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

mattstoller.substack.com

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

#281

Post by hamandcheese »

adventured wrote: post #204
o8r3oFTZPE wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals (e.g., paid higher wages than other countries with different systems). Is it also fscked for wealthy patients who do not really care about costs.

> Is it fscked for physicians and various healthcare professionals It's an underappreciated point. The US healthcare system is one of the largest wealth transfer systems ever invented. It's a heavily protected cartel that plunders wealth from the top 2/3 and lines the pockets of a few million employees in the system. There is an excess cost bounty of $1.2 trillion (or more) being plundered and redistributed every yea…

I mean, someone is paying the price anyways, right? Why cant we as a society continue to pay the same (inflated) price now, but give the government the leverage it needs to fix the problem over several decades?

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

#282

Post by renewiltord »

giantg2 wrote: post #249
renewiltord wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobbying to: A. Limit medical care to being provided by these people B. Limit number of residencies

"Limit medical care to being provided by these people" Who else would provide this care? This licensure is similar to other professions, like lawyers, and really doesn't take very much lobbying since the majority of the public want oversight of these sorts of professionals. Residencies simply haven't kept pace with medical student numbers. They have gone up though. The main question is "where does the funding come fr…

You find it hard to believe a thing that the AMA made an overt aim of. Fascinating. Well, I’m out of this conversation.

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

#284

Post by SignalNotSecure »

fallingknife wrote: post #269
SignalNotSecure wrote: post #257

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?

Been there done that but from a different continent flying in. Nobody cares in general unless you're importing scheduled substances. You need to do your research but it's a way to beat the racket.

Drive up to the border and walk across on a day trip to the pharmacy. I believe the first few miles into the country are a NAFTA special economic zone with very relaxed paperwork requirements.

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

#285

Post by jdlshore »

Volundr wrote: post #273
hanniabu wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 colo…

Counterintuitive as it may be, the Oregon Experiment showed increased costs.

It did show an improvement is psychological outcomes, I presume due to peace of mind, because their wasn’t a corresponding increase in psychiatric medication.

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

#286

Post by asdff »

fallingknife wrote: post #270
koheripbal wrote: post #260

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.

Some people do though. Imagine someone who just lets this stuff lapse and they are still being regularly prescribed stuff that should have been cancelled 8 years ago.

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

#287

Post by lwouis »

slg wrote: post #79
lotsofpulp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, most of the big tech monopolies do not exist because of regulatory capture. They exist because the government never put in enough effort to stop the monopolies from forming. Is it possible they exist because the immense economies of scale and near zero marginal cost that software provides makes for a winner take all market? As a customer, why would one use the 2nd best option, when the best option is a…

Well yes, that is the "Depending on the market" part I mentioned in the sentence before the one you quoted. Some markets have traits that are more likely to lead to natural monopolies. A government acting in the best interest of its citizens would usually work on creating regulation in these markets to discourage monopolies.

You make an implicit assumption that a monopoly can't be the best way to organize an industry, and that competition is always better.

I'm not convinced by this assumption as i've seen contrary evidence. I've seen monopolies doing a great job, and i've seen competition destroy quality of service and price.

I would agree that the government needs to mitigate private actors. This regulation can take the form of splitting a monopoly but it can also take the form of keeping it a monopoly and regulating it by having a presence on the Board or through law.

The idea that we need multiple groups of people working on solving the same goal concurrently doesn't strike me of a one-size-fits-all approach. Multiple competing restaurants in a town is probably the way to go. Having virtual operators on the back of one physical infra as is the case with phone carriers for instance I would say is probably causing lots of overheads. I've seen it first hand from the inside. Turns out it's really complex to virtualize infra and have tenant-based billing. The only real difference is now you have 5 companies competing on marketing and offers on top of the same physical reality. Marketing costs can't vanish so the consumer is losing that money one way or another

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

#288

Post by co_pilates »

ak217 wrote: post #267
t-writescode wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that obligatory routine care is a major component of Kaiser’s model. In the experience of those I know who use Kaiser, effectively, if they come in for something and their routine checkups are out of date, they’re obligated to get that routine checkup (at the same time due to streamline of service), before they can get what they came in for. From this, I derived the argument that routine checku…

Kaiser has no specific preventative care requirements and does not withhold care if you are not up to date on some schedule. In fact Kaiser works pretty much exactly like any other HMO with the main difference being that insurance is in-house (but a different department, so insurance screwups still happen, but at least the hospital and the insurance are not constantly fighting each other with you stuck in the middle)…

If we had socialized medicine like my local Kaiser, I would be so excited. I honestly haven't been treated anywhere else with the same level of care and concern. I used to hate doctors because of bad experience, but the Kaiser system convinced me to take care of myself on a routine basis. Just one opinion, but thought I'd share.

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

#289

Post by Sophistifunk »

"Big Pharma" in the eyes of the public is two related but separate issues; 1) the weird employment-insurance-hospital loop that has developed in the US, and the terrible second-order-consequences of all the open-high/settle-low insurercarer system it led to, and 2) the medicine advertisements, and all the terrible consequences thereof.

The second one seems like a much easier thing to get rid of using hard government power, and should be the low-hanging fruit.

The first will require a decade of masterful leadership, co-operation from competing interests, and delicate undoing over time that I don't think any country in the west has right now.

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

#290

Post by fny »

asdff wrote: post #286
fallingknife wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some people do though. Imagine someone who just lets this stuff lapse and they are still being regularly prescribed stuff that should have been cancelled 8 years ago.

I’m in the same position my dr is kind enough to let me email in for refills.
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