BF2S Forums Cost of pharmaceutical drups

Turquoise wrote:

You don't mess with the Zofran... er...  Zohan.  j/k

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

The#1Spot wrote:

Heard the free heath care is worse. Hurts people in the medical field as well.

That's why you remain in the U.S. and import Canadian pills.

Flaming has the right idea.  As Americans, we have the opportunity to buy cheaper drugs from Canada that they subsidize through their taxes, not ours.  It's a pretty sweet deal for us, but it sucks for them.

Whatever the case, Sicko is a relevant movie on this topic as someone else posted in this thread.

The point is that we should use France's system as an example, not Canada's.  Of course, the only way we could properly fund a system with the French design would involve cutting spending in SS and the military.  If we could withdraw from Iraq and end Social Security, we could have a properly working socialized healthcare system without raising taxes.

Of course, this isn't going to happen.

...would rather end entitltement spending rather than military spending, but you are right; it will not happen.  And that is yet another topic for us to dig into.

Turquoise wrote:

The sad thing about our healthcare crisis is that both sides have good ideas, but neither one is willing to use the wisdom of the other.

On the left, we have the following good ideas:

more government negotiations with Big Pharms on drug pricing
socialized medicine
holding insurance companies more liable for coverage

On the right, we have:

tort reform
ending SS
streamlining FDA bureaucracy

Turq, we both know where I stand on freedom and government issues, so I will suprise you and suggest:

Ending advertising of perscription-only drugs.  The reason there are Rx advertising is to bring the name to the attention of people who really do not know anything about those drugs other than those names.  They ask their doctor, who prescribes the high cost drug, even when there is a low-cost alternative.

But the US has to COMPLETELY overhaul the HMO train-wreck we currently have in place. (another thank you to President Clinton).

imortal wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

The sad thing about our healthcare crisis is that both sides have good ideas, but neither one is willing to use the wisdom of the other.

On the left, we have the following good ideas:

more government negotiations with Big Pharms on drug pricing
socialized medicine
holding insurance companies more liable for coverage

On the right, we have:

tort reform
ending SS
streamlining FDA bureaucracy

Turq, we both know where I stand on freedom and government issues, so I will suprise you and suggest:

Ending advertising of perscription-only drugs.  The reason there are Rx advertising is to bring the name to the attention of people who really do not know anything about those drugs other than those names.  They ask their doctor, who prescribes the high cost drug, even when there is a low-cost alternative.

But the US has to COMPLETELY overhaul the HMO train-wreck we currently have in place. (another thank you to President Clinton).

HMO issues actually began with the Nixon administration.

I like your ad idea though.

Last edited by Turquoise (2008-04-26 15:45:37)

Captain_Iron_shooter wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

As Americans, we have the opportunity to buy cheaper drugs from Canada that they subsidize through their taxes, not ours.  It's a pretty sweet deal for us, but it sucks for them.

We are not that generous with pharmaceutical company price are control by law, by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board.

But where are the companies located?  Does this mean that the companies have to soak Americans up for even more money because Canada passed a law saying their drugs have to be cheap?

Price controls are very dangerous things.

I think the point about patent laws with drugs is a very valid one, although the situation is a Catch-22 in that removing the laws would decrease drug prices from the companies who deserve the rewards, but no one wants to because they think they won't get cheap drugs without the laws.

Nationalised healthcare ftw! No matter how poor you are you should at least manage to stay alive... And for the more affluent: medical insurance ftw!

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-04-28 04:03:32)

Believe it or not the vast majority of research into new pharmacutical drugs is socialised in the US as well as elsewhere. Universities do all of the work right up to the point that a viable drug is in the horizon, at which point the government hands it over for drugs companies to finish the job.

An obvious step would be to ditch the private research alltogether and keep the last little bit in government hands too. Replace the massive costs of patents with awards to research groups who come up with exciting new drugs and let the government do all the drug testing on people. Once it's been approved, let the companies compete to make the drugs at minimal possible cost, no patent costs at all. For every dollar spent on researching drugs, US drug companies get 3 dollars from the resulting patents. Most of that is spent researching drugs that already exist to get around other company's patents which you don;t need to do if you ditch the patent system, so for every dollar spent in new drugs, drugs companies get 8 dollars from the patents.

This system was estimated in the US to save about $140 billion a year (and rising).

Many doctors actually support a move away from privatised medicine. It's the stated preference of the American College of Physicians.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/ … 10-00196v1
The US system is embarrasingly inefficient and the health outcomes are mediocre in comparison to the other rich countries.

Socialised medicine FTW!

FEOS wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Nationalised healthcare ftw! No matter how poor you are you should at least manage to stay alive... And for the more affluent: medical insurance ftw!

Wow. That sounds remarkably like the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare … ted_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car … are_System

Not quite...

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-04-28 15:25:36)

Our socialized healthcare is considerably less comprehensive than that of France, and it is less efficient as well.

The problem with the little socialization we've done is that we've created a half-ass system that leads to rising costs, where the only major benefactors are insurance companies.  When people end up in the ER unable to pay, hospitals and doctors have to suck it up.  These costs get passed to those of us who do pay our way.

It would make a lot more sense to have some kind of comprehensive government run insurance at the very least.  The insurance side of our healthcare is so corrupt that everyone else in the industry (except possibly pharmaceutical companies) is facing higher costs due to their convenient loopholes in coverage.

So, if we want to maintain a functional private industry in medicine, we will at least need to socialize health insurance if not the rest of the system.