Who here feels there should be some form of price controls in the drug industry in the US.
Comments and opinions welcome.
Comments and opinions welcome.
Are you For price Controls in the Drug Industry
- Thread starter smashp
- Start date
With 35% profit margins, 28% of revenue spent on advertising and marketing, and ONLY 12% spent on R&D you think that is bad enough.
Then you realize that 8 of 10 most recent drug breakthroughs and almost all cancer drugs were actually researched at the national institute of Health.
So they are raping us at the drug store claiming they need to maintain R&D then raping our Tax dollars for Free R&D then Patenting those products that the peoples money paid to develop.
put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Then you realize that 8 of 10 most recent drug breakthroughs and almost all cancer drugs were actually researched at the national institute of Health.
So they are raping us at the drug store claiming they need to maintain R&D then raping our Tax dollars for Free R&D then Patenting those products that the peoples money paid to develop.
put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Yes, we need price controls. Otherwise we will end up subsidising the countries that have price controls.
Price controls only make sense when there is a monopoly to control. Last I checked, even in big pharma, there were about a dozen players. This isn't your local utility company, people.
Direct to consumer (DTC) advertisement should be banned. Caps should be placed on physician education since clearly physicians are incapable or unwilling to properly regulate themselves.
Competition and profit have the potential for being significant contributors to advancement. They can also function as obstacles to progress and the common good. Simple price controls are not the solution.
American physicians are notorious for using more medication and newer medications. If a physician scedules (3) 30-minute sessions to instruct a patient on diet, exercise, and smoking cessation, she won't get jack for reimbursement from an HMO or PPO. Over the same 90min, I could schedule (9) 10-minute medication consultations at $45 per. Invariably these practices produce more expensive healthcare.
Competition and profit have the potential for being significant contributors to advancement. They can also function as obstacles to progress and the common good. Simple price controls are not the solution.
American physicians are notorious for using more medication and newer medications. If a physician scedules (3) 30-minute sessions to instruct a patient on diet, exercise, and smoking cessation, she won't get jack for reimbursement from an HMO or PPO. Over the same 90min, I could schedule (9) 10-minute medication consultations at $45 per. Invariably these practices produce more expensive healthcare.
Why educate people on preventive medicine when you can create a consumer of a repeat use good.
Why would drug companies ever find a cure for the heart disease, common cold, the flu, cancer or aids?
If they did, they would put themselves out of business.
its not good business practive to release a product that makes a whole bunch of your other products worthless.
Why would drug companies ever find a cure for the heart disease, common cold, the flu, cancer or aids?
If they did, they would put themselves out of business.
its not good business practive to release a product that makes a whole bunch of your other products worthless.
The cure for the majority of heart disease is preventative (exercise, eat a good diet, don't smoke).
The cure for the common cold is a non sequitur (it's a self-limiting, low intensity disease . . . so why bother). On the otherhand, you could dramatically reduce transmission by washing your hands and covering your mouth when you cough/sneeze.
The cure for the flu is preventative (vaccination) and reduce transmission (flu=sick day).
The cure for cancer is marginally preventative (although some cancers have huge behavioral components) but clearly surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy have made a tremendous difference.
The cure for the common cold is a non sequitur (it's a self-limiting, low intensity disease . . . so why bother). On the otherhand, you could dramatically reduce transmission by washing your hands and covering your mouth when you cough/sneeze.
The cure for the flu is preventative (vaccination) and reduce transmission (flu=sick day).
The cure for cancer is marginally preventative (although some cancers have huge behavioral components) but clearly surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy have made a tremendous difference.
Absolute controls...anything determined as a product necessary for health (ie water, important drugs, super clean and efficient engines etc) should be capped at the bottomost acceptable profit level...say bout 3-5%. That's enough to make a smidge of money to keep yourself alive while you help mankind continue to exist. Only luxury items should have any appreciable mark-up.
My own personal feeling is that everyone who disagrees with anything should just find ways around it until we force the offenders out of business through loss of profits. To those that bring up government involvement stopping such activities, well, the government is overburdoned as it is, and continued increases in underground trafficing would eventually topple a spend-heavy government. If you laught this off, I'd look closely at examples close to home and see a pattern of success likely emerging. CD pricing out of control, piracy and p2p. Businesses banning concealed carry, picketing and smear campaigns. Drugs too spendy, underground import and redistribution. Believe me, if I was rich I'd spend every last dime to start producing goods at 1% profit and drive every other business down and out until greed stopped being a viable option in this country. But that's just me...stupid me for having a heart and thinking there's something in life that doesn't begin and end in your wallet.
