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Drugmaker to offer $1 version of $750-per-pill medication
Fox News ^ | 10/23/2015 | Fox News (AP Copy)

Posted on 10/23/2015 4:08:09 AM PDT by fruser1

"News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It's triggered government investigations, politicians' proposals to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices."

"Turing's Shkreli, under fire from all sides, said late last month that he would lower the price of Daraprim, but hasn't so far. A Turing spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday but recently noted the company is capping patient copayments at $10."

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: benjaminbrafman; billackman; covidstooges; daraprim; genderdysphoria; greenmail; herbalife; homosexualagenda; insurance; jcpenney; kalobiospharma; martinshkreli; pershingsquare; pharmabro; pharmaceuticals; shkreli; socialism; turing; turingpharma; valeant; williamackman
I copy out what I think are the "money" paragraphs of the article.

The first para demonstrates the knee-jerk socialist reaction to this situation. This is the type of thing that saddens me because it tells me the "American Way of Life" is over. The second para is the telling clue as to why socialism created this "issue" to begin with.

Under a free market system, high drug prices can only occur when a drug first comes out. They taper off as research expenditures are recouped. If the drug price remains too high, fewer people buy it and the company can't profit. Hence the price lowers to what the market bears to, believe it or not, the correct price.

The entire concept of obamacare is a fallacy as, the stated goal of correcting skyrocketing insurance costs, is not achieved by more government control. The reason prices were increasing was exactly because government was already too involved.

The "customer" has long been out of medical care/insurance/drugs. When you go to get your car worked on, you get it analyzed and charged for the estimate. You then decide what to have done. In the course of working, other things may be discovered. You get an estimate and decide again.

This is how a trip to the doctors office would be if we had a free market system. Thanks to insurance requirements, people are out of the equation. In fact, insurance isn't even technically insurance anymore. For medicine, it's viewed by the public as a coupon discount for services. Insurance is supposed to mitigate risk. You never want to use it.

Laws force insurance to be available for routine care. With the auto analogy, this'd be like using your car insurance for fuel fill ups. The cost would skyrocket because the claims spike more than a thousand fold - that's extra work, extra cost.

More importantly, the lack of direct customer involvement leads to high prices as well. See second paragraph in article. The direct customer "only pays 10", but the insurance company is what gets charged the extra 740. The insurance company doesn't care how much it is, because the cost is simply a passthrough to them, to thousands of policyholders. No skin off their teeth. Not a dime out of their pocket. Read, no customer, no price control.

Consider that, even in a free market system, if a drug company attempted to take advantage of their market and overprice, people could protest the company the same way that folks do in other circumstances. Remember Chick Fila and the gay marriage debate? Same could be done here.

So I find it disturbing that when I see articles like this I know there will be calls for government control due to claims of price gouging. Unfortunately, you almost never hear in the news how the government created this problem to begin with. Every news agency should be saying "you dummy, this is what socialism does!"

As such when I hear the cries on capitol hill of "repeal and replcace!!" I get pissed off.

The answer is not only to repeal commie care, but to repeal all the prior socialist government involvement.

You still need market regulation to deal w/fraud and market manipulation, etc..

The problem w/socialism is, by definition, the government is the one doing the manipulating. That is the "rest of the story" that is never heard. :{

1 posted on 10/23/2015 4:08:09 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1
Hence the price lowers to what the market bears to, believe it or not, the correct price.

That can't happen when there is a government enforced monopoly (patent) on the product.

2 posted on 10/23/2015 4:18:37 AM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: SeeSharp

You can’t make any money on what doesn’t sell.


3 posted on 10/23/2015 4:22:49 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: SeeSharp

“government enforced monopoly (patent)”

Another saddening view, demonstrating the lack of understanding of free markets.

Patents are required because patent is property.

E.g., I am the only one that can sell my house. I have a monopoly on it.

Nevertheless, if I price it too high, no one buys it and I lower my price. So your disbelief is unfounded.

Not having a patent system in place would be like someone being able to take my house and sell it out from under me.

In the pharma world, there would be no innovation without patents. No reason to invest millions of dollars in research when someone else swipes it away and charges less because they didn’t have to spend the research money.

It only takes a couple cents to make a pill, and you don’t need a PhD to figure out how to do it.


4 posted on 10/23/2015 4:40:00 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1

Reading the article, I see the same scam being perpetrated by the insurance companies that we eventually pay for. It mentions that Turing is capping co-payments to $10.

