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Thread: Older prescription drugs see huge price increase

  1. #11

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    This just illustrates the dilemma we face with free market healthcare: it isn't a free market when one has to choose between health and a lack of health, or even death. I think it's evident that in certain areas, we need to make changes, and pharmaceuticals is one of them. Yes there should be an incentive to go out and create something new, however, because it's not a real free market, we have to find a healthy limit.

    Also, it doesn't help that the guy is also a dickhead. Read his tweets.
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  2. #12

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    Finally, a candidate for the Worse Than Hitler award.
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  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Archigeek View Post
    This just illustrates the dilemma we face with free market healthcare: it isn't a free market when one has to choose between health and a lack of health, or even death. I think it's evident that in certain areas, we need to make changes, and pharmaceuticals is one of them. Yes there should be an incentive to go out and create something new, however, because it's not a real free market, we have to find a healthy limit.

    Also, it doesn't help that the guy is also a dickhead. Read his tweets.
    This is like the opposite of a free market problem.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Archigeek View Post
    This just illustrates the dilemma we face with free market healthcare: it isn't a free market when one has to choose between health and a lack of health, or even death. I think it's evident that in certain areas, we need to make changes, and pharmaceuticals is one of them. Yes there should be an incentive to go out and create something new, however, because it's not a real free market, we have to find a healthy limit.

    Also, it doesn't help that the guy is also a dickhead. Read his tweets.
    With drug patents lasting 14 years, if you, as a patient, could not afford name brand medications you would be limited to drugs that existed in 2001. Was modern medicine really so bad in 2001?

    Patent protections exist for a reason, to provide an economic incentive to find new drugs. Without patent protections we'd have cheaper medications, but also fewer of them. What would you rather have, delayed access to new medications, or no new medications?

    All of us rich people (us citizens) are subsidizing these medications for the rest of the world (poor people in africa). You may think poor people in the US are getting screwed, they're absolutely swimming in wealth compared to many people around the world. People who can get free medicine because we pay so much for it. This is a straight up wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor, on a global scale.

    Someone has to fund research, us first world citizens have been given that job. And as always, you can choose to only use medicine that was cutting edge in 2001 and earlier.

    Does this result in a two tier system? Yes, so what? You'd rather us all be together on one tier, the lower one? That is always the sign of a true marxist, they'd rather everyone be equal, even if it means equally miserable. We don't all drive the same cars, and yet auto accidents are such a cause of death and injury. The wealthy can afford fancy cars that shoot out radar and laser beams and have backup cameras and autobraking and 17 airbags, poor people not so much? But it is a matter of life and death, health or... not health. Why don't we fix that by..... not allowing car makers to charge extra for new advanced safety features....? Hrmmm that might not work. Why don't we just keep the current system where yes, if you can pay for it, you get something better, but eventually all cars are improved through new safety technology? Yes, much better idea.

  6. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by crb View Post
    With drug patents lasting 14 years, if you, as a patient, could not afford name brand medications you would be limited to drugs that existed in 2001. Was modern medicine really so bad in 2001?

    Patent protections exist for a reason, to provide an economic incentive to find new drugs. Without patent protections we'd have cheaper medications, but also fewer of them. What would you rather have, delayed access to new medications, or no new medications?

    All of us rich people (us citizens) are subsidizing these medications for the rest of the world (poor people in africa). You may think poor people in the US are getting screwed, they're absolutely swimming in wealth compared to many people around the world. People who can get free medicine because we pay so much for it. This is a straight up wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor, on a global scale.

    Someone has to fund research, us first world citizens have been given that job. And as always, you can choose to only use medicine that was cutting edge in 2001 and earlier.

    Does this result in a two tier system? Yes, so what? You'd rather us all be together on one tier, the lower one? That is always the sign of a true marxist, they'd rather everyone be equal, even if it means equally miserable. We don't all drive the same cars, and yet auto accidents are such a cause of death and injury. The wealthy can afford fancy cars that shoot out radar and laser beams and have backup cameras and autobraking and 17 airbags, poor people not so much? But it is a matter of life and death, health or... not health. Why don't we fix that by..... not allowing car makers to charge extra for new advanced safety features....? Hrmmm that might not work. Why don't we just keep the current system where yes, if you can pay for it, you get something better, but eventually all cars are improved through new safety technology? Yes, much better idea.
    Unfortunately, your capitalist utopia isn't how the real world works, any more than the Marxist example you mention. Of course there should be financial incentives to go out and invent new things. The problem here though, is that a free market economy requires free choice, and choices made when under duress, are not free choices. All the leverage is on one side, and that is not free market. So I would say to you, how much financial incentive is the right amount? If we agree that it should be there, and we both do, then we must also agree that there is an amount, a level of incentive that gets such drugs made. If you want to stand by your example of 2001, and the drugs available then are OK, then by such an argument, so too should the levels of incentive of 2001 be acceptable. But times change, and the levels of profit have gone through any sort of ceiling or expectation.

