Discussion How do you feel? Big Pharma drug costs $20000 a year in US vs costing $60 a year overseas

[Indus]

Watch GOP Representative Glieb at 26 seconds in and AOC at 3:20 in.

Who do you agree with?

Should prices of life saving drugs be brought down to affordable levels?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I’ll say it for our righty members.


but...but...we need to pay extra to fund drug development.

edit:
Holy fuck I posted that before watching the video and essentially that’s what the first dude said.


I think like a deplorable

 

[JSt0rm]

I’ll say it for our righty members.


but...but...we need to pay extra to fund drug development.

edit:
Holy fuck I posted that before watching the video and essentially that’s what the first dude said.


I think like a deplorable

Plus it’s important to note that the gov funded the development of this drug and the gov owns the patents for it.

 

[tweaker2]

Bringing down the cost of drugs on par with what other democratically run first world nations pay should be something that ALL working class Americans would want including the right wing conservative ones, right?

If not, why not?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Plus it’s important to note that the gov funded the development of this drug and the gov owns the patents for it.

I'm having audio issues. What is the drug?

 

[JSt0rm]

I'm having audio issues. What is the drug?

a drug that blocks you from getting hiv. preP or some shit.

 

[Indus]

I'm having audio issues. What is the drug?

tenofovir

http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/rep-ocasio-cortez-grills-ceo-pharma-company-making-billions-government-patented-hiv-drug

 

[interchange]

Basically, I've never seen anyone engaging in this debate with a realistic picture of what people pay for these drugs. A cash list price is virtually meaningless, and systems are designed to make HIV care available to all. The systems have a lot of issues, of course, and any small barrier such as providing proof of address (which can be obtained for homeless individuals too) means some would not get care if it were free. The true cost to the public in addition to the human cost is in later providing expensive hospital care when people inevitably become seriously ill, and that may span many hospitalizations and cost far more than $2k per day much less month. Certainly lacking a socialized medicine system Americans are overpaying for drugs relative to peers, but the cost of healthcare is mostly driven by things other than drug costs. Of course, changing the way we do things is likely to save far more money and produce better outcomes through efficiency and standardization.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

OK. First thing, the government does not hold the patent and never did. Second, the drug cost much more than 60 bucks and much less than 20K. The difference in price is because the US pays for someone else paying 60. If the US insists on this too then pharma will go to "me too" drugs and development stop, at least with the current paradigm. I know about profits and advertising and the like so let's not go there because it changes nothing. New drugs are fabulously expensive even if not approved and any legal issues are the problem of the industry. No this does not justify a vast amount the industry does especially with insulin, but both extremes of dirt cheap and everything and priced out of reality so nothing, aren't solutions and neither is the US footing the bill acceptable.

There's a solution that I've proposed but doing the old things that inherently cannot be reformed is the preference.

1) A globally funded agency that is not controlled directly by politicians is established.
2) That agency determines the priority of need based on the greatest to least impacted and prioritizes according.
3) Academia gets funded as well as qualified researchers hired away from pharma with financial incentives and a chance to make a difference instead of a larger yacht for management.

Naturally IP law will need reform but that's always been the case.

Time for fundamental changes based on a meritocratic philosophy.

 

[senseamp]

AOC is right. Even rightwingers understand that the US for profit health care system is fundamentally broken. They just don't want to do anything to fix it.

 

[interchange]

AOC is right. Even rightwingers understand that the US for profit health care system is fundamentally broken. They just don't want to do anything to fix it.

I think we are stuck with incremental change. Insurers and pharma are enormous industries. Hospitals and clinics probably are more willing to embrace a single payer system, although for sure much of the overhead caused by our system of healthcare will go away. Going to single payer tomorrow may save healthcare costs, but it will leave enormous amounts of people without a job instantly. We ought to know by now that there are myriad ways to affect public perception, and that's all that matters. Deep pockets are more than willing to drive propaganda away from a wholesale change. They already are.

 

[soulcougher73]

Maybe we should just be allowed to buy medicine from other countries then. Put the companies here out of business. I thought we wanted a global economy, or does that only apply to everything but medicine?

 

[senseamp]

I think we are stuck with incremental change. Insurers and pharma are enormous industries. Hospitals and clinics probably are more willing to embrace a single payer system, although for sure much of the overhead caused by our system of healthcare will go away. Going to single payer tomorrow may save healthcare costs, but it will leave enormous amounts of people without a job instantly. We ought to know by now that there are myriad ways to affect public perception, and that's all that matters. Deep pockets are more than willing to drive propaganda away from a wholesale change. They already are.

