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Drugs and healtcare costs.


Ms. Spam
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I'm at lunch so I thought I would post something I found on Facebook in my feed for discussion. First the article about how a CEO defends jacking the price of a drug from $13.50 to $750.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34320413

CEO Martin Shkreli has said that the company will use the money it makes from sales to research new treatments.

The drug treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction that affects people with compromised immune systems.

After Turing's acquisition, a dose of Daraprim in the US increased from $13.50 to $750.

The pill costs about $1 to produce, but Mr Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager, said that does not include other costs like marketing and distribution, which have increased dramatically in recent years.


Now the post that was added by decidedly liberal poster in my Facebook feed:


Whatever can be said about this particular greedy capitalist who absurdly jacked up the price of a life-saving drug for toxoplasmosis, it exposes the fact that healthcare should not be governed by a laissez faire free market. Healthcare is a basic human need, and human health should never be subordinated to the desire to turn as much profit as possible. Patients should not be denied access to needed treatments or medications because somebody wants to make a big profit.

Healthcare should be treated more like a utility. Like electricity and water, every human being needs healthcare. The market does have a positive role to play, such as in providing incentive for the development of new medications. But the people through their government must regulate the healthcare market to make sure that the number one priority is delivering healthcare to those who need it. And, at least in certain areas, the government needs to be prepared to step in and provide services directly if the market is unable or unwilling to behave ethically and with a higher standard of purpose than is tolerated in other markets.

For example, under the Affordable Care Act, which is based on a model developed by conservatives as an alternative to Single Payer proposals, insurance companies are given the opportunity to prove that a for-profit company can successfully administer healthcare benefits so that everyone who needs care can obtain it at a reasonable and non-extortionist price. The ACA has already achieved considerable success in driving down the numbers of uninsured and putting the brakes on out-of-control cost increases. But time will tell whether the insurance companies (Aetna, I'm looking at you) will recognize and conform to the higher values inherent in the healthcare business, or treat it as just another business where profit is king and patient welfare is secondary.

If the insurance companies and other market players in the healthcare business do not behave themselves, we may conclude at some point that the profit motive is inherently incompatible with the higher calling of healthcare.

So how do you guys feel about the pricing of drugs?

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Well, the thing is, if the market were truly unfettered, couldn't somebody come along and produce basically the same medication under a different brand name for, say, $300 dollars a pill... then somebody else at $150, and so on and so forth?

 

It seems more like somebody "capitalizing," if you will, on both the regulatory system and a small but reliable marketplace. This is one instance where it's probably OK to hate both the game and the player.

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There are some cancer drugs that cost so much they bankrupt you to survive a cancer. I guess it helps fund research but would it be better to get it out to more people so you can record the survival rates and get more information?

 

Also, I think the CEO of this company comes off like a smarmy ass.

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My good friend, Craig, is dying from Huntington's Disease. His drugs would cost him in excess of $10,000 a month here in the US. So instead his doctor is in cahoots with a doctor in Canada who prescribes and fills his prescriptions then ships them back down here for less than $300 a month. To me, this says all that needs to be said about our healthcare system and BIG PHARMA.

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Marketing and distribution costs? I laugh at those. I hope everyone realizes the much larger expense that a drug company is never going to broadcast is lawsuit and litigation expenses. New drugs hitting the market are immediately jumped on by lawyers. Why? Because it's low-hanging fruit for them. Patients taking new-to-market haven't had the benefit of knowing the long-term effects of these new meds because...well duh. They're new and not well documented yet. Also, the demographic for most prescription drugs are people who are unhealthy to begin with, and are more likely to have a case they can win or settle in court. Thirdly, the med itself often treats a dangerous condition which lawyers will try to allocate blame from.

 

For instance: Pradaxa. A new-to-market drug blood thinner. It's a next gen Coumadin basically, but with less required monitoring (yay!) and less side effects (yay again!). Very exciting stuff. This drug is currently being ripped apart by lawyers because the drug may be "unsafe"...less so than other drugs in it's class, and less so than the condition it treats...but it's undocumented. WIN for lawyers, so if you've suffered from stroke, internal bleeding, blood clots, organ failure, tissue damage, etc. call the law offices of Dana & Dana Skywalker, as you may be entitled to immediate compensation! Well no ****ing shit ass hole, because, like all blood thinners, they can, by design cause internal bleeding as a result. Stroke? It treats people who have had them! Not perfectly healthy individuals. If you're on this med, that means you are at high risk of stroke by definition. blood clots? They come with the stroke territory as well, and with blood clots comes organ/tissue damage so...yeah. The drug is almost certainly not the cause of these things, but definitely correlated. Lawyers get boners when new drugs like these hit the market. Drug companies will settle settle settle because it's not worth the time, money, aggravation, or publicity.

