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Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

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Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#201

Post by samlevine »

outlace wrote: post #7

Has there ever been a price control experiment that hasn't resulted in even worse problems?

This one is actually kind of complicated. Healthcare costs are weird.

In general marginal costs to make drugs you already know how to make are usually low, so you can and do see a lot of free riders on the expensive part (R&D). It would be surprising if Illinois can't just join them.

That said, ideally if you're trying to contain costs by fiat you want these to be negotiated by governments and healthcare providers.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#202

Post by ikeboy »

cat199 wrote: post #195
ikeboy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.fdareview.org/issues/theory-evidence-and-example... Specific suggestion: get rid of efficacy requirement, keep safety requirement. Let doctors decide what works, as they currently do for off-label uses just fine.

so, in effect, subsidize pharma via selling placebo effect?

No.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#203

Post by beamatronic »

ptah wrote: post #42
Someone1234 wrote: post #8

I'm really past the whole "pharma need to charge high prices to fund research" line of argument. Aside from being factually untrue (research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example[0]), it is also arguing for a continued unhealthy relationship with pharmaceutical care. A large amount of research is currently publicly funded. Either via public academic research or directly. When that research bears fruit it is oft…

> research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example i really believe pharma advertising should be banned

It seems like there is a perception by these companies that there is a discoverability problem. If they are truly making a useful and safe drug, there should be a market for it. Instead of marketing, shouldn’t there be a way to make all products and services more discoverable? By doctors in this case and generically in the larger sense.

Incidentally, I have had two occasions where I wanted to search for a product by its physical dimensions. One was for furniture and one was for a refrigerator. I haven’t seen a search engine that lets me start by searching by physical dimensions: length, width, height. On these occasions, I had a specific physical space that I needed to put something into.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#204

Post by cat199 »

rayiner wrote: post #78
toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t demand my roads, libraries, or other public goods turn a profit. I wouldn’t demand the same of public pharma research (NIH, DARPA). Perhaps the market is not designed for this sort of endeavor (drug research). Let government stand in where the market has failed.

Except the market has succeeded fantastically. In my lifetime alone, AIDS and HepC went from death sentences to chronic conditions. Many forms of leukemia went from fatal to highly treatable. Meanwhile, what has the government done? The trip from DC to New York on Amtrak is slower today than it was in 1960. In 1980, DC’s Metro had self driving trains. They had to shut that down in 2009 due to lack of maintenance and…

> The trip from DC to New York on Amtrak is slower today than it was in 1960.

serious question - does a profitable private passenger railroad company that actually owns/maintains tracks, stations, etc exist without subsidies anywhere at all in the world? And Amtrak itself is nominally public-private and was formed in reaction to purely private railroads collapsing..

> In 1980, DC’s Metro had self driving trains. They had to shut that down in 2009 due to lack of maintenance and the unions.

even if the trains were self driving, for the 10y or so I lived there before this, there was still a conductor, so not sure if this is really a good argument..

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#205

Post by creaghpatr »

efa wrote: post #172
sorrymate wrote: post #2

Best line in the very short article “Health care is a right for all, not a privilege and that is why I am so proud that we created an insulin price cap that successfully puts patients above profit,” according to Gov. JB Pritzker.

I hate the constant misuse of the word "right". How would a country guarantee this right? What if every doctor in the US quit tomorrow? What if I decided to live on the top of a mountain where there is no population? How does the government guarantee my right to healthcare? Rights are around restrictions. I have the right NOT to be killed. I have a right NOT to be silenced. When something requires someone else doing…

>How would a country guarantee this right?

