Earlier quoted context omitted.
Health insurance in general is the problem; PBMs/discount cards are just a cherry on top. Insurance is fundamentally incompatible with clear and consistent pricing.
Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and doctors are free to charge by the medicine, by the night, and by the minute. For example, this place does it: https://surgerycenterok.com/surgery-prices/ Insurance companies do not force the sellers to use complex billing practices, they would benefit from more transparent pricing (since they are seeking to pay less). The root cause is healthcare is inherently complicated and…
Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
91–100 of 134 posts
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#92Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#93Why is the supreme-court slow-walking the tariff decision which is crystal clear as lower courts clearly demonstrate only Congress can set taxes/tariffs? It would end inflation within 90 days Even their silly 15% tariff fallback law abuse would be more sane than the 50-150% currently Next few years is going to be insanity
Liberals vehemently opposed the idea, calling it 'regressive', meaning it would be socially backwards, but the idea held appeal as a simple and fair way of "taxing everyone equally". For some reason, a majority of public opinion leaned left on this particular idea, and it never gained a foothold.
When I learned of the blanket tariffs being imposed on everything imported into the US, I think I knew what I was seeing-- this was a National Sales Tax in disguise. This was an attempt to fund the federal government off the backs of people, who will at the very least pay 10% more for everything they buy.
The big lie was told-- that this was an emergency necessary correction for an ongoing American-life-threatening international trade imbalance. But the real lie was bald-faced, right there in front of us-- everybody was going to have to pay more for everything, because this was, and is, a new tax.
I think there's a slim chance the Supreme Court may not even issue a decision addressing the legality of the president's impertnent array of tariffs. Although two full months have passed since oral arguments were made before the court, we may have an even longer wait for a decision, because it sure looks like John Roberts and company can't find/manufacture a reason to uphold/allow the president's seizure of tariff power.
They have demonstrated a preference for empowering the president. The court's character is displayed with quick mute indecipherable decisions from the shadow docket, while unpopular new anti-precedents get leaked ahead of release, delayed until opinion can be spun. So I would not be surprised to see the decision delayed, maybe even all the way to next October.
However it turns out, I'll pay the price and take my medicine, and try to be happy.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes perfect sense. The prices are inflated with a few extra zeroes to try to force people to get any job with insurance. The big numbers are just to scare people. You can also turn negotiating with the hospital into a full time job and get the real numbers. If you're too unhealthy to do either of these then you can just die I guess.
Well, there is that. But there is also the fact that they charge you or your insurance company to smooth out other costs like $2,000,000.00 cancer treatment or for people who show up to the hospital, don’t have insurance, and the hospital has to treat them. I’m reaching the point where I don’t really care if it’s private or public, but what we are doing today is the worst of both worlds. It either needs to be fully p…
I bet whatever cost these patients cause, the hospital will inflate this by an order of magnitude. It’s the same with charity care. Hey, my sticker price for an aspirin is $1000. I’ll give away 10 aspirin and I can get credit for $10000 charity.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#95"Rome said the companies seem to be maximizing prices while negotiating discounts behind the scenes with health and drug insurers and then setting yet another price for direct-to-consumer cash-pay sales." This describes the biggest problem in US healthcare. No clear and consistent pricing. If we had a real market, you would get a prescription and then go to the seller with the lowest price. And everybody would get th…
Health insurance in general is the problem; PBMs/discount cards are just a cherry on top. Insurance is fundamentally incompatible with clear and consistent pricing.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and doctors are free to charge by the medicine, by the night, and by the minute. For example, this place does it: https://surgerycenterok.com/surgery-prices/ Insurance companies do not force the sellers to use complex billing practices, they would benefit from more transparent pricing (since they are seeking to pay less). The root cause is healthcare is inherently complicated and…
Insurance companies absolutely benefit from the higher and opaque prices, because they negotiate rebates with providers. This allows them to maximize patient copays and ensures they hit their deductible, i.e. paying as much as possible under their respective insurance plans. Contrast this with a no-rebate world with cheaper/more transparent pricing. Fewer patients would hit their out of pocket maximum. They can use t…
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones? Turns out all the low hanging fruit have already been picked, so the only "more efficient ones" left are stuff like gene therapy, which are absurdly expensive, but still theoretically cheaper than a lifetime of care. Unsurprisingly the high sticker price draws much backlash from the public and…
> all the low hanging fruit have already been picked What is that based on? Also, I'm not talking about 'low hanging fruit' necessarily; only solutons that become cost effective for vendors if drug prices aren't so extreme. There's reason to think there is low-hanging fruit: Research is incentivized for the most profitable solutions for the vendors, not the most cost-effective solutions for patients.
>There's reason to think there is low-hanging fruit: Research is incentivized for the most profitable solutions for the vendors, not the most cost-effective solutions for patients.
High drug prices also mean you can charge more for one-off cures. See, the gene therapy example above.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#98"Rome said the companies seem to be maximizing prices while negotiating discounts behind the scenes with health and drug insurers and then setting yet another price for direct-to-consumer cash-pay sales." This describes the biggest problem in US healthcare. No clear and consistent pricing. If we had a real market, you would get a prescription and then go to the seller with the lowest price. And everybody would get th…
Last year I needed to get blood work done, some of which may or may not be covered. It took me two weeks, dozens of phone calls, and multiple "escalations" to learn what would be covered and what the price would be if it wasn't Totally insane. The kicker is that after all that, the price I was billed wasn't even the price I was given (thankfully it was less though).
They couldn’t answer if cholesterol test would count. How is that not automatically classified as preventative? It’s one of the most basic metrics.
So they want me to get the doctor to give me the ICD code and the diagnosis code. Or something. Two different codes. They’ve added so much bureaucracy and crap into the system because they can. Nobody’s stopping them and there’s too many fingers in the pie.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in Brazil, we have something called 'Genéricos.' These are essentially the same medications as the brand-name versions, produced with the same chemical ingredients, but they often cost half the price, sometimes even cheaper than that. Insanely comical.
Now look into the places that manufacture these generic versions. Not all factories are equal, and some are not of the best of reputations.
Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don’t do pro bono PR for those companies. Healthcare isn’t so complicated that every other country in the world hasn’t been able to solve it for significantly less money and far less stress for users, not to mention better health outcomes in most cases.
Providing a chain of reasoning to support a logical conclusion is not “pro bono PR for those companies”. Claiming that someone doing that seems like an emotional kneejerk reaction to an idea that does not jive with the model of the world you would like to have. I even provided an example of a healthcare provider choosing to be more transparent. It is always Eli Lilly’s choice to sell their medicine at a flat price to…