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Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

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Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's HIPAA, and there's no such meaningful category as HIPAA-adjacent data. Data is either PHI held by HIPAA covered entities or it's not, and consumer health and wellness data that one would see as being equally sensitive but that involves consumer transactions with an entity which is not a “covered entity” as defined in HIPAA (including where the consumer takes information from a covered entity and provides it to t…

Minor quibble - HIPAA and HITECH are not the same thing, but many people lump the two together. HIPAA is the general policy. HITECH is what regulates how that policy can be implemented in technology.

> Minor quibble - HIPAA and HITECH are not the same thing

They are separate legislative actions, but HITECH is largely amendments to HIPAA, and can't really be considered in isolation. References to what HIPAA requires generally refer to not only the original HIPAA enactment but subsequent amendments (such as, but not limited to, those in the ACA and HITECH), and regulations and guidance adopted under HIPAA (as amended). Distinguishing HITECH from HIPAA makes sense in terms of discussing legislatibve history, but less so in terms of discussing current rules.

It is also not accurate to draw the division as HIPAA being "general policy" and HITECH being "how that policy can be implemented in technology." Its true that HITECH (more precisely, guidance/regulation mandated by and adopted subsequently to HITECH's amendments to HIPAA) provides more technical specificity in some areas, particularly privacy/security, than was in HIPAA (and regulations under HIPAA) prior to HITECH, but HITECH also amended aspects of HIPAA that fall into the general policy area (for instance, direct liability of Business Associates), and there were specific technical standards adopted under HIPAA prior to HITECH and also under mandates stemming from post-HITECH (notably, ACA) amendments to HIPAA.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#72
post #7

> Amazon claims Prime members will be able to save “up to 80 percent off generic and 40 percent off brand name medications when paying without insurance. This was buried in the article, but is IMO a bigger deal. In the long run, this could really drive down drug prices.

I'm not surprised, there's some serious shenanigans on medicine pricing and insurances.

Medicine prices are clearly inflated when you can buy at a huge discount using insurance, but then you can get apps like GoodRX, which is free and give you coupons that far exceed my insurance discount on every single time I had to fill a prescription. To the point that I don't even bother going through insurance anymore.

I saved thousands on medicine by just checking on GoodRx before buying it.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#73
post #7

> Amazon claims Prime members will be able to save “up to 80 percent off generic and 40 percent off brand name medications when paying without insurance. This was buried in the article, but is IMO a bigger deal. In the long run, this could really drive down drug prices.

Instead of the Govt being the price negotiator, we got giant corporations instead. yay

> price negotiator

Would you prefer the government to negotiate the price of your car for you? Markets are a powerful tool

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#74
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other countries, government “negotiation” is just a euphemism for price controls. An example of this is Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which regulates drug prices. This isn’t “negotiation”, this is just centralized policy-driven price control. The US could very well institute their own price controls on drugs, but it wouldn’t invalidate the value in services like Amazon’s, especially if the price…

I support price controls in the US, and the government manufacturing generics if necessary (stepping in if the private sector won't due to it not being profitable enough). EDIT: I removed an unrelated paragraph about Planned Parenthood and drug supply chain I thought was out of scope.

The US Pharma market is full of "found $20 bills" that just shouldn't exist if markets were as efficient as people wishcast they would be. I'd love for someone to rationalize PBMs in the same manner they rationalize every other horrible inefficiency in US health care.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#76
post #68
post #67

I'm waiting for the moment when they say Amazon launches on another planet. They seem to be doing everything. It's only time before they cover quite literally every product and service on the earth. At which point there's nothing to conquer except space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin

There's also Project Kuiper which is going to be actual Amazon owned satellites: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-receive...

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#77
post #61
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe the government will do a better job?

Better than the farce that is "competitive market forces." I have more faith in government than corporate structures delivering optimal cost pricing to consumers as opposed to optimizing their profit margins. Competive forces only work while there's competition, the second competition declines, rest assured consumer pricing is the first to take a hit.

Competitive forces in the health care market in the US don't function (pretty much at all) because of government induced market distortions and regulatory capture. FDA certification enormously drives up the cost of medicines and medical devices; government bureaucrats have no incentive to balance safety with time to market, price, availability, supply, or diversity of sources; most of these represent risk to the people making the decisions. Most US consumers don't pay for their own medical care, they pay for insurance that pays for their medical care. Often their employer pays some of the costs of insurance. Insurance usually fixes the cost that the consumer has to pay, e.g. a $10 copay. So there's little incentive for consumers to shop around for medical care, meaning that consumers can't drive prices down with normal market decisions. States and the federal government put enormous restrictions on insurance, driving up the cost of insurance. Health insurance doesn't function as in other sectors, where payouts are rare- most insurance is a bet - I'll bet you $3000 a year my house burns down - I'll bet you $400000 it doesn't. Health insurance is more like a discount plan, kind of like a CostCo membership. AMA and insurance companies lobby for limiting supply of doctors and hospitals, respectively, which drives costs up. They do this under state licensure laws purporting to improve quality or safety. Bottom line is that almost every single aspect of the US health care market has had government intervention effectively disable any market based control. The situation would fix itself quickly if we deregulated EVERYTHING regarding healthcare, and restricted insurance to catastrophic event coverage. Businesses would quickly come up with ways to serve the market in a market-friendly fashion. Worried about pre-existing conditions? We'd see businesses like "diabetes maintenance organzations" where you pay a monthly fee and you get all the treatment you need related to that condition. Accidents would still be covered by insurance. You'd pay privately for things like doctor visits for the flu, etc., but supply and consumer choice would drive those costs down, e.g. if I have a sprained ankle I could just use an app on my phone to summon a military vet who was a battlefield medic to treat it, rather than pay for 15-30min of time of someone with 24 years and half a million dollars worth of education. What about quacks/frauds? We know how to deal with them - reputation (AngiesList, Consumer Reports, Google Reviews) on the front-end, courts on the back-end.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#80
post #45
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they do a better job in lots of other countries? I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that a lot of the countries with socialized medicine such that their government is the one negotiating with drug manufacturers pay substantially less for drugs than customers in the US.

I've been reading some books on the medical industry and one of the things pointed out is that the price controls will often not provide enough profit to R&D new drugs. That the US ends up subsidizing a lot of R&D cost that everyone benefits from. If this is the case, I wonder what would happen to drug development if that goes away. Note, I'm not saying there's not too much profit from drugs. These statements don't h…

If this is true, what is the point of US consumers subsidizing the R&D is they themselves cannot benefit from it.
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