OK, now the serfs are overjoyed that it only costs them that much while the balance of the $750/pill is SUPPOSEDLY paid for by insurance. The only problem is that your insurance premium is calculated on the expected costs to the insurance companies.

Now, how long have we heard about insurance companies never, ever paying the first full amount of a claim? That’s right, they always negotiate that down by very large amounts according to those who are desperately trying to get their money so they can recoup their salaries and overheads to keep their business cash flow going.

So, since the premiums you are paying are a reflection of the “expected” full costs but the payout is usually well below that, the insurance company pockets the difference, because you are paying for it in advance based off the models of projected costs rather than actual.


5 posted on 10/23/2015 4:52:43 AM PDT by mazda77
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To: mazda77

“insurance company pockets the difference, because you are paying for it in advance “

Yes. This is the type of area where I could see getting gov involved, though it’s not actually necessary.

If gov gets involved in insurance, it shouldn’t be to dictate policy content, but I could see it making the company DISCOSE information, such as, in this case, how many claims are paid at a reduce reimbursement and by how much. That way, the consumer would be informed as to how the insurance company operates, and could decide whether or not they want a policy with them.

Sort of like the SEC stuff you see with stocks.


6 posted on 10/23/2015 5:02:42 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1

Obamacare was constructed to gouge the taxpayers into this massive shift of more of their money into the welfare system—this plus another massive increase in government overhead to line the pockets of DC lawyers and politicians who now have access to our most private information. .


7 posted on 10/23/2015 5:04:28 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed.)
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To: fruser1
The saddening part is that you think patents are property. A patent is a monopoly, nothing more. The patent system has nothing to do with free markets. It is a holdover from the age of mercantilism.

Yes, you are the only one who can sell your house. But I can build another one that looks just like it and your property rights will not be violated. The purpose of a patent is to maintaining a price, but price is not a property right. You can sell your house, but you can't force a buyer to pay your price, nor prevent him from buying elsewhere if he doesn't like your price. The reason you lower price is because the buyer has other options you can't control. If you don't like the price of a patented drug however, your suffering or death doesn't affect the price of the drug whatsoever. Some "free market" eh?

You can't call anything free if it involves the government threatening you.

8 posted on 10/23/2015 5:10:01 AM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: fruser1

“That way, the consumer would be informed as to how the insurance company operates”

All one needs to see is no report, just distribute pictures of the campuses in every city/state that these firms operate, as an example, Blue Cross / Blue Shield.

The one here in JAX is massive and in several places around the city.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jacksonville+blue+cross+blue+shield&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=ubuntu&channel=fs&gws_rd=ssl

http://billyatesphotography.photoshelter.com/image/I00003jUkp10WpJE

The above image location is but one of the three locations in this city. Nice to know you are paying for all of that infrastructure, nevermind the salaries of everyone in it. the sorry thing is that I would wager that most in there are tasked with pushing around government paperwork.


9 posted on 10/23/2015 5:11:27 AM PDT by mazda77
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To: fruser1
Unless the Constitution authorizes federal involvement, the feds shouldn't be involved at all.

Unless Art 1 Sec 8 authorizes it... stay out of it.

/johnny

10 posted on 10/23/2015 5:14:37 AM PDT by JRandomFreeper (gone Galt)
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To: SeeSharp
A patent is a monopoly, nothing more.

It certainly is.

But you are saying it like it's a bad thing.

It's not.

It allows someone who comes up with a better way of doing something to benefit from that idea for a period of time.

11 posted on 10/23/2015 5:19:38 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: SeeSharp

But I can build another one that looks just like it and your property rights will not be violated”

Patents are for unique products not identical ones.

I draw the house analogy because every property IS unique.

Even if you have the same building, the land is different.

Identical houses, one next to the highway, where it’s loud 24x7 I different than the one next to a park.

The uniqueness is where I draw my analogy. So I DO have a monopoly on my house. Your concern that therefore, I can charge what I want, is unfounded. The reality is, the noisy lot can’t sell the same as the quiet one. They have to reduce the price.

The ownership of my property is exclusive. Hence patents are not only exclusive but unique. Being able to “sell” someone else’s patent is like someone else being able to sell your house.

As you correctly indicate, someone can buy another house. In the pill situation, someone can pursue an alternative treatment for their condition (which includes ‘no treatment). Hence, the freedom of the market is maintained.

Saying patents are a holdover from the old days is like saying property rights are a holdover.


12 posted on 10/23/2015 5:22:32 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: mazda77

“one here in JAX is massive “

Yep. And if the number of claims processed were dropped to .0001% because they no longer had to deal with routine care, that building would probably vanish.