Kristin
My own personal feeling is that everyone who disagrees with anything should just find ways around it until we force the offenders out of business through loss of profits. To those that bring up government involvement stopping such activities, well, the government is overburdoned as it is, and continued increases in underground trafficing would eventually topple a spend-heavy government. If you laught this off, I'd look closely at examples close to home and see a pattern of success likely emerging. CD pricing out of control, piracy and p2p. Businesses banning concealed carry, picketing and smear campaigns. Drugs too spendy, underground import and redistribution. Believe me, if I was rich I'd spend every last dime to start producing goods at 1% profit and drive every other business down and out until greed stopped being a viable option in this country. But that's just me...stupid me for having a heart and thinking there's something in life that doesn't begin and end in your wallet.
Kristin
Drugs aren't "necessary" for health, and the government shouldn't be the one setting the production and discovery cost limitations. People live fine without curing every little thing that bothers them. Producing drugs at a 1% margin is impossible, as the overheads of R&D (via direct research by big pharma or acquisition of, licensing from, or joint ventures with biotech companies) are what dominate the industry.
Drugs ARE necessary for health in MANY cases...heart problems, diabetes, etc are all treated by drugs. Hair regrowth, sexual stimulation, etc...those are luxuries you can pay for. If you need to go to the hospital, then it's health related and the drugs should be affordable. I'm not playing accountant games, I mean 3-5% profit AFTER figuring in all costs for that drug...unrelated R&D can come from private funding sources, government assistance, or fund raiser/donations.
You CAN NOT talk about costs of anything being 'all in R&D' or any other such nonesense as long as someone in the company is making mid to high 6 figures yearly, owning multiple homes and driving 100k cars...your arguments fall to pieces around you like farts in the wind. Thanks for trying though.
You CAN NOT talk about costs of anything being 'all in R&D' or any other such nonesense as long as someone in the company is making mid to high 6 figures yearly, owning multiple homes and driving 100k cars...your arguments fall to pieces around you like farts in the wind. Thanks for trying though.
The facts are the major drugs companies direct R&D expendutiures are 12% of revenue, yet advertising is more than double.
PLUS they mainly used reseach paid for by Tax dollars to make the largest breakthroughs.
If they want to use taxpayers money to do their research, they should have a modest profit cap of 10%.
here put this in your pipe and smoke it.
Profit (net income) --Marketing/Admin-- R&D
Merck............................17...... ............ 15............ 6
Pfizer............................13...... ............ 39............ 15
BMS..............................26...... ............ 30............ 11
Pharmacia......................4...... ............ 37............ 15
Abbott..........................20...... ............ 21............ 10
Am Home Prod............-18...... ............ 38............ 13
Eli Lilly..........................28...... ............ 30............ 19
Schering-Plough...........25...... ............ 36...... ...... 14
Allergan........................14...... ............ 42............ 13
This above is data collected from 2000
http://www.familiesusa.org has all the info you need
read this
http://www.familiesusa.org/site/DocServer/PPreport.pdf?docID=249
Profit (net income) --Marketing/Admin-- R&D
Merck............................17...... ............ 15............ 6
Pfizer............................13...... ............ 39............ 15
BMS..............................26...... ............ 30............ 11
Pharmacia......................4...... ............ 37............ 15
Abbott..........................20...... ............ 21............ 10
Am Home Prod............-18...... ............ 38............ 13
Eli Lilly..........................28...... ............ 30............ 19
Schering-Plough...........25...... ............ 36...... ...... 14
Allergan........................14...... ............ 42............ 13
This above is data collected from 2000
http://www.familiesusa.org has all the info you need
read this
http://www.familiesusa.org/site/DocServer/PPreport.pdf?docID=249
All figures released by pharma merge the Admin and Advertising into one category. Because of that, there is no way to tell exactly how much of that figure is advertising. If you believe their admin costs are low, you are deluding yourself. If you can actually find a financial statement that has separate figures for the two then you can come back and gloat. Until then, those figures you posted mean nothing.
Then what would be the incentive of investing in such companies? You could ladder CD's within those margins and have practically 0 risk. Nobody is going to startup a company with those kinds of margins looming over them. The company is also going to have a very difficult time with any kind of expansion. Your solution would basically crash the market.
that's called "central planning" the russians tried that and it causes misallocation of resources and shortages (by the way, the same is true in Canada when it comes to health care dollars). Old Canadian saying, where do you find a surgeon in December - in Florida, because the hospital has run out of money.
o.k., there goes the first amendment...another little detail the Soviets never believed in.
apparently you don't actually practice medicine, or know anything about how it actuals works. there is no such thing as a "medication consultation". There are entire programs devoted to smoking cessation, diet, and exercise programs. you don't get "jack" from an HMO or PPO no matter what you do for a patient. The dreaded "medications" that you speak of are "standard of care" and in the real world, everyone already does get instructed about diet, exercise and smoking cessation...the public just doesn't chose to do much with the advice. Besides, what do you think the "public" hears everyday in all the media, smoking is bad, we're all overweight, exercise is good for you....you would have to be a moron not to know this already..