We need single payer. Everything else is details.

 

[Sgt. York]

Maybe we should just be allowed to buy medicine from other countries then. Put the companies here out of business. I thought we wanted a global economy, or does that only apply to everything but medicine?

I agree, we should put big pharma out of business. We don't need any more research to produce effective drugs. It's a great way to enforce worldwide population control.

 

[Indus]

I agree, we should put big pharma out of business. We don't need any more research to produce effective drugs. It's a great way to enforce worldwide population control.

I hope that's sarcasm.

 

[ivwshane]

I hope that's sarcasm.

Of course it wasn't. You didn't know that only research being done right now is coming from the US! /s

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I agree, we should put big pharma out of business. We don't need any more research to produce effective drugs. It's a great way to enforce worldwide population control.

I think the point is pharma will compete on a market you know like a free market.
$60 Countries will likely raise the price $20k countries will likely reduce the cost.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

We need single payer. Everything else is details.

I like that idea. Single payer fixes my car, buys my food and cooks it. Put a page of single payer onto an altar and pray to it and it will fix your life.

Details are everything, the difference between good and awful, worse than we have.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Get rid of medicine related patents. Life saving/improving medicine and also life saving devices should not be patentable. If one company chooses to gouge people then another company should be allowed to make a generic and sell it for cheaper. This is what business should be like, allowing healthy competition, instead of monopolies. Especially when it comes to life saving things. They should be accessible to all.

Thankfully it's not as bad here in Canada. Yet. As a side note I really think the government funded healthcare should also cover medicine. Vision and dental while we're at it. We pay more than enough taxes, it shoudl cover everything.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Get rid of medicine related patents. Life saving/improving medicine and also life saving devices should not be patentable. If one company chooses to gouge people then another company should be allowed to make a generic and sell it for cheaper. This is what business should be like, allowing healthy competition, instead of monopolies. Especially when it comes to life saving things. They should be accessible to all.

Thankfully it's not as bad here in Canada. Yet. As a side note I really think the government funded healthcare should also cover medicine. Vision and dental while we're at it. We pay more than enough taxes, it shoudl cover everything.

So who is going to invest a billion to not profit from it?

 

[Red Squirrel]

So who is going to invest a billion to not profit from it?

They're not suddenly going to stop making money, they can still charge for it, just not gouge people.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

They're not suddenly going to stop making money, they can still charge for it, just not gouge people.

Gouging is done but it appears that people want new meds for $60. I want a new Lambo for the price of an Impala.

Now what?

At a billion or two a pop for a flop cheap isn't happening and that's why I propose a different paradigm because what people think they should have is incompatable with reality and again I'm not talking about things like insulin or an existing drug that goes up a thousand times just because.

 

[soulcougher73]

Gouging is done but it appears that people want new meds for $60. I want a new Lambo for the price of an Impala.

Now what?

At a billion or two a pop for a flop cheap isn't happening and that's why I propose a different paradigm because what people think they should have is incompatable with reality and again I'm not talking about things like insulin or an existing drug that goes up a thousand times just because.

Maybe we should let other countries R/D and we can have the $60 generics

 

[Red Squirrel]

Gouging is done but it appears that people want new meds for $60. I want a new Lambo for the price of an Impala.

Now what?

At a billion or two a pop for a flop cheap isn't happening and that's why I propose a different paradigm because what people think they should have is incompatable with reality and again I'm not talking about things like insulin or an existing drug that goes up a thousand times just because.

Except it is possible. There are generics. If those companies are capable of producing it for that cheap then all the power to them. They just arn't legal everywhere. Make them legal. Now some people will argue about initial R&D, but that's a one time cost. If a market is empty, it will get filled. Someone will fill it at some point because no matter what there will be money to be made, it just won't be the billions and billions that capitalists want, but there is more to making medication than money, some people actually care about making something that can help others. Let those people fill the market if the capitalists are too scared of people stealing their idea since they want to gouge people and be a monopoly.

Heck, they could probably make initial R&D government funded. At least for more serious life saving medications, cancer treatments, that kind of thing. We as humanity have to stop allowing money to be an artificial limit to saving lives.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Maybe we should let other countries R/D and we can have the $60 generics

Do eet!