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Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

costplusdrugs.com

71–80 of 191 posts

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#71

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

If for-profit companies keep doing all these awful things, why people keep paying them money?

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#73

From the faq; > Why are your prices so cheap? Not native English, but that is not English right? Edit; guess my school English told me that is wrong ; - prices are low - this medicine is cheap So learned something ;) thanks

Unless it's just because it's early, I can't find anything wrong with it and I've been reading it over for minutes now trying to find what someone might think is wrong with it.

EDIT: As an American, "Why is it so cheap?", and any variant, is completely normal.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#74
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope you make a better fist of it than the UK - the NHS is currently unreformable to any significant degree, due to it being weaponised by the left.

UK per capita health expenditure: $4650USD (#17). US per capita health expenditure: $11000USD (#1). I don't know what the 'left' is doing there but it seems very efficient.

Would be interesting to compare also with countries like Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Singapore etc.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#75
post #65
post #56

I just found out that insulin is ten times more expensive in the US compare to Europe. This can hardly be explained without the existance of a price cartel and something seems to be really rotten in the US drug market. Let's hope that efforts like this will help bring prices down to a more reasonable level.

also, supply and demand to a degree. y'all have some catching up to do before you're doing novalog shooters with deep fried dr pepper balls.

At ten times the market price of Europe margins must be huge and supply should skyrocket in a free market.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much it, but I would add that since medicine in the American sphere of influence is a cornered market the goal is always to deny care, so the patients are more desperate and pay higher prices. Endgame is a billionaire paying his whole billion-dollar fortune for a loaf of bread because he's starving. First you have to corner the market, then deny food, then eventually yes, eventually he will in fact pay…

Indeed there's no reason that Cuban won't, like Uber, wake up one day and 5X prices - or bring in the recently-released Pharma Bro Shkrelli. Good will and brand alone isn't sufficient to build a medical system on.

And I’m not so worried about Cuban. I’m worried about when he exits. The next owner(s) will certainly have a different agenda.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#77
post #57

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

Let's hope you make a better fist of it than the UK - the NHS is currently unreformable to any significant degree, due to it being weaponised by the left.

We all know the answer to this. Every single person in the world.

The way to fix the US system is for the health insurance market to be regulated like the auto insurance market, i.e., break up the state monopolies. Then for our employers to give us the money they're paying on our behalf. Then we could shop for a health insurance plan like auto insurance. Within a couple of years, the market would start sorting out the costs.

But no. We'll get socialized medicine. And it will look much like our disastrous Veterans Health Administration.

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#78

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

If for-profit companies keep doing all these awful things, why people keep paying them money?

Because at the moment the only real alternative is “dying”?

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#79

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

If for-profit companies keep doing all these awful things, why people keep paying them money?

Because their lives depend on it? Why do people keep paying ransoms? Does it mean that ransoming them is a good thing?

Re: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs

#80
post #57

As always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high…

Let's hope you make a better fist of it than the UK - the NHS is currently unreformable to any significant degree, due to it being weaponised by the left.

Eh, wasn't it pro-brexit that had banners saying "we're sending hundreds of millions £ to the EU each week, let's fund the NHS instead"?
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