    It isn't always a case of just accepting drugs from 10 or 12 or 20 years ago. Sometimes, that new drug that we're very happy has been made, is the only drug that works. And then the choice isn't one of "well just go and use an older drug and suffer a little bit", it's a choice of life vs death (or crippling pain, etc). And this leads us back to the question of what is a free market? Because that isn't a free market any more than being forced out of your car at gunpoint by a criminal is a free market choice (that's an analogy, I'm not saying drug makers are criminals).

    Us rich people (US citizens) aren't subsidizing development for the poor folk in Africa. We're subsidizing profits for those who own companies that develop drugs. So I circle back to the question, how much incentive is enough incentive to develop a new drug? Since we've already agreed as a country that we are going to promote drug development via patents and exclusivity, we've already accepted that we, (not the free market) control the answer to that question. While I wouldn't suggest that we eliminate patent protection and exclusivity, (why would I, I'm an entrepreneur?), but I am suggesting that we need to make changes.

    Interesting reading:

    http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/Development.../ucm079031.htm
    Last edited by Archigeek; 09-22-2015 at 02:38 PM.
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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Archigeek View Post
    Unfortunately, your capitalist utopia isn't how the real world works, any more than the Marxist example you mention. Of course there should be financial incentives to go out and invent new things. The problem here though, is that a free market economy requires free choice, and choices made when under duress, are not free choices. All the leverage is on one side, and that is not free market. So I would say to you, how much financial incentive is the right amount? If we agree that it should be there, and we both do, then we must also agree that there is an amount, a level of incentive that gets such drugs made. If you want to stand by your example of 2001, and the drugs available then are OK, then by such an argument, so too should the levels of incentive of 2001 be acceptable. But times change, and the levels of profit have gone through any sort of ceiling or expectation.

    It isn't always a case of just accepting drugs from 10 or 12 or 20 years ago. Sometimes, that new drug that we're very happy has been made, is the only drug that works. And then the choice isn't one of "well just go and use an older drug and suffer a little bit", it's a choice of life vs death (or crippling pain, etc). And this leads us back to the question of what is a free market? Because that isn't a free market any more than being forced out of your car at gunpoint by a criminal is a free market choice (that's an analogy, I'm not saying drug makers are criminals).

    Us rich people (US citizens) aren't subsidizing development for the poor folk in Africa. We're subsidizing profits for those who own companies that develop drugs. So I circle back to the question, how much incentive is enough incentive to develop a new drug? Since we've already agreed as a country that we are going to promote drug development via patents and exclusivity, we've already accepted that we, (not the free market) control the answer to that question. While I wouldn't suggest that we eliminate patent protection and exclusivity, (why would I, I'm an entrepreneur?), but I am suggesting that we need to make changes.

    Interesting reading:

    http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/Development.../ucm079031.htm
    You world view is so warped. I have shit to do today, but you know, when someone is wrong on the Internet I just can't help it, so let me explain just how batshit crazy you are.

    Of course there should be financial incentives to go out and invent new things. The problem here though, is that a free market economy requires free choice, and choices made when under duress, are not free choices. All the leverage is on one side, and that is not free market.
    This line of reasoning is completely baseless, economically ignorant progressives try it all the time, but it is complete retardation. We have a third party payment system in the us for healthcare, this is actually the root of our problem of medical cost inflation but I fear going into those economic concepts would tax you too much at this point, so I won't run off on that tangent. Deciding what sort of insurance to get is not something you do with Jack Bauer holding a gun to your head. This strawman of duress is a farce you've invented. You do it probably sitting in the HR office of your employer, or at home while using a government website. Maybe you have no choice, because you dropped out of highschool, had a kid, and use crack cocaine, so you're on medicaid. What, what am I saying? Even that person has a choice, they had a choice not to drop out of school, they made it, didn't they?

