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Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

nytimes.com

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Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#71

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

tptacek wrote: post #69
bamfly wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300k (household) isn't upper-middle, before the term became diluted to mean "middle, but with a little left over every month"—the upper-middle of Fussell's Class and The Official Preppy Handbook - Good private school for a kid or two (guess what one of the bribes to Thomas was...). Not gonna get away with much less than $25k/yr/kid, there, and it goes up from there. - Long vacations expensive places a couple times a…

I don't know anything about the broader argument here. I responded to a comment that said that $300k/yr would only get you a small place in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago. That's categorically false. Mortgage calculators are premised on other expenses scaling with your housing cost, and capture the other bulletpoints ("country club membership", really?). Someone with a $300k/yr income will end up with an e…

$800k is not getting you anything spectacular in the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago unless you're looking at 1 and maybe 2 bedroom condos.

The median condo is not particularly great - and it goes for ~$660k in most of the nicer neighborhoods.

The median house is well over $800k in the nicer neighborhoods.

And, again, Chicago is one of the most affordable cities in the US.

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#72

Post by tptacek »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #71
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about the broader argument here. I responded to a comment that said that $300k/yr would only get you a small place in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago. That's categorically false. Mortgage calculators are premised on other expenses scaling with your housing cost, and capture the other bulletpoints ("country club membership", really?). Someone with a $300k/yr income will end up with an e…

$800k is not getting you anything spectacular in the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago unless you're looking at 1 and maybe 2 bedroom condos. The median condo is not particularly great - and it goes for ~$660k in most of the nicer neighborhoods. The median house is well over $800k in the nicer neighborhoods. And, again, Chicago is one of the most affordable cities in the US.

You can just look at Redfin to see that this isn't true. You can get a 4bdr in the Loop for ~$800k. I've spent most of my life here, including the last 19 years, and I just bought a new house here; I think you're going to have a hard time talking me down from my own lived experience.

The standard message board tactic for wriggling out of this position is to define "the nice neighborhoods" in Chicago ludicrously narrowly, like the only nice places to live here are Lincoln Park and... well that's it. But even Lincoln Park is doable at $800k.

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#73

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

tptacek wrote: post #59
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300k - after taxes - is not buying you a lavish lifestyle of in most major cities. It's probably not even getting you comfortably into one of the better neighborhoods, unless your partner is the bread winner. Chicago is one of the most affordable major cities in the US - and $300k isn't gonna do more than have you comfortably living in a small condo in the better neighborhoods.

Huh? $300k/yr will get you pretty much anything you want in Chicagoland. By standard consumption patterns, that's an $800k house. An $800k Chicago house is quite large. It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

> It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

The average $800k+ condo in the loop is 2 bedrooms.

Sure, maybe there's a couple rare 4-bdrm's for $800k - but there's a reason they are so much cheaper...

At the moment - there does not appear to be a single 4-bedroom listed on Zillow for less than https://www.zillow.com/the-loop-chicago-il/?searchQueryState...

In fact - there's not one listed above $800k either...

There are only 3 3bedroom condos for less than $800k - and the average HOA would adjust the price to well over $1M - making them not affordable...

I would not say if you can find 1 condo in a decent neighborhood that's semi-affordable at $300k that somehow my point is refuted that $300k - after taxes - is really not that much money...

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#74

Post by tptacek »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? $300k/yr will get you pretty much anything you want in Chicagoland. By standard consumption patterns, that's an $800k house. An $800k Chicago house is quite large. It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

> It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop. The average $800k+ condo in the loop is 2 bedrooms. Sure, maybe there's a couple rare 4-bdrm's for $800k - but there's a reason they are so much cheaper... At the moment - there does not appear to be a single 4-bedroom listed on Zillow for less than https://www.zillow.com/the-loop-chicago-il/?searchQueryState... In fact - there's not one listed above $800k eit…

I encourage anyone who's interested in this weird claim to just go to Redfin and punch 750k-850k condo into the search, and shop around. If you're not from around here, do take note that living in the actual Loop is not something people generally do! It's the Chicago equivalent of owning a 4 bedroom condo in Nolita.

Where you'd probably actually buy, with $800k burning a hole in your pocket, is Wicker/Bucktown, Lakeview, Hyde Park or Roscoe Village. If you were price conscious, you'd buy in Lincoln Square or Jeff Park.

$800k will also buy you a pretty fantastic house in Chicago. Of course, it won't buy you a house in the Loop, because houses don't go in the Loop. When people in the HN demographic think about the parts of Chicago they think are high-status, they're not thinking like a typical house buyer, who has kids, cares about the local schools, and wants a yard. Those people are buying in Beverly, Portage Park, and Jeff Park. Houses there top out at $800k; I had a sinking feeling looking at Redfin listings there (oh shit, am I wrong about this?) untiL I realized I had to drop the lower limit way below $750k to see all the available houses.

I assume this thread is about how hard it is to survive in major American cities on $300k/yr. I think you're generally doing OK just about anywhere in the US at $300k/yr, but I assure you you're doing well in Chicago making that.

