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"Most Hated Man In America" Martin Shkreli Arrested On Suspicion of Fraud (ibtimes.co.uk)
Ewan Palmer writes that everyone's least favorite medication price gouger, Martin Shkreli, has run into some legal problems. According to the article "Pharmaceutical start-up owner Martin Shkreli, dubbed the most hated man in the US over his controversial plans to significantly raise the price of life-saving drugs, has been arrested on suspicion of fraud. Shkreli, 32, who received widespread criticism for hiking up the price of Daraprim from $13 to $750 per pill in September, is being questioned over allegations involving stock from a company he founded in 2011. According to Bloomberg, Shkreli is accused of illegally taking stock from biotechnology Retrophin Inc to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings."
This guy is going to simultaneously get himself thrown in jail AND get the pharmaceutical industry even MORE heavily regulated with his dumbass shenanigans.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
He'll wind up in jail, but I'm not so sure about the other part. The cynic in me thinks the 1% has thrown this little twerp to the wolves as a sacrifice. A troublemaker for the pharma profit machine goes down, the masses are sated, and the rest of the industry keeps chugging along.
Fuck yes.
I think his criminal misdeeds have more to do with the financial than the pharmaceutical industry.
That said, I'm feeling some nice warm fuzzy schadenfreude about this, after what he did with Daraprim.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Also, when he gets raped in jail he'll probably get AIDs. Since he will also be poor from having all his wealth taken away he won't be able to afford the AIDs treatment he hiked the price on.
So it's a WIN WIN.
Big pharma, meet big karma.
Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
He'll obviously get it 5000% cheaper.
Thanks to reddit's widespread demonization of the man, he'll probably get off because they won't be able to find an impartial jury.
I don't know if your overall claims are true, but I will say this: if the argument being brought against socialized medicine is "bad men will charge whatever they want", then I think you know the answer to that kind of shit show. The point is to supplement market forces, not replace them with a system that lets megadicks pump harder.
Perhaps his plan was to paint the government as coming after him on a trumped-up charge in retaliation for his raising the price of Daraprim by 5,500%. However a close look reveals he's been under investigation for quite a while, for example:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/17...
Shocked to find that he would be involved in fraudulent activities!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
> That said, I'm feeling some nice warm fuzzy schadenfreude about this, after what he did with Daraprim.
And that's the trap set for you. The system that allows any asshole like this to do the same thing tomorrow is still firmly in place.
Wake me up when patients can import drugs from abroad, without any hassle, to keep miscreants like Shkreli in check with competition. I'll wear my comfy PJ's as it'll be a while, as corporations continue to gouge patients, leaving the working poor without access to medicine while a few get rich.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And now, he gets to meet a number of former Enzyte customers...
This space unintentionally left blank.
He was not rounded up because he was gouging poor people for 1000x what they could ever afford to pay for medicine.
He was rounded up because he stole from rich people 1/1000 of what they could afford to lose.
This is unlikely. He's a white collar criminal of the purest sort. It's extremely likely that he'll get probation, at most. Or exoneration. What it really boils down to is: who has he burned? The question of whether he'll see some time behind actual real bars hinges on whether the people behind the prosecution (not necessarily the SEC, btw - the SEC is merely the complainant...) have a grudge. This could easily be political, too - if he gets convicted, people in the State and Federal Government up to and including Obama step up and say "bad man, we fixed it, love us".
The guy is obviously a sociopath. It shouldn't surprise anyone that he's a crook, on top of being a shameless, heartless profiteer. He practically basks in his pathological condition. Sadly. jail will do nothing for him, like all sociopaths, he lacks even a basic capacity for human decency. He'll get out and immediately try to find new ways to ingratiate himself and fuck other people over.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If Obamacare has to pay by law, every drug company should raise their prices 10x. It's free money. They would be stupid not to.
What the fuck is Obamacare in your fantasy universe? Some miraculous money-printing scheme, as you seem to think? Whatever. In reality-land, we know most of the people covered by the law are still paying into private insurers, who won't suddenly pony up to a 10x price increase, and even with the government programs, those are also under mandates to pay close to fair market rates, not just kow-tow to sudden price changes.
So in reality, the only stupidity would be thinking you could treat it as an egg laying goose.
its sort of weird how people condone male rape in jail as just a part of the process but if this was a women going to jail no one would be cheering or begging for her to get raped....
Sorry, I just get tired of seeing people make remarks like the one posted....and yes, this dude should totally get thrown into the worst jail we can send him. Although its not like he's much different from the rest of the scumbag pharma companies out there....
He was charged with securities fraud. He will probably plead to a year in Club Fed and probation thereafter.
after what he did with Daraprim.
