Those same regulatory hurdles exist for eye surgery but the procedure is much more competitive on price. Why? Because the private insurance market for that procedure basically doesn’t exist and there is more competition
Bernie Sanders: I cannot understand the absurdity that it costs 10x as much for insulin in the USA as it does for the same exact drug in Canada
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It appears you have never run a business. Every single item in a companies inventory is not sold strictly based on the manufacturer's cost of that single item. Many items are price averaged for many reasons. Some produsts subsidize other items because of the differing costs and the ability to sell as many products at as reasonable price as possible. Have you ever considered that the price of insulin might lower the price of other needed medications that if not supported by insulin would be too expensive for most? Or that maybe the cost of insulin helps fund research on new drugs?
Good old robber baron capitalism.
A lot of us think we can and should do better.
Please explain how regulations are creating this problem.
Serious question. I strongly doubt that it's true, but if it is, that should be addressed.
Not a bad analogy, consider the robber barons received their bounties from the state that typically includes provisions to limit ‘dog eat dog’ competition.
For the consumer’s ‘protection’, of course.
I assume you aren't actually saying it would be OK if he were getting a cut.
What's the difference between defending the indefensible with vs without a cut?
One is mindless. The other is immoral.
Patents precluding competition and too many consumers disconnected from costs by a regulatory framework that makes third party payers the norm.
The third party payers negotiate lower prices for themselves for that product. Insurance companies don't pay sticker price for anything.
Which means the un-insured people who are basically the poorest among us are the only ones stuck paying full price.
Everyone pays for their drugs, but yes they are on "plans" by the insurance companies that stratify the costs into 3-4 tiers
Oh, I'm familiar with that scam. They do the same thing with the medication I take. Once it went generic the manufacture made a slightly different version and kept charging the insane prices. What did they change? They added ibuprophen to it.
I get the generic, not the new formula because I'm not an idiot.
The issue with insulin is that it's a monopoly and they game the system in order to keep it that way.
The system they are gaming is our patent law.
That is what grants a monopoly.
Are we afraid no one would manufacture insulin without the promise of monopoly profits?
We're afraid that the money will stop coming in for all those feeding at the trough. Billions are made each year on insulin and it's spread around to make sure it stays that way and that laws aren't changed.
Solution to that is removing the laws precluding other producers from getting their more efficient snouts in that trough.
Solution to that is to outlaw lobbying.
Now that we've all had a good laugh... how do we actually stop people from dying for want of a drug that costs pennies to produce?
Quit making it illegal for people to compete producing the drug that costs pennies.
It might irk Bernie if we had 10 choices of insulin on the shelf, but can anyone argue we’d be worse off under free competition than the government management of competition we endure now?
It literally took one post before someone tried to explain away why drug prices are more in the US than basically anywhere in the world. Our way of doing things in health care is a joke. Bought and paid for politicians doing the bidding of the drug companies for one thing.
lol, you're nuts. Bernie isn't keeping away competition - the pharma companies are. They pay big bucks to keep the system the way it is.
Just to add, Katie Porter proved that to be a freaking lie by a Pharma CEO. Research, my ass.
Bernie doesn’t like competition, it’s a point he has re-iterated over decades. Is a misconception on his part regarding efficiency. Choices are wasteful. And choices are hard. Best to have someone else make them for you anyway.
The solution to the problem of monopoly profits is to end the government monopoly protections that permit them.
Bernie thinks the solution is more bureaucracy to allocate goods and services, even if just by setting their prices.
Trad doesn't understand we have all kinds of working socialism in the USA. Well, some of it works only for farmers and the wealthy, but we have it.
Hilarious and apropos that you cite graft as evidence of ‘working socialism in the USA’.
I will never understand why Republican voters, like Trad, defend our system that obviously rips off the American people. Again, no other civilized country wants to trade systems with us...because ours sucks. Americans get screwed over and over and people like Trad defend it.
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We have all kinds of socialism in the US, that Americans take advantage of...but Republican politicians have been using the word as this scary thing for decades. Hell, Truman talked about it. Scary socialism! Ignorance.
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No. It makes them selfish and ungrateful.
It makes us smart because this is where the innovation on drug development takes place.
You truly are a bit clueless. Define civilized....this should be an interesting take from an avowed leftist.
You know what I mean and clearly you like us getting ripped off. Again, countries with socialized health care wouldn't trade with us. You like the scam, apparently.
Katie Porter showed this to be absolute nonsense. That money isn't being spent on research like big pharma tells you it is. Katie grilled a CEO. Called out his bullshit. You should look it up.
If "free" means "untested."
If "free" means "eventually the product will fail in the market if enough people die."
Bernie is not opposed to having different choices of drugs.
You truly are out of your depth. The US and those evil pharmaceutical companies develop the vast majority of new drugs in the world. It isn't close.
As for your belief that other countries would t trade for our healthcare system? They are using out healthcare system. Those companies are a part of out healthcare system and they are getting a free ride. Not to mention the people in those other countries that can afford it make their way to the US for specialized care. Because literally no one does it better than us.
Please though do explain what you mean by other civilized countries. Do you mean western Europe and Canada? Largely white homogeneous wealthy countries that still feed off our system and pass their costs onto US citizens? Golly mister that sounds kind of racist of you. I guarantee people in Latin America want out healthcare. Asia as well.
I love it when people who like being ripped off tell others they are out of their depth.
We don't have single payer. They do so no they aren't. That's ridiculous. People in other countries don't go broke when a family member gets sick. In the US, you can work, pay taxes, have health insurance and it STILL doesn't cover your bills if someone in the family gets sick. My wife had blood clots last spring and even with insurance we just paid off the several thousand in hospital bills. That's a vacation out the window.
NO other countries with government run healthcare want to trade with that. If you really want to play whatever stupid racist game you are trying to play, JAPAN doesn't want to trade with us. Again, you like being screwed.
Unless you are counting cosmetics and snake oil OTCs, that's unlikely to be true.
Last I heard, most serious/important drugs are developed in universities and places like (or supported by) NIH and are subsidized by our government.
Because Medicare does not pay for their services, so companies have to charge private insured people far more so they can subsidize the US government. We do it all the time at UIHC.
This is a level of gaslighting is monumentally stupid it goes well beyond idiocy. I think you may actually believe your own bullshit. Good lord.
Check the donations from Big Pharma to Congressional and Senate candidates and you have an answer..