    There is always a trade off for choices, ALWAYS, that is why they call them choices. You just can't fit into your brain that someone should make a choice between money and health, you hate that someone has to do it. You say that makes it "under duress" but as I said, that is just your own mental bullshit. People make choices every day that affect their life expectancy or health and have nothing to do with medical care or prescription medication.

    If we agree that it should be there, and we both do, then we must also agree that there is an amount, a level of incentive that gets such drugs made. If you want to stand by your example of 2001, and the drugs available then are OK, then by such an argument, so too should the levels of incentive of 2001 be acceptable. But times change, and the levels of profit have gone through any sort of ceiling or expectation.
    What? Just... what? Do you know why I picked 2001? Because 2015-14=2001. Next year it'll be 2002. In 14 years it'll be 2015. It has nothing to do with the level of profits of... Them? I don't know what you mean, hospitals, drug companies, insurance companies? None of the above have "gone through the ceiling." Maybe you're like... confused about how biotechnology and genetic sequencing have changed the drug discovery landscape? Many drugs come with really high prices because they come with really small markets. There are very rare diseases out there that need treatments, but developing a drug for a disease that afflicts 1000 people costs the same as developing a drug for cholesterol. So, you have to amortize the research cost over the number of patients, and diseases with fewer patients end up costing more. But it is certainly better than having the drug not exist. And in 14 years, unless the actual manufacturing cost is high (sometimes it is), it'll get cheaper. Our modern science has gotten better at finding treatments for these rare diseases, but with so few patients shoulding the hundreds of millions in development costs, prices do end up high.

    It isn't always a case of just accepting drugs from 10 or 12 or 20 years ago. Sometimes, that new drug that we're very happy has been made, is the only drug that works. And then the choice isn't one of "well just go and use an older drug and suffer a little bit", it's a choice of life vs death (or crippling pain, etc). And this leads us back to the question of what is a free market? Because that isn't a free market any more than being forced out of your car at gunpoint by a criminal is a free market choice (that's an analogy, I'm not saying drug makers are criminals).
    So, something that did not exist at some point in the last 14 years, that all humans from Lucy to today have lived without, you absolutely have to have it, but you don't want to pay for it? If you don't pay for it, who does? Someone else? Making new drugs is fucking expensive, and not only that, it is fucking hard. So hard that many fail, so not only do you need to make up the cost of developing the drug that works, you need to fund all those other drugs that failed too. You wouldn't do your job for free, I imagine, yet you apparently want all those scientists to work for free, and even the blue collar worker making petri dishes and test tubes to work for free too? Pay for it or do without. If it is really life and death then surely you'd rather have life than say, a house, a new car, or any of the other meaningless possessions people have, mortgage that shit, go into debt, get your drug. Maybe, you'll have to declare bankruptcy, your credit will be fucked for 7 years, but you will not be dead. Fucked credit or death... fucked credit or death... this is a really hard decision.... on one hand I'd have trouble getting a consumer credit card, on the other hand I would be dead. Why must these decisions be so tortuously hard!

    You just want to have your cake and eat it too you fucking parasitic marxist. You want brand new (within the last 14 years!) lifesaving life-altering science, but some other douchebag can pay for it? Fuck you asshole. If you want brand new medicine, pay for it, otherwise, make do with something from the Napster days. If assholes like you had your way we'd have less research, less new drug discovery, and more people would die, and more people would suffer. But you can't see past your own little selfish short term needs of wanting shit for free today.

    Us rich people (US citizens) aren't subsidizing development for the poor folk in Africa.
    Yes, we are, dumbass. Read a newspaper sometime. No, the Daily Worker does not count.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine...1021714150.htm


    We're subsidizing profits for those who own companies that develop drugs.
    I don't think you know what the word "subsidizing" means. Customers do not subsidize profits, customers create profits. A subsidizing relationship requires 3 parties, a provider, a payer, and a receiver. People who pay taxes (payer) subsidize healthcare through government medicaid (provider), for the poor (receiver). Westerners pay high prices for name brand drugs (payer), subsidizing drug research so that companies (provider), can give those same drugs to third world countries for cheap/free (receiver).