 

My point is there is more than enough greed to go around. Drug companies. Lawyers. People. This is America. In America if you don't make money you're a loser so let's sue somebody!

 

Let's not discount research & development costs either. We have the best hospitals in the world, and it's a good thing because we are overweight and unhealthy. We have every reason to try to develop new and better drugs. How else are we going to do it? Government paid scientists and chemists? It would get screwed up and swept under the rug since it will be regulated by itself basically. Plus they wouldn't finish a single damn thing. I don't trust big pharma, but I trust them more than the government in that respect because money gets things done. And you know what? If you develop a drug that cures cancer or something you SHOULD get rich.

 

PS I think the guy seems like a dick too, but that could be jealousy talking I don't know.

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Is healthcare a basic human right? Do we all deserve this though?

 

I mean back when the states were just forming they did leaching and people died from TB.

 

I'm not defending this CEO and I think it is criminal to jack the costs up for a particular group of people with immune deficiencies such as people who are HIV positive which toxoplasmosis would kill. We raise money to help support research in this so why raise the price and call it "research funding" other than pure greed.

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I'm just waiting for Amanda/Carrie to come in and profess she's finally found her one true love.

Even if DANA-kin Skywalker is her true love, I wouldn't be quick to dismiss what he's saying (not that you are -- idk).

 

I don't know a ton about this issue, but I do know several people who have practiced or are actively practicing medicine. Ofc I'm biased in their favor, and I do believe there is a place for malpractice lawsuits and such, but even so, some of the stories I've heard about former patients and lawyers are pretty freakin' nuts.

 

Obviously lawyers are far from the only problem, but I'd like to see lawsuits and litigation explored a little more as a factor for problems in the world of medical care. In lucid and simple terms, preferably by somebody without an axe to grind.

 

:eek:

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Is healthcare a basic human right? In this country it is a commodity. That's why people become pharmacists, doctors, and drug developers. Greed is a necessary evil to keep the wheels of progress turning. That's what drives our progress. Now plenty of doctors have become great humanitarians in the process, and I have great admiration for people like that. Albert Schweitzer comes to mind; not American obviously but a physician who did a lot of humanitarian work in Africa...but people like that are the exception, not the rule. So for all the non-Albert Schweitzers of the world, it's necessary.

 

That's just how we do it in this country, that's all I'm saying. Patent laws exist for a reason, so you gotta pay the man first. Does Canada do it better? They do it cheaper...that's for sure. Cheaper is better. But are they innovating and developing new, improved drugs like the US? I honestly don't really know and im not going to assume anything but I would wager not like we do. So...if you want that shiney new pill that only we got.... well it is what it is.

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This is really what so is distasteful to people of a liberal mind though.

 

I mean the guy who invented a polio vaccine gave it away for free - almost.

Yep, he was supported from the school of med and had funding from March of Dimes (by a diff. name then). He also famously refused to pursue a patent it. Imagine that!

 

That said, even in "today's greedy world," I don't think greed is a big motivator for people who are researching new treatments/cures. Maybe for the people who fund them, but not researchers themselves.

 

Important note: the guy who bought Daraprim and jacked up the price did not research the medicine.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

You can call me a bleeding heart socialist for it and I wouldn't argue. This guy is a complete piece of **** and I wouldn't be sad if he fell off a cliff.

I'd like to push him off a cliff. F*** that guy.

 

 

I'm just waiting for Amanda/Carrie to come in and profess she's finally found her one true love.

This CEO, Martin Shkreli, is just straight up evil. I'd like to believe even CM isn't nearly that bad.

 

 

This is really what so is distasteful to people of a liberal mind though.

 

 

You don't have to be liberal to have a conscience.

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One person doesn't make an entire concept bad.

 

I know a guy who adopted three children, all siblings. Years later it came out that he had been repeatedly raping the oldest daughter for years. but that doesn't make adoption evil.

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I am totally not one of those "WE NEED A REVOLUTION YESTURDAAAAY!" shriekers who want to tear everything down (and then redistribute the wealth and control to themselves and like-minded friends), but I'm honestly a little bothered by how satisfied people are with simply verbally beating up on that greasy little hedge fund weasel then moving on to the next outrage. The creep is just a symptom of a system that can be taken advantage of in majorly harmful and unethical ways.

 

One person doesn't make an entire concept bad.

Agree totally. Bad people can provide examples of the need for controls on the implementation of basically good concepts, however.
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