That's curious, in my experience, most "new" medications debut in Europe well before (several years) they appear in the U.S. because the FDA requires proof of safety and efficacy
in medications, while drug certification in Europe is less stringent (only need to prove safety, efficacy is left up to the physician to decide).
so let me get this straight..you want cheap drugs, although you don't really believe they do much good.
you don't want anyone to make very much "profit" making drugs..only profit to be allowed for luxury goods.
yes, it's all making sense to me now...
- Mar 20, 2000
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advertising a commercial product only barely fits under the first amendment if it does. i'm sure that when direct marketing of drugs was not allowed that policy was challenged in court, and yet the policy stood for decades. i bet i can find a court case about it.
If a physician scedules (3) 30-minute sessions to instruct a patient on diet, exercise, and smoking cessation, she won't get jack for reimbursement from an HMO or PPO. Over the same 90min, I could schedule (9) 10-minute medication consultations at $45 per
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There's no such thing as a medicaton consultation? What planet are you from? For most patients in modern outpatient internal medicine with chronic health conditions (hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia), continuity appointments go relatively quickly (assuming nothing has changed with regards to their condition). Multiple classes of medications, (statins, diuretics, ACEI, fibric acid derivatives) require interval labs to assess for toxicity . . . not to mention interval evaluations to check for efficacy. It can be coded as office visit, physical exam, med management, whatever. For pediatric psychiatry we work from our Developmental Neuropsychopharmacology Clinic (DNC) here's a layperson's perspective.
If you bother to read ANY version of Best Evidence you would find that "doctor's advice" dramatically increases the likelihood of success with ANY smoking cessation program. In general, any time a physician requires a patient to venture to another facility/care provider to get "necessary care" (diet, exercise, etc) you decrease the likelihood of compliance.
Try some reading comprehension, I did NOT say medicines were bad. My indictment was of the current medical model which has been corrupted by factors that have nothing to do with providing exemplary care. As an alleged heartsurgeon you might know . . . granted if you were a cardiologist you would definitely know that blood pressure control through diuretics and beta blockers work quite well for the majority of patients. Calcium channel blockers provide additional benefit to some patients but price (and safety) are not necessarily superior and does not justify the common practice of replacing a diuretic and/or beta blocker with a CCB. In the case of ACEI, they have +/- but again not enough to justify displacing a cheaper (and possibly equally efficacious) therapy . . . unless of course there is something about that patient that justifies using ACEI.
You are correct that I'm indicting the "standard of care". Physicians have plenty of excuses; 1) evil government regulations, 2) oppressive insurance companies, 3) unrealistic patients . . . there's a grain of truth in those complaints but ultimately physicians are responsible for their prescribing habits.
beware of drug reps bearing gifts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's no such thing as a medicaton consultation? What planet are you from? For most patients in modern outpatient internal medicine with chronic health conditions (hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia), continuity appointments go relatively quickly (assuming nothing has changed with regards to their condition). Multiple classes of medications, (statins, diuretics, ACEI, fibric acid derivatives) require interval labs to assess for toxicity . . . not to mention interval evaluations to check for efficacy. It can be coded as office visit, physical exam, med management, whatever. For pediatric psychiatry we work from our Developmental Neuropsychopharmacology Clinic (DNC) here's a layperson's perspective.
If you bother to read ANY version of Best Evidence you would find that "doctor's advice" dramatically increases the likelihood of success with ANY smoking cessation program. In general, any time a physician requires a patient to venture to another facility/care provider to get "necessary care" (diet, exercise, etc) you decrease the likelihood of compliance.
Try some reading comprehension, I did NOT say medicines were bad. My indictment was of the current medical model which has been corrupted by factors that have nothing to do with providing exemplary care. As an alleged heartsurgeon you might know . . . granted if you were a cardiologist you would definitely know that blood pressure control through diuretics and beta blockers work quite well for the majority of patients. Calcium channel blockers provide additional benefit to some patients but price (and safety) are not necessarily superior and does not justify the common practice of replacing a diuretic and/or beta blocker with a CCB. In the case of ACEI, they have +/- but again not enough to justify displacing a cheaper (and possibly equally efficacious) therapy . . . unless of course there is something about that patient that justifies using ACEI.
You are correct that I'm indicting the "standard of care". Physicians have plenty of excuses; 1) evil government regulations, 2) oppressive insurance companies, 3) unrealistic patients . . . there's a grain of truth in those complaints but ultimately physicians are responsible for their prescribing habits.
beware of drug reps bearing gifts
Granted, most companies include the costs of providing samples as a marketing expense . . . at retail rate of course.
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