Posted on 12/05/2019 4:03:17 AM PST by Kaslin
The idea of price controls is an easy sell to people who don’t know any better. But history has repeatedly shown they not only don’t work, they’re a disaster. That they are a disaster might be why the idea is gaining so much traction among Democrats both running for president and currently running Congress – namely Nancy Pelosi – progressives have always left a trail of disaster in their wake. But in one industry in particular, a disaster will be exceptionally hard to recover from: health care.
The story in health care that is getting all the attention is “Medicare for All,” which is socialized medicine by a different, higher polling name. For a complete government takeover of the entire system to happen, the entire private sector system that currently is in place would have to go away. No company is going to continue to employ people for an industry that no longer exists.
But what if the new system fails? With the old system, the one that served so many so well for so long, gone, where can we go to escape the inevitable wait times and rationing that always follow socialized medicine? Nowhere.
And what company would reinvest the billions of dollars needed to reconstitute some semblance of what we currently have knowing that should another left-wing politician decide there are votes to be gained from ruining it again? No company.
Once our private system, as it currently exists is gone, it’s gone.
But it’s not just the insurance aspect of health care that finds itself in the scope of the left, one just as important is in their crosshairs too.
The prescription drug industry is easy to demonize because it’s faceless and has a lot of money. When politicians are willing to cherry pick rare data and pretend it’s common, you can manipulate people to turn against the idea of almost anything. And right now Democrats, led by Pelosi, are doing just that to pharmaceuticals.
Pharmaceuticals are incredibly important. Prescription drugs not only save lives, they improve the quality of lives of the people who need them. But they aren’t free.
It costs more than a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market, and takes about a decade. That’s not counting the time and money spent on drugs that fail in trials after years of investment. The money for that research and development has to come from somewhere, and the window those companies have to make a profit before generic competitors can legally manufacture the same product without the overhead is very narrow.
Now Democrats want to introduce price controls on prescription drugs in an attempt to garner some populist support for 2020. This would be a disaster.
If the US goes the way of the rest of the world, expect the results of the rest of the world, only worse.
Countries where government controls the health care wait months, sometimes years, for new drugs to be introduced into the market. That’s because their governments demand artificially low prices or threaten to steal the patent for the drug and manufacture it themselves. Pharmaceutical companies are given a choice between getting some money or no money, so they opt for some.
This dance also delays the government’s requirement to pay for the drug, saving them money in the short-term. Patients suffer, but they aren’t the focus of any of this. It’s about money.
As Democrats in our government position themselves for an attempted complete takeover, they have to shave costs anywhere they can, and prescription drugs are an easy place to start. But there’s a very basic problem.
As with any industry, if you remove the possibility of profit, you kill advancement. If government sets the price of drugs, the only new drugs that will be developed will be for treating afflictions a lot of people suffer from. If a disease impacts 50,000 people, there will be no research into a treatment for it because the cost will never be able to be recouped. So if Democrats have their way, you’d better hope you or the people you care about come down with something for which there is already a treatment, or a lot of people get it. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.
That’s the problem with government involvement in general and price controls in particular – they bastardize the market and kill innovation. And ultimately, they kill people.
You’ll never know what could have been if you prevent the idea from being explored in the first place. That’s what price controls on drugs will cause.
It might poll well, it might motivate some people to vote, but government setting the prices of prescription drugs would be every bit the disaster socialized medicine would be. Democrats don’t care, Republicans are either on board or afraid to say anything, and we the people will end up losing. But just think of the savings!
I’d call for a mixture of both, laws to help hold the line on exploding out of control domestic drug costs and possibly the importation of cheaper alternatives provided that quality control is in place. But in either case something must be done to help control the burgeoning costs of prescription drugs domestically. The industry seems to be impotent or unwilling to help hold the line on the costs.
Very obviously you do seem to. Why allow just one company to corner that market? Why not open it up to healthy competition and work to make the product a bit more affordable as a result instead of only considering just how much money a single company can charge for that product? This country was built on competition but is drowning in greed.
If the NIH does the research then the U.S. government should hold the patent.
All the manufacturer needs do is change 1 tiny thing in a drug, and the FDA will extend the Patent thus keeping generics off the market.
What ins company will pay for these drugs? Not Medicare, Medicaid, Military ins. They are ALL NEGOTIATED PRICES. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT OF APPEAL. WE ARE MEDICARE/TRICARE LIFE, RETIRED CAREER MILITARY OVER 65. THEY TELL YOU WHAT YOU CAN CHOSE. My SIBO antibiotic could only be filled at the Navy Pharmacy as it is around $1,550 for 14 days. I had SIBO 3 times last year. It couldn’t be filled anywhere else. Nor can we add discounts to lower the cost. No dental, vision, hearing, unless it is Service Connected, Spouses don’t apply, If vision, dental, or hearing is Service Connected is it covered under Disability. We make to much with 2 SS, Navy Pension, his teacher’s pension, as he was smart enough to get out after 20 yrs and go to college and get a teaching degree for what he taught in the Navy, and we have to pay Federal Income tax on that. We owe only basic bills so NO deductions.
