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Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

mattstoller.substack.com

271–280 of 595 posts

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#271

Executive orders were a constant theme of the previous administration. It was the first time that I’ve really heard about them consistently as a presidential technique and similarly as much in the media. The lower executive order numbers from the previous 2 administrations before made me think that these were tools used for media attention when I kept hearing about them. Now the current administration is using them (…

Obama dwarfed Trump’s number of EOs. Bush Jr. and Clinton were extremely high as well. This seems to be a response to congressional stonewalling (with varying outcomes). https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...

From your link:

Barack Obama (D) Total 276 Avg/year 35

Donald J. Trump (R) Total 220 Avg/year 55

Hardly "dwarfed". If anything Trump issued 60% more executive orders than Obama on an annual basis over his one term.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#272

Big pharma is significantly less of a problem than the physician and hospital cartels. I have no idea why these groups have survived scrutiny for their literal multi-hundred million dollar lobbying/bribery of politicians. My closest guess is that we all know "My" physician or a well paid nurse that benefits from the bribery.

Are you kidding?

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2021/01/28.html

> Prescription Drug Prices in the United States Are 2.56 Times Those in Other Countries

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leading to worse outcomes. Do you have evidence of this part specifically? Because the Oregon Experiment found no improvement in health outcomes in a large randomized trial of low-income recipients of Medicaid. (Partly because their health was generally good in the first place.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Medicaid_health_experim...

I had no health insurance so put off on a specialist i needed to see until i could sign up for medicaid (can only apply at the end of the year for some retarded reason). Just putting my issues off for 4 months turned an easy thing to fix into needing to spend the past 8 months in and out of the doctors and hospital.

If the plural of anecdote is data, when the ACA was first rolled out, someone close to me discovered they had colon cancer. They had been having symptoms for quite some time, but had been managing them with home treatment, the first day the had insurance they went to get it checked out. Lucky they did, as devastating as it was (and continues to be, turns out your chemo is brutal and having large sections of your colon removed isn't great either) their doctors already weren't sure they could treat it effectively.

While they credit the ACA with saving their life, had we had some form of socialized medicine from the start, this likely would've been caught much earlier, treated much more easily, and with significantly less long term effects.

I couldn't easily find studies on preventative care leading to better outcomes, but given how many diseases (like cancer for example) can go from easily treatable to a catastrophic nightmare depending on how early they are detected, I find it hard to believe that easy, cheap (or free) access screenings would have no effect on outcomes, though I realize how treacherous it can be to rely on instinct instead of data.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered stocking up at the Mexican border? So many things are available over the counter in Mexico its awesome.

Is that legal?

… kind of. There are certain personal use exceptions, but definitely something you want to speak with a lawyer about.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#275
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the premise of your argument, but why did you have to start it with "I love how conservatives still make this argument"? You have no idea what that person's thoughts or beliefs are...

Parent is not labeling the poster as conservative; he is labeling the argument as the underpinning of the same argument conservatives often make. That's a nuanced difference.

If we are concerned with nuance, there's probably at least 2 different conservative arguments.

There is the hyper-libertarian argument which says that if someone arrives at a hospital unconcious, and the hospital bills them the maximum amount they estimate the patient can pay before bankruptcy, so the hospital can maximize initially reported earnings before writing down unpaid debts, that this is somehow a voluntarily market price as long as the hospital is private and not owned by the government, because value is purely subjective and has no relation to cost.

Then there is the other argument which says if hospitals are over-billing people which are under duress, that this is bad and we want to do something about it, but we don't want to immediately nationalize healthcare and ban private health insurance. This second type of conservatism usually focuses on price controls or regulation of monopolies.

With pricing transparency regulations, it's probably possible to implement universal public price negotiation by fining non-elective healthcare providers which bill patients over 100% of their previously published price or 120% of the minimum price published by comparable providers. Then rebate patients the entire amount they were over-billed regardless of their insurance status.

With over-billing rebates there is less need to collect payroll tax to finance social insurance premiums. Need based assistance could be financed from more progressive property taxes on the rich, and the actual price controls could be implemented relatively cheaply by randomly auditing providers to ensure compliance, by allowing patients to manually submit invoices whenever they felt they were over-billed, and by financing rebates to patients entirely from fines on providers.

It's certainly possible that other systems would work better. However if we want to be nuanced there are many different strands of U.S. conservatism. Historically U.S. conservatives subscribed to some form of cost or labor theory of value. The kind of hyper-libertarian conservative movement which says private prices are always fair is probably less than 100 years old.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#276
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a medical condition with no cure, yet I still have to pay a doctor every 6 months to keep my prescription with no changes. Total racket.

My contact lens prescription is similar.

Contact lens prescriptions change though, and bad contacts can do subtle damage to the wearer’s eye. I have permanent scarring in my eyes because I over-wore my 2 week contacts, my fault I know, but without an eye doctor appointment I would have done even more damage.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#277

Executive orders were a constant theme of the previous administration. It was the first time that I’ve really heard about them consistently as a presidential technique and similarly as much in the media. The lower executive order numbers from the previous 2 administrations before made me think that these were tools used for media attention when I kept hearing about them. Now the current administration is using them (…

Obama dwarfed Trump’s number of EOs. Bush Jr. and Clinton were extremely high as well. This seems to be a response to congressional stonewalling (with varying outcomes). https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...

>Obama dwarfed Trump’s number of EOs.

By your own source, this is so misleading as to be blatantly false. Trump issued 220 EOs in 4 years. Obama issued 276 in 8 years. I wouldn't call that "dwarfing" even looking at the raw numbers, and as a rate, Trump was the highest in history, nearly twice Obama.

Of course, that's only relevant if you believe a priori that (a) EOs are a bad thing, and (b) that all EOs are created equal. Neither of those is true, obviously.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a doctor verify that you're not having any issues with your prescription medication is pretty normal. Maybe you can find someone that'll do telehealth.

If I'm having issues I'll call the doctor. I don't need a babysitter.

There are definitely doctors who will space it out if you’re stable or do a phone refill

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a medical condition with no cure, yet I still have to pay a doctor every 6 months to keep my prescription with no changes. Total racket.

Having a doctor verify that you're not having any issues with your prescription medication is pretty normal. Maybe you can find someone that'll do telehealth.

When a prescription becomes your baseline you should stop having to mother may I except for changes to it.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. There's a lot of waste in all of our health care system, and many areas are served by few care providers. Transparency on prices without effective competition won't change much.

You have to start somewhere. Knowable prices are the first prerequisite for markets.

That's an excellent point! It can't hurt, and might help. I don't know why I felt negatively about it at first, anything to start disrupting the bad parts of the system should be welcome.
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