Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
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Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#2Note that I had to trim the lengthy title: I think this issue is an interesting and an important one to discuss, and that the discussion doesn’t benefit from the political framing. I certainly did editorialize however and would appreciate a better short title if one is offered.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#3The compound effect of lost progress might become more significant over time.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#4Well this is, in essence, the concern of the "ObamaCare Death Panel"!
Only instead of determining by a board of doctors whether you are entitled to care, a bureaucratic measure to determine whether a company should investigate cures to what ails you. Better for society, worse for you as an individual.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#5Well, that depends on specifically which drugs you subtract out of the set.
Some new drugs are not that critical to have. Others might be. Given that we don't / can't know which drugs will be developed in the future, it's kind of impossible to answer with certainty.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#6[flagged]
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#7You don't need to restrict the number of drugs, just how they are awarded patents. Big Pharma has learned bow to exploit the system, by making drugs slightly different or using the same drug to claim that it now also treats another issue, and this is basically how they're getting +20 year extensions in perpetuity, almost.
Patents should be awarded much more sporadically, and/or their time period should be reduced, while generics should be more encouraged.
Then the pricing issue will fix itself.
Also it might be a good idea to drastically cut the patent time for drugs where >50% or so of the research was done with government grants. I don't see why such drugs should get more than a 5-year patent.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#8Note that I had to trim the lengthy title: I think this issue is an interesting and an important one to discuss, and that the discussion doesn’t benefit from the political framing. I certainly did editorialize however and would appreciate a better short title if one is offered.
The current title answers a question, it should instead raise a question. [Currently: Developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it means lower prices]
Suggestion: Congress debates if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it means lower prices
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#9Well this is, in essence, the concern of the "ObamaCare Death Panel"! Only instead of determining by a board of doctors whether you are entitled to care, a bureaucratic measure to determine whether a company should investigate cures to what ails you. Better for society, worse for you as an individual.
Who is "you"? A public policy change along these lines would be better for some individuals and worse for others.
Re: Congress asks if developing slightly fewer medicines is OK if it lowers prices
#10[flagged]
The conservative movement keeps insisting than making decent healthcare and education affordable is socialism.
That almost never convince anyone that those are bad ideas, but it does a lot to make socialism looks good again!