41–50 of 79 posts
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> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want citizens to not die of treatable diseases. Our goals seem to be different.
I want citizens not to die of untreatable diseases. It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease.
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Worded differently: the less captive the audience, the less significant is the issue of price-gauging.
Worded differently: when the demand curve is inelastic, changes in price don’t change demand much in the short term. For more elastic curves, higher prices reduce demand a lot more, which incentivizes setting a lower price if businesses are to optimize profit.
If you produce something socially useless, no one cares how much you charge for it, but if you produce something that saves lives, then it's "greedy" to charge as much money as possible for it.
Isn’t this the exact justification that Martin Shkreli used? It’s not hypocritical; when your life literally depends on something, and they have a monopoly on the only thing that will save your life, it’s absolutely greedy to try and maximize profits. When Apple overcharges for an iPhone, there are a few things that make this less evil: 1. There are lots of different smartphones out there that you have the option to…
Not justifying Martin or excessive pharma prices but it really is the case that we should disabuse ourselves from the notion that one should be entitled to life-saving care.
That process comes with a lot of externalities. Most drugs are incredibly costly to manufacture in terms of environmental damage (petrochemical solvents and cosolvents, water for purification, etc). I loved my dad but when he was dying I remember wondering why our society was bearing the ~100k per week cost because he didn't want to die. When mom was too weak to pull the plug I stepped in and made the hard (easy?) choice.
Big Pharma also pays billions in taxes to fund agencies like the NIH. While there are certainly a lot of shenanigans with intellectual property rights and market exclusivity at the end of the day we do get extreme value from pharmaceutical companies. If there was more competition, we would not see price hikes as often as we do.
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I want citizens not to die of untreatable diseases. It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease.
What good is a treatment if you can’t access it? If you’re poor enough even food poisoning is “untreatable”.
In addition, like all technology, there is a tendency to go from something for the very rich to something common.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I want pharma and medical innovation to be huge money makers. I want citizens to not die of treatable diseases. Our goals seem to be different.
I want citizens not to die of untreatable diseases. It is better to have very expensive treatments for a disease than no treatments for a disease.
False duality. We can have treatments fairly priced. The only reason that this ones are so expensive is because monopolies and corruption.
If you produce something socially useless, no one cares how much you charge for it, but if you produce something that saves lives, then it's "greedy" to charge as much money as possible for it.
> if you produce something that saves lives, then it's "greedy" to charge as much money as possible for it. If you take billions of taxpayer money to fund your research and get special access to information from government agencies like the NIH that the taxpayers paid for, and then you try to quadruple the price of what you're producing after you've already sold billions of units at a nice tidy profit, yes, that's gr…
There would be limitations if those governments involved weren't populated almost entirely by corporate owned puppets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t this the exact justification that Martin Shkreli used? It’s not hypocritical; when your life literally depends on something, and they have a monopoly on the only thing that will save your life, it’s absolutely greedy to try and maximize profits. When Apple overcharges for an iPhone, there are a few things that make this less evil: 1. There are lots of different smartphones out there that you have the option to…
Not justifying fleecing taxpayers, but you also generally don't pay for drugs, your insurance or Medicare does. Most pharma (including iirc shkreli's) companies have access programs. Not justifying Martin or excessive pharma prices but it really is the case that we should disabuse ourselves from the notion that one should be entitled to life-saving care. That process comes with a lot of externalities. Most drugs are…
I couldn't disagree more. If it truly is life-saving (as opposed to death-prolonging) care, we really should _dedicate_ ourselves to the notion that each of us should be entitled to life-saving care. That should be an explicit part of the social contract.
Oh, and btw, society was NOT paying ~100k to keep your dad alive. Assuming you're here in the U.S., if you were looking at medical bills to figure out that number, SURPRISE! those numbers are just made up. (Seriously, they're fiction)
That's not to say that you made the wrong choice with your dad, mind you. We do tend to prolong life way past the point of cruelty in this country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not justifying fleecing taxpayers, but you also generally don't pay for drugs, your insurance or Medicare does. Most pharma (including iirc shkreli's) companies have access programs. Not justifying Martin or excessive pharma prices but it really is the case that we should disabuse ourselves from the notion that one should be entitled to life-saving care. That process comes with a lot of externalities. Most drugs are…
> but it really is the case that we should disabuse ourselves from the notion that one should be entitled to life-saving care. I couldn't disagree more. If it truly is life-saving (as opposed to death-prolonging) care, we really should _dedicate_ ourselves to the notion that each of us should be entitled to life-saving care. That should be an explicit part of the social contract. Oh, and btw, society was NOT paying ~…
I want an end to Pharmaceutical Ads in the USA
I spend $900 a month on an anti-seizure drug. At least, until I hit my $6,500 deductible. The company that makes it is publicly traded so I looked up their financials. The drug is a generic and the patent expired decades ago. Very little is spent on “R&D”. Almost all of their money goes to “advertising”.
I use a daily medication. Every time I got to get t he script filled I get asked if I want the brand name or the generic. There is a two or three times price difference, why would I ever get the brand name?