At $2.1 Million, New Gene Therapy Is The Most Expensive Drug Ever https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/24/725404168/at-2-125-million-new-gene-therapy-is-the-most-expensive-drug-ever Novartis set the price at $2.125 million but offers insurers the ability to pay $425,000 a year for five years. This price tag makes Zolgensma the most expensive drug ever approved.
That's what patent laws are all about. If a company develops a product, then the rights to the intellectual property are protected by law. That's true of ANY product that is produced and sold here in the U.S. Without the patent protection, nobody would spend the time and resources to develop new products in the first place.
The protection of patents and copyrights is one of the powers of Congress explicitly documented in the U.S. Constitution. I see no "right to affordable prescription drugs" written anywhere in the Constitution.
These discussions remind of the idiocy we see in my own state as a result of the "anti-gouging" laws that were passed in the aftermath of some major disruptive weather events in recent years.
The state passed a law that prohibits a retail establishment from raising their prices more than some nominal amount during a state of emergency. This was done in response to the "outrageous" scenario a few years ago where gas stations raised their prices from $2.50/gallon to $4+ per gallon after a hurricane.
So now we have the natural result of this kind of nanny-state meddling. In the immediate aftermath of a typical winter storm here you can venture out onto the roads and be thankful that gas only costs $2.50/gallon. But the owners of the gas stations don't even bother opening for business until a day later anyway when the roads are clear and conditions are back to normal.
So the $2.50/gallon gasoline may as well cost $2 million per gallon ... since there isn't any available for motorists anyway.
Please, douchbags raising the retail price of drugs that cost pennies to make and were first synthesized nearly 50 years ago has NOTHING to do with LAWSUITS...
Big Pharma has no one to blame but themselves for the real possibility they will now be more heavily regulated
Willingly and knowingly lying and pushing addictive drugs on people for profit..... Jacking up prices of Insulin to outrageous levels, colluding to create monopolies, etc... The entire industry has no one to blame but themselves.
Based on the AveXis studies, the FDA approved Zolgensma Friday, making it only the second gene therapy ever approved for a genetic disorder. There are currently around 700 patients eligible for the treatment, according to Novartis, and roughly 30 babies are born each month with the disease.
The single biggest reason for the high cost of this drug is the fact that the number of doses the company will sell is very small Do the math. If it cost $1 billion to develop this drug and get it through the FDA approval process, then this cost has to be spread among the 700 existing patients and 30 new patients per month. If Novartis has 12 years of patent protection for this drug, then this $1 billion development cost has to carried by only about 5,000 patients. That's a $200,000 cost per patient just for this drug alone -- which means it doesn't include all of the other costs Novartis has to cover over those 12 years for the testing and research of drugs that are never approved by the FDA.
How much do you think an iPhone or a Toyota SUV or a box of Corn Flakes would cost if Apple, Toyota, and Kellogg's only sold 5,000 of them over 12 years?
I don’t buy into your argument when it comes to life saving drugs. Sorry. Just don’t buy into it any, too important of an issue. The laws need to be adjusted or caps put on what the drug company can reasonably charge. People who need the drugs do not have the luxury of going outside the US to buy the drugs like it once could many years ago because the greedy drug companies lobbied Congress (aka bought their influence with bribe money) to stop the practice. So screw the drug companies with their crocodile tears.
At one time I probably would have agreed with you. Over time I finally realized that if I rely on: (1) someone else to develop medications that are necessary for me to have a "normal" life (whatever that even means anymore), and (2) a government to dictate the price of those medications, then I'm not really a free man at all. This country was founded by men who probably would have considered this whole scenario repulsive.
I know it sounds ludicrous, but then there's a reason why the Amish never worry about these things.
I’ll end by saying that the model we’re stuck with is not working and it must be changed as poor Americans and even the lower middle Americans cannot sustain this current model. Drug companies cannot keep being allowed to sell drugs to foreign nations at below rock bottom prices but expect Americans to subsidize the unfair practice. That’s plain nuts. Have a good one my friend.
The deeper question is, how much of a limited pool of taxpayer money and insurance premiums can go to support development of drugs that cost multi-billions to get to market and which help only 1/600 of one percent of Americans?
But that is not how it works, it prevents a new generic from being brought to market. Works same with crap like the Mesh, or the Chromium Poisoning on a hip replacement, just coat it, say it’s fixed. Won’t pay for fixing hip to Ceramic or remove the mesh, that is killing the patient.
I want the idiots to remove red dye from denture adhesives, the white goopy ones are awful. Same with the gum material in dentures, they don’t show, but sure as heck burn the fire out of my mouth. I’m allergic to red dye.
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