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

mattstoller.substack.com

481–490 of 595 posts

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

#481
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe does drug R&D and still manages to sell their drugs at a reasonable price to sick people Most novel R&D, in America and Europe, happens in biotech. (“Big” pharma does trials, manufacturing scaling and distribution.) The investment thesis for most of this research does not work without the American market. This doesn’t mean high drug prices are a necessity. Just that the funding needs to be replaced if we wan…

That's fair enough, maybe Europeans should pay more than they do for pharmaceuticals and get away with paying less due to the huge profits Pharma makes out of the US health care system. That's not really on Europe though. It's for the US to sort out it's horrifically dysfunctional health care system, if it chooses to. Honestly I don't know if what Biden plans to do, particularly in relation to Big Pharma is reasonabl…

Political resistance is the disease.

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

#483
post #291
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So are the nannies and the landscapers. Are these also a racket?

We're talking western countries, not places where you would expect it to be less like Mexico, India, Brazil. Basic domestic services are going to be about the same across various western countries. Drugs and health services in general are 2-4x what other western countries pay AT A MINIMUM. Most have free health care.

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

#484
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Do I have to spell it out?

"Cheaper but people die due to lead poisoning" (replace "lead" with your favorite toxic chemical) does not count as cheaper, for medicine. It needs to be cheaper and trustworthy. The Iron Line of medicine, I guess.

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

#485
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least give the option of the old shit It’s available. It’s just far less convenient and much easier to fuck up in a life-threatening way. The insulin price meme is a particularly bad one.

It is really not. The price disparity between US and rest of world is quite massive.

The often quoted prices do not take into account the actual price paid by consumers, the type of insulin being compared, or relative purchasing power of the countries. I don't actually know how if insulin is actually all that much more expensive across the world when taking those factors into account. Seems like cherry picking without controlling for all of those factors

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

#486

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...

I hate anecdotal evidence, but jimbon45 is a perfect example showing that inbreeding leads to lower IQ.

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

#487

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.

"Well paid nurse"... Now thats a funny one.

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

#488

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.

I think pretty much all players in the US health system are a problem. They all benefit to some degree from this corruption. If I had to pick the worst I would name hospitals. But everybody else profits handsomely too.

Everyone except for the people who are actually providing direct patient care like the nurses and the technicians.

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

#489
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart sells vials of the generic “old shit” for cheap.

Do you have a source? I wasn't able to find any mention of it on Walmart's website.

https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are off by a factor 10. The 1 billion is in total over all the time needed to produce the drug (about 10 years), while ads are per year.

ok, so 65 drugs in development, with 6.5 drugs released per year? does that seem plausible for the entire pharma industry?

You notice you are off by a factor 10 and don't pause for a moment but instead immediately go "ok, so"?
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