Some medications are not renewed like this for good reason. Some medications require regular monitoring to ensure that bad side effects aren't happening; PrEP requires checkups every 90 days to make sure kidney function is not getting impacted.

Most medications don't require this. Blacklist the ones that do

Re: Mark Cuban's pharmacy started with a cold email

#170

Post by weird-eye-issue »

adam_arthur wrote: post #133
danachow wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying freer markets in some aspects of medicine would be better - but the libertarian dream in medicine is probably very naive and fails to learn from history to boot (medicine, especially pharm was much freer 120 years ago - it didn’t work out too well). And of the big problems in medicine - a prescription for glasses (which isn’t really a medical service in the US - optometry is not a medical profession) j…

You can't order corrective lenses online without a prescription. You can order frames, or reading glasses. You need a prescription for both contacts or the lenses themselves. Contacts would certainly be much cheaper without that hurdle. And I bring up vision, because it's a common problem and for less well off folk with families it can be a big expense, basically entirely unnecessarily so. Imagine making 20k/year and…

No you don't need a prescription for corrective lenses. I've ordered them without and just had to confirm there would be no returns and such
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