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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?

#471

Post by foolinaround »

nostromo wrote: post #335
pkaye wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can personally import up to 3 months worth of medications if you have doctors prescription. https://www.fda.gov/industry/import-basics/personal-importat...

You can buy prescription drugs online from India without a prescription for super cheap. They arrive in your mail. This is probably illegal, but not enforced. I’m insured so it’d actually be cheaper for me personally to go in to the doctor and ask for a prescription. But I got tired of taking time out of my day for this - these are just beta blockers for fuck’s sake.

the good pharmacies in India have started asking for prescriptions.. so, one is left to go the sketchy/tinier ones, where quality can be expected to be lower as well.

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

#472

Post by [deleted] »

andyferris wrote: post #349
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is particularly prickly because the high cost paid in the US funds medical R&D and extremely expensive clinical trials which other countries are free riding on by imposing price controls. We still need to fund the R&D and clinical trials (unless they could be made less expensive somehow), so the most obvious solution would be to have other countries pay their fair share so the US could stop subsidizing every…

Europe does drug R&D and still manages to sell their drugs at a reasonable price to sick people (generally because their governments utilize their buying power for the good of their citizens). It seems to me that US people have been sold FUD by there own pharma companies, if I’m honest.

[deleted]

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

#473

Post by themaninthedark »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #435
coryrc wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy the old one for cheap now: https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/ That's 6% not 1% of the cost of new ones, though.

Since this month - and it is headline news all over the country... It shouldn't be extraordinary that cheap drugs needed by millions are available cheaply. (See also: Epi Pens.)

Since 2000.

>McInnis explained since 2000, Walmart has sold ReliOn insulin, the only private insulin brand on the market retailing at $24.88 per vial.

https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/verify-yes-walmart-do...

Walmart just started selling analog insulin(the newer formulation) just recently. https://nypost.com/2021/06/29/walmart-to-launch-its-own-low-...

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

#474

Post by philjohn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301
hyperhopper wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a third issue: The high cost of medicines that are low cost to produce, and are sold at low cost elsewhere

This one is particularly prickly because the high cost paid in the US funds medical R&D and extremely expensive clinical trials which other countries are free riding on by imposing price controls. We still need to fund the R&D and clinical trials (unless they could be made less expensive somehow), so the most obvious solution would be to have other countries pay their fair share so the US could stop subsidizing every…

Not necessarily - look at Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

They bought smaller Pharma co's, gutted R&D, and jacked up prices of the medications they sold.

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

#475

Post by ModernMech »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #333
ModernMech wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biden recorder the most votes in history, while winning the fewest counties. That's a head scratcher. Why is that a head scratcher? 40% the us population lives in just 100 counties (of 3000)

The stacking of improbabilities is a head scratcher. 12 million vote increase over Obama with 300+ fewer counties. Must be wildly more popular. Yet was losing the nomination of his own party. Can't 10k views on youtube, but somehow more black people turned out to vote for him in Detroit than Obama. I, like 40%+ of Americans have doubts about this Election.

I just don't understand why you're focusing on the counties. Obama's win was over a decade ago. People move around and concentrate in cities.

What would have been wildly improbable was Biden's opponent winning. The man was deeply unpopular, failed to win the popular vote twice, couldn't crack 50% approval for 4 years, was impeached, was being blamed for the terrible US government pandemic response, and had some of the deepest most consistent unpopular ratings of any president since that kind of sentiment has been tracked. Talk about stacking improbabilities.

> I, like 40%+ of Americans have doubts about this Election.

I can understand having some doubts after the election -- it was a very tumultuous time. But why do you still have doubts today? The dust has settled, the results have been looked at in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona, and no systemic fraud was found. Just read this report by Michigan Republicans [1]. They earnestly looked at everything alleged and found nothing. Absolutely nothing. What exactly are you having doubts about except vague feelings of improbability related to counties? Improbable things do happen, yes?

[1] https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/99/doccume...

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

#476

Post by l33t2328 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #402
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't, so I went and looked it up and you were right from what I found - Healthcare: The federal government spent nearly $1.2 trillion in fiscal year 2019. In addition, income tax expenditures for health care totaled $234 billion. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-much-does-... Defense: Defense spending amounted to $714 billion in FY 2020—and is expected to increase to $733 billion in FY 2021. http…

although I guess it is true the U.S could cut defense spending less than in half and pay 234 billion for everyone, so the original comment isn't totally off.

That’s not accounting private insurance, which is more than a trillion per year[1]

[1] https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

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

#477

Post by l33t2328 »

dmitriid wrote: post #446
l33t2328 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware that the US government already spends far more on health care than it does on the military? Half the US defense budget is no where near the amount spent on healthcare in the private sector.

> Are you aware that the US government already spends far more on health care than it does on the military At least 34% of that is spent on admin alone: https://time.com/5759972/health-care-administrative-costs/ and most of that is on privately insurers overhead. > Half the US defense budget is no where near the amount spent on healthcare in the private sector It would be way more than enough if there was some politi…

> and most of that is on privately insurers overhead.

It’s true that the plurality of healthcare costs are private insurance, but medicare and medicade combine to a little less than twice the entire defense budget.

The US government could cut significantly into the out of pocket expenses if they halved the defense budget. This link is interesting: https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

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

#478

Post by dcolkitt »

oblio wrote: post #403
WalterBright wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, it's the governments attempts to lower health care costs that produced this mess of high prices.

I highly doubt that even without government intervention prices would be lower. Healthcare is not a free market and yet Americans still try to pretend it's one. The information asymmetry is huge and nobody's going to negotiate/look around for anything when they think they're close to their deathbed.

> I highly doubt that even without government intervention prices would be lower.

Without government intervention , Amazon Basics would assuredly make dirt cheap versions of every major drug.

You can argue that this is bad for other reasons, but theres zero doubt that drugs would be cheap as water without government intervention (including IP protection and FDA mandated trials).

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

#480

Post by throwaway0a5e »

unishark wrote: post #452
iso1210 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care spending in the US was tracking with countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden (increasing from 6% of GDP to 8%) throgh the 70s. After 1980 US really took off though. In 1980 US spend 8.2% of GDP, Germany 8.1%, Denmark 8.4% By 1990 US was 11.2%, Germany and Denmark 8% US plataued in 1993 about 12%, lasting until 2000 when it took off again, reaching 16% in 2009, then was mostly flat (slightly reducing) unti…

What are you saying was the cause though? And either way, people still got healthcare and negotiated payments thinking they were close to their deathbeds prior to that era of increase. Also 1986 was the emergency room mandate, which used Medicare payments as leverage. And of course the obesity epidemic and the low-fat diet (blaming fat for heart disease) started around then. The ACA started in 2010 but phased in over…

The government's 1940s intervention that ensured white collar professionals would be removed from the problems for 60yr is generally considered the root cause of the current healthcare debacle. Without it we'd likely have a system that's more akin to what's the norm internationally.
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