Bring the nation's attention upon a thoroughly broken system that has been quietly abused for years? (see: people getting their medicine from Canada, guess why)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Considering that most customers are HIV positive, and a significant percentage of HIV carriers are homosexual, this sounds like a plan to hurt homosexuals. al qaeda wants homosexuals dead, and hates America, so this gouging sounds more like an al qaeda thing.
Oh wow, you're clever! I'm not a fan of Trump, but lame shit like your post is why this site has become Digg 2.0. Wait, I just looked at Digg and they have a much better presentation and it has become an interesting site. Slashdot is now 4chan without the "edge".
You can't rape the willing!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Say what you want about the GP, he belongs here more than you, as he has bothered to create an account and use it for quite some time now. Seems like you are the one who belongs over at digg
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Sure, but none of those sites have Beta.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
>Sadly. jail will do nothing for him
While it is an indictment of the failure of the American penal system, it is possible that Shkreli gets murdered in prison. (We can all hope.) It is highly unlikely he will be feted as Bernie Madoff was since Shkreli was not swindling the rich.
That's like saying they got Al Capone not because he was a murder but because he was a tax evader. It's just easier to get a conviction for shit like shit because the laws are written to protect tax revenues and rich people.
Make no mistake: this guy went to jail for being a Megadick.
Normal Kilodicks increase prices slowly over time.
He decided to cram all the profit in to the short duration it would take for a competitor to ramp up production.
I actually kinda admire how clever the scheme was. Nobody went without medication because of it(insurance companies covered it).
Bottom line: he was profiteering on Obamacare before Obama left office so the DOJ got involved.
If he had done this under a Republican presidency he probably would have gotten a medal.
That really wasn't as clever or as funny as it sounded in your head. Grasping at straws much? Do you think Trump is mean or something?
If Karma works like it should, he'll end up poor and/or in jail, catch a fatal disease that can be cured by one of the medications for which he jacked up the price, but then be unable to afford it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You listen to some people and you get the idea that the business world is run by Gordon Geckos, that Hollywood caricatures of capitalist villains are the reality and the norm and that the greedy bastards who would do anything to take one dollar more control corporate America.
Then a person who is really like that actually shows up, and only then, by comparison, do we realize again that the others are not. Every few years some of these guys climb out from Hell to remind us of that. It is Martin Shkreli taking over from Enron accountants, Bernard Madoff and John Corzine.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
The guy is obviously a sociopath.
According to Google CEOs tend to be Psychopaths.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"But this guy was singled out for a reason."
He's not part of an affluent family with high level connections, he makes the perfect sacrificial lamb to appease the commoners in an election year. He can be ran through the wringer (if that's what you want to call the few months to a couple years he'll likely get) without significant political fallout and it gives the commoners the illusion that something is being done. Not that he doesn't deserve significant prison time, but he is an insignificant part of a much larger corrupt system.
This is really pretty interesting. My parents have trended pretty seriously right wing since moving to Arizona for retirement. They absolutely hated the idea of Obamacare, every single healthcare reform that the Democrats proposed they would shoot down. But they buy their prescriptions in Mexico. That, friends, is literally what George Orwell called "doublethink." And damned if I know how to break its hold.
Breakfast served all day!
http://www.newyorker.com/humor... ;-)
This is really pretty interesting. My parents have trended pretty seriously right wing since moving to Arizona for retirement. They absolutely hated the idea of Obamacare, every single healthcare reform that the Democrats proposed they would shoot down. But they buy their prescriptions in Mexico. That, friends, is literally what George Orwell called "doublethink." And damned if I know how to break its hold.
Getting them out of Arizona would be a good start
still paying into private insurers, who won't suddenly pony up to a 10x price increase,
Obamacare requires minimum coverages. So yes, they will suddenly pony up a 10x price increase if that is part of the mandated coverage. The mandated coverage is quite extensive including pregnancy care for single men over 80 years old.
those are also under mandates to pay close to fair market rates, not just kow-tow to sudden price changes.
[citation needed] There are ZERO price controls in all of Obamacare. That was one of the major complaints about it from both the DNC and the GOP.
So in reality, the only stupidity would be thinking you could treat it as an egg laying goose.
So you lied, and then called him stupid for telling the truth. Am I to assume you believe those who tell the truth are dumb and those who lie to make up points are the smart ones? Seems about right for an Obama supporter.
Give this guy a nice itchy, squirmy, oozing protozoal infection, put a prescription of Daraprim in front of him with a price tag on it that reads the amount of profit he enjoyed from jacking up the costs.
He can have the pills after a few weeks when the insurance company would authorize the payment.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Did you even READ the article? Well of course not, this is slashdot and you are a reactionary moron with a political agenda.
