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Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

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Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#31

Post by KirinDave »

mieseratte wrote: post #26
RaiseProfits wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed death panels were a tongue in cheek reference to what health insurance companies already do.

Well you have assumed wrong. It was a reference to giving the government, likely unelected bureaucracies, power to decide who receives what healthcare.

In as much as it is a clever bit of propaganda for the corporatist idea that only private industry should be able to arbitrarily decide who does and does not receive life-preserving care, you're right.

In principle, there is no difference between this outcome and what HMOs like Kaiser do to this very day.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#32

Post by _fq4v »

frobozz wrote: post #27
aantix wrote: post #6

[flagged]

Capitalism at its core is to sacrifice everyone's humanity to maximise a few people's profits. It means prioritising treatments that manage conditions over ones that cure or prevent them. It means prioritising drugs to fix the problems of rich old men (e.g. erectile dysfunction and male pattern baldness) over those to fix the problems of poor people (e.g. malaria). It means monopolising and overcharging for treatment…

> It means prioritising drugs to fix the problems of rich old men (e.g. erectile dysfunction and male pattern baldness) over those to fix the problems of poor people (e.g. malaria).

Are you from the 19th century? Malaria has a very straightforwards cure, that in Capitalist america you can actually purchase without a prescription at the supermarket (tonic water contains quinine.) Stop with the grandstanding.

Also the medications you call out as excessive have several beneficial properties. Viagra for example can prevent miscarriage in certain women, and finasteride (male pattern baldness) also treats the male inability to urinate due to an enlarged prostate, which is actually a medical problem, believe it or not.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#33

Post by zbyte64 »

__s wrote: post #30

Surprised by the comments in this thread US drug prices are not because of R&D. This title presents a false dichotomy Drug companies have enough capital at this point that they don't need old drugs to fund new drugs. They can charge a high price for new drugs to recoup their development costs, & then charge closer to the cost of production once that development has been covered

Also surprised by the lack of mention of reformulating existing drugs to extend their patents. The poster child of this practice is insulin, where Americans pay absurdly higher amounts for something where generics are abundant.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#34

Post by jeffdavis »

elil17 wrote: post #22
StaticRedux wrote: post #11

I'm sure it's not ok to the people that need those new medicines

But the current system is not okay for people who need medications that exist and are cheap to manufacture (eg insulin) but can’t afford rates being charged

There is no patent protection on regular insulin, so it's some kind of ordinary monopoly problem, it appears.

I suspect a better set of regulations around generics would solve the problem with ordinary market forces. Probably there are quite a few policies that protect the existing drug companies that don't make any sense for generics.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#35

Post by ghostwriter »

Healthcare and medicine is a commodity service, similar to airway transportation and food supply, and the more abundance is there on all levels of it, the lower the prices get across time. Artificial caps on the cost of medicine creates unhealthy bureaucratic incentives like this one instance within NHS in the UK https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/15/trump-criti...

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#37

Post by zbyte64 »

ghostwriter wrote: post #35

Healthcare and medicine is a commodity service, similar to airway transportation and food supply, and the more abundance is there on all levels of it, the lower the prices get across time. Artificial caps on the cost of medicine creates unhealthy bureaucratic incentives like this one instance within NHS in the UK https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/15/trump-criti...

Medicine is still a commodity even if another entity collectively bargains for it (ie NHS). Why doesn't the parent just by the medicine directly? Surely the NHS doesn't prevent that from happening. Oh, right, it is too expensive to purchase for most people without collectively bargaining. But I guess even that kind of bureaucracy isn't tolerable to an absolutist.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#38

Post by AnthonyMouse »

elil17 wrote: post #20
cde-v wrote: post #17

NO! This inevitably will end up as slightly fewer medicines with no reduction in price.

Why wouldn’t it lead to a reduction in price? Removing artificial barriers to competition lowers prices, that’s like the whole idea behind supply/demand in economics.

The bill is about about "negotiating prices", i.e. price controls. But if you legislate lower prices by fiat and the result is fewer drugs, that's less competition -- which can raise prices.

If there are two drugs available for a condition then not covering one because it's too expensive is more viable. Take one of those companies out of the market and what does that do to your leverage when you're "negotiating" with the other one?

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#39

Post by AnthonyMouse »

KirinDave wrote: post #31
mieseratte wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you have assumed wrong. It was a reference to giving the government, likely unelected bureaucracies, power to decide who receives what healthcare.

In as much as it is a clever bit of propaganda for the corporatist idea that only private industry should be able to arbitrarily decide who does and does not receive life-preserving care, you're right. In principle, there is no difference between this outcome and what HMOs like Kaiser do to this very day.

There is one difference, which is that it creates systemic risk.

If there are a hundred HMOs and there is a treatment which cures a disease which ten of them choose not to cover, it still exists and you can pay for it out of pocket or do whatever it takes to switch to a different insurance company etc.

If everyone is on the same federal plan and the government chooses not to cover something, the provider isn't going to get enough business to continue operating and then they're gone and that treatment option is eliminated for everyone.

Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices

#40

Post by leakybit »

__s wrote: post #30

Surprised by the comments in this thread US drug prices are not because of R&D. This title presents a false dichotomy Drug companies have enough capital at this point that they don't need old drugs to fund new drugs. They can charge a high price for new drugs to recoup their development costs, & then charge closer to the cost of production once that development has been covered

sounds like a not for profit
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