    What do you think drug company profits go to? Executive compensation? Yachts? Profits are what are left over after you pay your employees (sorry for the high level economic info, try to follow along). A little bit goes to dividends in a lot of companies, not all, the rest, right back into R&D. See, drug companies have pipelines of development, they know they have 14 years to get money out of a drug so they are constantly looking for the next big thing, and that requires reinvesting into the company. They can do it internally, they can do it by acquiring another company (thus reimbursing that company for their research), but it takes money. A profit is really just cash on hand at a moment in time when your fiscal year ends that hasn't been spent yet. You may have 0 profits in a year if you did spend it all, you can have profits in one year and none the next if you had more capital expenditures in one year than the other.

    Then yes, dividends of a few percent to shareholders... the bastards. Imagine, without those dividends you could cut drug costs by a few percent... but then where will the companies get capital? Suppose you're trying to grow your drug research company, and you need money to do that, you don't have any drugs yet, but there are some in your pipeline. You can get a loan maybe? You'll have to pay 5-20% interest probably, business loans to companies with no income tend to charge high interest. Or... or you can give what is called equity in your business to someone, and in exchange they might ask for a future dividend or repayment of their equity investment in the form of profit sharing. This allows you to raise capital to grow your business, and research more new drugs. This is such a popular arrangement there have even been these things called stock markets created to allow businesses to raise capital in this manner. Neat huh?

    Would people invest in drug companies and provide capital to drug companies if they couldn't get a return on their investment? No, of course not. Much like there needs to be an economic incentive to research drugs, there also needs to be an economic incentive to provide capital to drug companies. Otherwise... no one would do either, would they? They would invest in Facebook and all those scientists would have majored in finance instead.

    Profits, you see, are wonderful tools, and the profit motive is the single biggest driver for the advance of human civilization in history. Imagine... getting a benefit for working hard, being innovative, or inventing something to improve the human condition! What a great motivator!

    So I circle back to the question, how much incentive is enough incentive to develop a new drug?
    You don't set prices, I don't set prices, the government shouldn't set prices (every time they do, they fuck things up). The only thing that can set prices is the market. People like you have this limited understanding where you think people just pick prices arbitrarily. Price fixing is such a bad thing we arrest people when they try to do it, but you want the government to do it? Come on.

    Pricing is set by the collective customer base's willingness to pay based on the value proposition of the product in equilibrium to the cost of production in bringing the product to market. If a price is too high, not enough people will buy it. If the price is too low, not enough money will be earned to make production worth it. Companies will charge as much as they can, consumers will try to pay as little as possible. These two opposing forces will reach an equilibrium and a price will be established.

    The most high profile expensive drug lately has been those that cure Hep-C. This is a potentially fatal disease that we have a fucking cure for thanks to drug companies. These are fucking expensive, almost $100,000 for a cure. But that is $100,000 for a cure, vs a lifetime of treatments and injections. Take a loan out on it and you'll get a nice payback eventually, is it worth yet? Yes, so customers are willing to pay.

    Consider laser eye surgery, a couple grand, right? Sometimes lower now, down around $1000. Really expensive... but compared to a lifetime of glasses and contacts, kinda cheap actually. Hair removal vs a lifetime of razors? See a pattern here?

    So Gilead made these Hep-C drugs and made money hand over fist. Then AbbVie made one that was cheaper that also cured Hep-C. Then they made a deal with a pharmacy chain for a discount on top of that to be their exclusive provider of Hep-C cures. Other companies are rushing to market similar drugs. Prices will continue to decrease, and then in 13 or so years, they'll get real cheap. The entire world could end up cured of Hep-C... and all because we allowed the companies to sell a cure for almost $100,000. Yay science.

    Did you know overall US drug spending went down in 2013, yes, down. Do you know why? We all got healthy... no really... Lipitor went off patent. Times up on that gravy train, time to invent a new drug. Hooray!

    You seem to think drug research should be less economically rewarding than other fields because healthcare. I think it should probably be the single most economically rewarded field on earth.

    Do you know what happens when the government puts controls on pricing? You'll see it everywhere there is rent control. New rental units are not built, existing ones are not renovated. Rent control creates housing shortages. I, being a fan of medicine, want MORE cures, so I don't want government price controls. You... apparently... want less cures. So you're an asshole. If you had your way our children will have less cures available to them, how can you sleep at night?

  9. #19

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    Oh God that was entertaining. You write like Tokyo Rose. Good stuff. I'll respond later when I have more time.
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  10. #20

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    "You write like Tokyo Rose." Ha ha. I'll take it back further and have you know these bootstrap narratives make me want to punch the Kaiser right in the kisser.

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