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#75

Post by toomuchtodo »

BurningFrog wrote: post #66
toomuchtodo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about we dictate a price on whatever industry you happen to be in? Maybe your product cost billions of dollars to develop, but how about we force you to sell it to everyone for peanuts? If I work in an industry where human life depends on it, yes! I entirely agree . This is not a market to corner, regardless of your innovation and how clever you are. > Especially considering that their job is literally to save…

The point is that if pharmaceutical research is made unprofitable, that doesn't mean "other people" will do it. It means no one will do that work.

Roads are profitable? Non profits are profitable? There is an enormous amount of valuable work done in aggregate, every day, funded without the intent to profit and with work performed by people not maximizing for comp.

DARPA's mRNA research that directly led to rapid COVID vaccine development comes to mind. Cut out the middleman. Fund the research directly. We're paying for the end result one way or another (if not with direct government payment, with government payment to companies who are then taking profit, spending marketing/admin expenses, etc).

You make it sound as if nothing will get done if poor corporations can't lock medical tech up behind economic gates. We can always go back to ruthless capitalism if pharma price controls don’t work.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8426978/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#76

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #74
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop. The average $800k+ condo in the loop is 2 bedrooms. Sure, maybe there's a couple rare 4-bdrm's for $800k - but there's a reason they are so much cheaper... At the moment - there does not appear to be a single 4-bedroom listed on Zillow for less than https://www.zillow.com/the-loop-chicago-il/?searchQueryState... In fact - there's not one listed above $800k eit…

I encourage anyone who's interested in this weird claim to just go to Redfin and punch 750k-850k condo into the search, and shop around. If you're not from around here, do take note that living in the actual Loop is not something people generally do! It's the Chicago equivalent of owning a 4 bedroom condo in Nolita. Where you'd probably actually buy, with $800k burning a hole in your pocket, is Wicker/Bucktown, Lakev…

There is a 5 bed, 3 bath 3000 sq ft Victorian on my block in Hyde Park listed at $659k that I bet will go closer to 600.

It’s in good shape, doesn’t need any major work and is in the desirable school zone.

https://redf.in/tweamI

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#77

Post by paulddraper »

jmclnx wrote: post #3

>Supreme Court might be sympathetic to some of the industry’s arguments No surprise here, the US Supreme Court is now just like the rest of the US Gov, they are very happy to take bribes. And due to how the US Gov is structured, no way to stop them from holding out their hand. So getting appointed to that Court is a great gig, you do not even have to care about the law these days.

> no way to stop them from holding out their hand

Same as for any other official: impeachment

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#78

Post by willio58 »

miley_cyrus wrote: post #32
Justsignedup wrote: post #6

An industry that heavily lobbied for a law which heavily boosts their profits wants to heavily lobby against the destruction of such a law? Shocked. /s Honestly I see no theoretical benefit to not allowing the government to negotiate. Maybe there is a practical one?

Sure, if you want much less innovation: "IRA means 40% reduction in new drugs over 10 years, report finds" https://bio.news/health/ira-impact-new-drugs-pharmaceutical-...

People innovate because the want to, not because they can use that innovation to price gauge sick and dying people.

The only people you are protecting with this idea are the top 1% of the top 1%. We will always value medicine, but we don’t have to line the pockets of billionaires with our cash so they will bestow upon us cures from the ether.

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#79

Post by willio58 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16
BurningFrog wrote: post #15

Obligatory reminder that "negotiations" in this case just means that Medicare dictates a price.

Medicare dictating a price sounds fine. Gravy train is ending (pharma dictating the price) and pharma is in shambles. I’d like the Times and the media in general to start reporting the names of the individuals participating in these efforts, instead of faceless corporations.

Agreed. Recently we’ve seen some multi-million/billionaires called out specifically for saying horrific things about their workers striking and it’s great. When you hoard so much wealth I honestly don’t know how it could be argued you should have privacy. We should have public accounting of their goings on, they’re sometimes more influential than our presidents.

Re: Drugmakers are ‘throwing the kitchen sink’ to halt Medicare price negotiations

#80

Post by willio58 »

arp242 wrote: post #55
miley_cyrus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true: insulin is not a drug whose price is being negotiated here ( https://www.jmcp.org/doi/full/10.18553/jmcp.2023.29.3.229 ). The drugs whose prices are being negotiated are the brand new ones, the ones that took billions of dollars to develop. Without the promise of a payoff, future R&D will be halted, and humanity won't get benefit from the new medicines.

Yet many other comparable countries pay substantially lower prices, and presumably the drug companies are still making a profit of that. "If you don't pay us through the nose with billions we'll stop developing drugs" seems like a rather odd argument; disallowing the government from engaging in the free market on price in pretty much any area it would set of all sorts of corruption red flags. This is why all sorts of…

Exactly. It’s not like we’re saying people in medicine shouldn’t make good money. I’m glad doctors are paid well for example. What we don’t like is lack of price transparency and needlessly expensive medications. We allow drug companies to patent drugs, creating an inherent monopoly on that drug, then allow them to decide on an arbitrary price, usually a massive mark up over a reasonable profit margin. This has to stop and I love that there has been progress on this recently. But we need much much more
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