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A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

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Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#201

Post by terminalshort »

estearum wrote: post #172
xp84 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would think that americans would be much more vigilant about what medication they take, the price it cost, and so would have much lower pricing. > Is it the proof that a true unregulated free market doesn't work ? The market is heavily regulated (frequently crazily) by the FDA, and the actual amount anything costs is heavily obscured from the eyes of any consumers by the fog of bureaucracy and insurance. Many peo…

FDA’s regulations are basically unrelated to the healthcare system and what makes American healthcare so expensive. GP is right that monopolization and vertical integration (as you allude to in your comment) is much more salient.

The FDA is not only related to it, but quite central. The main expense in drug development is getting through the FDA approval process.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#203

Post by terminalshort »

OutOfHere wrote: post #124
terminalshort wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be 1 liter of the active ingredient, not 1 liter of the eye drop. Also I don't believe that 1 ppt of this stuff is harmful when people are putting it directly in their eyes without severe harm.

It's most definitely going to accumulate inside the body, although slowly.

Yes, but too slowly to matter. Average person consumes 1.5 liters per day of water, so if you live to 100 that's 55000 liters. At 1 ppt that's 1 ng / liter, or 55 ug over a lifetime. That's multiple orders of magnitude less than one drop of the stuff to your eye.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#204

Post by sgerenser »

dns_snek wrote: post #181
yoyohello13 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the actual number is. I have health insurance through my work and I pay over $1,500 a month for that (and still have out of pocket costs). That's $18,000 a year. That's a substantial percentage of my income which essentially is just a tax going to the insurance company instead of the government. Now if it cost a couple thousand more a year and I didn't have to worry about getting claims denied for ra…

The US spends more money on healthcare than any other country (per capita and in PPP-adjusted terms), with the lowest life expectancy out of all of its peers [1]. Make of that what you will, but that tells me that after cutting out all the corporate abuse and inefficiency, the average person should be spending about the same for similar standard of care, except without all the bureaucracy and stress. [1] https://en.w…

While it’s true that the U.S. spends way too much on healthcare (more than any other country as you said), the fact that it has a mediocre life expectancy is almost entirely due to things that have little to do with the quality of health care. Much more driving than most other countries resulting in more auto accidents and thus deaths, way more guns resulting in more murders and suicides, etc. Drug overdoses, in particular opiates, are probably the biggest one than can arguably be linked to healthcare.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#205

Post by OutOfHere »

terminalshort wrote: post #203
OutOfHere wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's most definitely going to accumulate inside the body, although slowly.

Yes, but too slowly to matter. Average person consumes 1.5 liters per day of water, so if you live to 100 that's 55000 liters. At 1 ppt that's 1 ng / liter, or 55 ug over a lifetime. That's multiple orders of magnitude less than one drop of the stuff to your eye.

We will know after the drops have been out for over a decade, and actual real-world safety data studies get published.

Meanwhile, Restasis (cyclosporine A) (or a generic) works well, and doesn't have to be applied all day long, just two or three times a day. It does burn the eye initially, but it's not harmful, and the burning goes slowly away over time. It does take a few months to start working.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#206

Post by OutOfHere »

cyberax wrote: post #163
wagwang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the fuck... what's stopping this from poisoning our water supply?

Teflon is also PFAS. The whole PFAS scare is overblown.

> The whole PFAS scare is overblown.

You have absolutely no idea of what you're talking about. If you actually think the scare is overblown, I dare you to drink the whole bottle of that eyedrop.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#208

Post by tamimio »

The whole medicine industry in North America needs an overhaul. Canada isn't better. The ER delays aren't because of anything but a (intentional?) convoluted process that causes them. Same with prescriptions. Why aren't pharmacists allowed to issue them? Why not even utilize AI (which is superior to any human when it comes to memorizing and correlating, both essential in diagnosis) and have a human to double check it just in case? The reason is obvious. It's lobbying and gatekeeping, from making it hard to become a doctor, to the pharmaceutical industry profits, insurance, among many others, to simply "monetize" every single step of the process and profit off people's misery.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#209

Post by estearum »

terminalshort wrote: post #201
estearum wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDA’s regulations are basically unrelated to the healthcare system and what makes American healthcare so expensive. GP is right that monopolization and vertical integration (as you allude to in your comment) is much more salient.

The FDA is not only related to it, but quite central. The main expense in drug development is getting through the FDA approval process.

No, not really.

The main expense is proving your drug works. It’s not really fair to describe that as incurred by FDA regs.

And in any case: drugs are (surprisingly) not a major driver of healthcare costs in the US.

The things that are uniquely costly in American healthcare are administrative overhead and doctors + nurses.

Go read KFF reporting on it.

Re: A $20 drug in Europe requires a prescription and $800 in the U.S.

#210

Post by cyberax »

OutOfHere wrote: post #188
cyberax wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have punctal plugs. They helped quite a bit, but for most people with dry eyes it's the lack of the lipid layer that is causing problems. Not the lack of water.

Punctual plugs are not as great as cauterization for multiple reasons. Firstly, plugs keep dropping off and getting lost over time. Secondly, they probably won't seal the gap fully. The lipid emission will heal partially if one supplements vitamin A (10k IU) softgel, omega-3 triglyceride ester, taurine, and at least 4K IU of vitamin D3. It will heal enough to work. The D3 in this dose is for freezing autoimmune degen…

Before committing to plugs, I tried temporary plugs made of (essentially) collagen. They completely seal the tear ducts, and they were just as effective as my current plugs. And my plugs have been in place for 10 years so far.

> The lipid emission will heal partially if one supplements vitamin A (10k IU) softgel, omega-3 triglyceride ester, taurine, and at least 4K IU of vitamin D3. It will heal enough to work.

Omega-3 acids help a tiny bit, and I'm getting D3 and A from multivitamins. And I'm doing all other recommended stuff: eyelid washing, compresses, IPL, etc. Over the years, I tried discontinuing all of that a few times, and my symptoms worsened as a result. But not by much.

PFHO is the most effective "artificial tears" type product. Nothing comes close to it.

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