The guy ran a company that went bankrupt. In the process of running this company is falsified return numbers and lied to investors. He then went on to do a full on ponzi scheme where he brought in new investors to pay off previous investors while lying about what he did the entire time. Then he joined a pharmaceutical company (not his current employer) and proceeded to steal money from them to pay off investors from the failed company.
This former employer has sued him in court and laid out in gory details the entire ponzi scheme, his theft and lies to all the people involved and his eventual embezzlement from them. The feds then began an investigation based on the lawsuit. This all started MONTHS before the whole scandal with trying to fuck children and aids patients out of $80K a month.
Everything he did is not one bit different that what Bernie Madoff did. This guy is a complete and total asshole who should be in jail for a VERY long time.
The unscrupulous Daraprim stunt went well beyond simple douchebaggery and obviously showed him to be a pure-bred sociopath. God only knows what other skeletons this maggot has in his closet. He obviously had support, though. Once he goes down I hope they don't stop with him. I'd like to know what sort of vile company had the nerve to put this asshole in charge.
Nothing prevents one from being both.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I thought the most hated man in America was Trump or Obama, depending on the time of day.
You're thinking of instant karma. Regular karma means he's going to reincarnate as a cockroach.
In attempt to maintain my faith in humanity... Has anyone considered he gauged the price to bring attention to the problems in medical patent law? I mean anyone with an IQ above 100 should be able to figure out that gauging the price on HIV drugs of all things by 5000% is the best way to get the fury of the public focused on you...this other stuff sadly makes me question my idea :(
No, that would be Obama, whose approval rating is down once again. No less than 70% of the American people think he is steering the country in the wrong direction. At this point, the people who approve of Obama are those who will support him no matter how poor of a job he does. He could knife an old lady in the street and they'd still approve of him. I think a cold bucket of reality is in order and everyone needs to realize just in what dire straits the country is currently in.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Even NPR had this on their website at 7:25 AM...over 13 hours ago.
The thing that really gets my goat is that he paid $2 million for that one-off Wu Tang Clan album and didn't just share it with the world.
I hope he does hard time, but chances are he'll just go to a Club Fed and come out and get a book deal.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...
You are welcome on my lawn.
FTFY.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is a 62 year old drug, if anything you need to regulate your fucking pharmaceutical indistry and start making example of the fucking psychopaths running your businesses and country. How can a drug you can get for a couple of cents elsewhere, or for free just over the border cost $750 to $833!? Whatever you guys deserve the fucking nightmare you live, defending, protecting and voting for this shit, this is the reward for your meanness...
In India, over a dozen pharmaceutical companies manufacture and sell pyrimethamine tablets in India, and, multiple combinations of generic pyrimethamine are available for a price ranging from US$0.04–$0.10 each (3–7 rupees).[31][32][33][34]
In the UK, the same drug is available from GSK at a cost of US$20 (£13) for 30 tablets (approximately $0.66 each).[35]
As of September 2015, Daraprim imported directly from GSK UK is available for less than US$7 per tablet.[36]
In Australia, the drug is available in most pharmacists at a cost of US$9.35 (A$12.99) for 50 tablets (approximately US$0.18 each).[37]
In Brazil, the drug is available for R$0.07 a pill, or about US$0.02.[38]
In Canada, the drug was reportedly discontinued in 2013 but hospitals may make the drug in-house when it is needed.[39]
On October 22, 2015, Imprimis Pharmaceuticals announced it has made available a formulation of Pyrimethamine and Leucovorin in oral capsules starting as low as $99.00 for a 100 count bottle. [40]
source: wikipedia
"Regular karma means he's going to reincarnate as a cockroach."
Hey, that's pretty unjust: being a cockroach twice in a row.
Psychopath = genetic, less prone to erratic behavior, sociopath = non-genetic, more prone to erratic behavior.
I don't care much for the affordable care act, and I'm in favor of allowing people to buy medication from wherever the hell they please. There's no "doublethink" here. I'm just a free market guy.
"If Obamacare has to pay by law, every drug company should raise their prices 10x. It's free money. They would be stupid not to."
Hummm... it makes sense. If only we could test it real world before putting it in practice in USA...
Hey, wait a second! Now that I think of it, there *are* other countries, a vast majority in fact, that already have socialized healthcare in place. Surely they'll demonstrate your thesis!
Now, wait *another* second: how is it that all those other countries get better prices from big pharma than USA? It can't be coz you are wrong, can it?
Let's see how long he lasts in gen. pop.
I actually think Obamacare has done more good than harm, and I initially opposed it for a variety of reasons. That said, I don't see any necessary contradictions in being opposed to democrat sponsored reforms and buying drugs from Mexico.