Via its taxpayers of course.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#206

Post by lostlogin »

ptah wrote: post #42
Someone1234 wrote: post #8

I'm really past the whole "pharma need to charge high prices to fund research" line of argument. Aside from being factually untrue (research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example[0]), it is also arguing for a continued unhealthy relationship with pharmaceutical care. A large amount of research is currently publicly funded. Either via public academic research or directly. When that research bears fruit it is oft…

> research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example i really believe pharma advertising should be banned

It is nearly everywhere, with New Zealand and the US allowing direct to consumer advertising. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_marketing

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#207

Post by rayiner »

learc83 wrote: post #152
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the market has succeeded fantastically. In my lifetime alone, AIDS and HepC went from death sentences to chronic conditions. Many forms of leukemia went from fatal to highly treatable. Meanwhile, what has the government done? The trip from DC to New York on Amtrak is slower today than it was in 1960. In 1980, DC’s Metro had self driving trains. They had to shut that down in 2009 due to lack of maintenance and…

Of course you can find examples of where the private sector outperforms government. And I can provide counter examples. I just moved to a much smaller city (in the same region) with gigabit municipal internet. For the same price that I was paying comcast for 50 mbps internet, I now have 20 times the speed with no data caps. The market works great until it doesn't. The interstate system, and the military are 2 prime e…

I’m not just giving examples. Education and infrastructure are two of the big pillars of why we have government in the first place, and US government bodies have failed miserably on both fronts despite enormous funding.

As to municipal internet—its great until it’s not. Maryland has municipal cable systems that were built a couple of decades ago, and they have struggled to keep up with the DOCSIS upgrade treadmill. Additionally, what problems exist with broadband in the US are largely government created. Comcast has no data caps almost everywhere in Maryland, because it’s in competition with Verizon. The only place that’s not true is Baltimore—where the city legally prevented Verizon from coming in and competing with Comcast. Verizon wanted to wire up Baltimore—the city wouldn’t allow it to do so.

Speaking more generally, DC Metro was snazzy at first too, but was unable to maintain the system long term. It’s interesting you focus on the price point: is $50 sustainable? Charging too little is actually a big problem. A subway ticket in London can cost 2-3x as much as one in New York, despite the two systems being very similar in age and size. Unsurprisingly, the London subway is doing fine and the New York subway is falling apart.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#208

Post by harryh »

Mirioron wrote: post #145
throwlaplace wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whenever anyone casts doubt on the idea that healthcare (or pharma) could be cheaper (and implicitly that the tradeoffs would be worth it) my simple response is: then please tell me how does every other western nation accomplish it? overall healthcare goals are met and for less money (in aggregate and individually) all around the world. in which way is america exceptional except insofar as exactly that here business…

If you are rich, get cancer and can pick any country to get treatment in, which country do you go to? Obviously it would depend on the specific cancer, but I think the US would be the best bet in aggregate.

Correct. Cancer survival rates in the US are generally the highest in the world (it varies a bit by cancer type).

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2....

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#209

Post by delecti »

efa wrote: post #172
sorrymate wrote: post #2

Best line in the very short article “Health care is a right for all, not a privilege and that is why I am so proud that we created an insulin price cap that successfully puts patients above profit,” according to Gov. JB Pritzker.

I hate the constant misuse of the word "right". How would a country guarantee this right? What if every doctor in the US quit tomorrow? What if I decided to live on the top of a mountain where there is no population? How does the government guarantee my right to healthcare? Rights are around restrictions. I have the right NOT to be killed. I have a right NOT to be silenced. When something requires someone else doing…

Who's going to stop you from having your right not to be killed infringed upon? That requires just as much affirmative action from a society's justice system. Any of our rights only matter as much as society's agreement to help you defend them, and in this case the government of Illinois has agreed to defend this one.

Re: Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month

#210

Post by aantix »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #148
umvi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I hate the general attitude of "don't question your doctor or do your own medical research; the doctor knows what's best" Doctors are mortals too and can only have so much time to draw on info they crammed X years ago. Patients can quickly become more expert than GPs with regards to their own diseases, especially if they have months to research it. Anecdotal example - my sister had a wierd skin con…

But medical advertising doesn’t inform the patient. Often it misleads. It has no value. Having medical information in public would be good so people can learn themselves but advertising provides no value.

How does it mislead?

They can be sued for making false claims. There's no value in doing so, especially in a high profile medication.

Why would you spend a couple billion dollars on research/marketing, years of research, to bring something to market only to shoot yourself in the foot by making false claims?

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