Even with automation, you still need bodies to check for fraud, answer calls, work the IT infrastructure...


13 posted on 10/23/2015 6:04:00 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: DuncanWaring

“But you are saying it like it’s a bad thing.”

I should point out that my argument is that patents are more about property rights than they are about monopoly. By extension you could argue all private property is a monopoly.

You could also say that shooting someone is free speech - you are just “expressing” your displeasure with them. But we don’t call that free speech, we call it murder.

“Monopoly” is more concerned with business practice, than private property. As such, there is some validity to gov stepping in when a business unethically manipulates the market to achieve 100% market share.

However, saying “monopoly” is bad should not be extended to saying “private property” is bad.

In grade school, you probably heard more about those evil robber barons than you did about why we have a patent system.

Propagandizing patent as monopoly is a tool of that wiley socialist to progressively bring you to the conclusion that private property is bad.

Don’t fall for it!


14 posted on 10/23/2015 6:16:45 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1

Some of the high prices are to cover the lawsuits as many of these drugs should never have passed the FDA. Gardasil has paid out so far $6 Mill in death suits. Thousands more are who were damaged by this faulty rushed to market drug, are on the lawsuit list, my grand daughter is one of them. They have to wait until the Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia she developed gets worse before they go further.

FDA told pharmaceuticals to put warnings on all Osteoporosis drugs and that doctors give that info to their patients. Well some of it is in that very fine print out, most seniors can’t read that fine a print. It’s not on the TV adds, and the doctor sure as HECK is not telling the patients about them he/she is to busy pushing them. Warnings are AFIB, Jaw Degeneration, GI issues, A-typical femur fractures and bone/muscle pain. Foreto has the distinction of being Black Boxed for Bone Cancer to top the other off and reverses all gains when the 2 yr time frame is done. Reclast which is the IV form once in the system NEVER leaves. No info is available as to how many deaths this class of drugs has caused that I can find, but know it is out there. I researched them and told the doctor NO to keep his horrid drugs. And every one of them is EXPENSIVE.

You develop Jaw Degeneration kiss your dentist goodbye. The are now starting to ask if you are on a OP drug, and may refuse to treat your dental needs because of the Jaw Degeneration that can start in as little as 3 months. Kind of peaks at 2.5 yrs. This is about the best I can get pulled up which is on the most common Fosamax. Very High GI side effects, has to be taken on a Fasting stomach at least 1-2 hrs before any food. http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/whats_the_story_with_fosamax

Makes you wonder is Sally Field who is the TV pusher of Boniva has had any of these health issues. Not seen much of her lately.


15 posted on 10/23/2015 7:10:57 AM PDT by GailA (If You don't keep your Promises to Our Troops, thu won't keep them to anyone. Ret. SCPO's wife)
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To: GailA

“Some of the high prices are to cover the lawsuits “

Yes, I’d like to see a chart showing what percentage of expenses goes to what. Might be able to find some in stock prospectuses. Would be different by company I guess.

Sorry to hear about your granddaughter. I hope things improve for her.


16 posted on 10/23/2015 7:27:26 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1

In these cases the market has already determined that a drug should be cheap, but then some a-hole who cares about nothing but money figures out a way to rig the system to make the drug extremely expensive. This type of activity hurts free markets.


17 posted on 10/23/2015 7:32:47 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Moonman62

“figures out a way to rig the system”

The rig is our partially socialized system.

Were it not for the third party factor (10 copay/ 740 to insurance) they wouldn’t get away with it.

They could jack up the price upon buying the patent, but if no one buys it, the price comes down.

Since the consumer only sees it as a $10 expense, they accept the drug and insurance pays the diff. No free market means the game is already rigged, by definition.


18 posted on 10/23/2015 7:42:20 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: fruser1

Correct, patents are property. Hence the designation “intellectual property” for patents, trademarks, designs.

The government granting a patent is a give-and-take situation. The inventor publishes his idea via the patent, enriching general knowledge and the collective state of the art, and in return receives an exclusive right to economically exploit the invention for a limited time of up to 20 years (where maintenance fees create a pressure to not fully make use of those 20 years).

Otherwise the invention would be kept secret as far as possible (and indeed, some inventions are more valuable as trade secrets and not patented by the inventor if they cannot be easily copied) to prevent copying, and the growth of collective knowledge would suffer - and many things needlessly be invented over and over again, at great cost.


19 posted on 10/23/2015 8:20:39 AM PDT by Moltke
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