It's not as if the only 2 possibilities are "support healthcare the way democrats want to do it" and "believe 100% in the system as it exists (i.e. buying medication in the US)"
I actually think one of the biggest problems in American politics is polarization. There is this assumption that you are either for A and against B or for B and against A. The idea of holding a nuanced position is unheard of. Politicians have simple positions because having a complex one means being attacked from 2/2 sides instead of just 1/2.
Furthermore, even if your parents are actually 1 dimensional conservative caricatures, ignoring big (Obama administration) government regulations that create an artificial monopoly (i.e. non free market) for American Pharmaceutical corporations seems like a right wing position.
It turns out that there are a few brands of radical conservatism that are occasionally at odds with one another. In this case it's being pro-free market vs. jingoism. But it actually gets more complicated, because classical liberalism actually embraced the free market. Then modern liberalism sort of abandoned the free market, and classical liberals got renamed to libertarians. And more recently republicans co-opted the libertarian label leaving people formerly labelled libertarians currently without a label.
But now through polarized lenses we boil that down to: Liberals support regulation of a greedy capitalist system that can not possible regulate itself, while conservatives believe all regulations on the market are socialist job killers.
Don't buy into pharma's fear campaign. They want you to think that drugs purchased from another country at a cheaper rate are somehow suspect or dangerous so that you'll be happy paying extortionist prices for the same drug locally.
Their laws about buying externally and reselling internally violate the Sherman Act and should be struck down. Good luck getting that done with the bastion of corruption that's been haunting the halls of government for decades now.
It's doublethink if you're an incompetent drone or a 13 year old child. Your obviously wiser parents learned a long time ago that governments typically make things worse. Can't wait until they completely take over healthcare, that way your life and health will receive the same quality care and attention as a trip to your local DMV. Do you hear the regular stories on TV about the VA having years of delay and mismanagement for our veterans? That's how bad they are when it's only 1% of the population.
On top of all that, pharma companies lobbied HARD for Obamacare to pass. Did they do that because they love helping people so much? No, anyone with a brain knows their lobbyist lawyer friends helped craft the law in the first place. There's trillions of dollars of profit on the line from an incredible powerful sector - you'd better believe every politician on both sides got some serious campaign contributions to make sure things go pharma's way.
. Medically, there is no distinction.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I hope he gets raped in prison and gets AIDS and dies.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
There are so many things now that are illegal that we all are lawbreakers even if we do not know it. Congress passes laws and leaves it up to judges and bureaucrats to decide what they mean. Anyone brash enough to bring down public wrath upon his head can now be assured of a prison sentence, especially if he or she is a member of a despised class, such as businessmen. Welcome to the Brave New World.
Of course, rather than a pursuit of justice, for what seems like the majority of CEOs do. Nothing at all new, pretty much the expected norm of behaviour (the banskters stole 1000s of times as much) and what they generally get away with in a compliant regulatory framework, full of rich lawyers and lobbyists. Then of course this douche, compared to all the others, is new to the scene and has no family worth speaking of and hence, he must suffer for bringing to the public's attention of the abuses in the pharmaceutical industry. Nothing new here, normal practice but he was still a nobody and had to be made to publicly pay. They did hold it off for a while, don't want to set bad examples, you know, like how corporate executives should be held legally accountable for their decisions but the idiot just wouldn't shut up, so he had to be shut up sic. So how come those who stole just so much more were ignored.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Sounds like Martha Stuart to me. If you want to get away with things like this you really need to be to big to fail, or a card carrying member of the U.S. Congress.
Bernie 2016
Nothing prevents one from being both.
That would make them a schizophrenic.
No, you are right about that. It was really more insightful than funny, actually.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
the drug was unprofitable at the former price, so any company selling it would be losing money
That is a really lame excuse to buy out a company and jack up the price of their product. He really should have just said "we did it because we can, and we knew nobody would stop us". If he really thinks he can fool the world with that line of bullshit he'll get another thing coming later. After all, if the product was such a loser, the proper thing to do would be to allow the market to take over and allow the company to fail, no?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I know. You'd think a News Aggregator site like Slashdot would beat the actual News to the punch!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He works in the finance industry. And a CEO. Of course he's a sociopath.
Actually, one would hope that him going to jail (for years hopefully), would tell investors to stay the hell away from him. Guy is a sociopath that should either rot in jail or in a cardboard box under a bridge.
http://www.valeant.com/about/c...
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He has been pretty obvious from the start on his twitter that he is purposely trolling the industry to force it to produce widely available generics for diseases that many 2nd or 3rd world populations suffer from that the industry does not feel is worth enough money to bother. That gets lost in all the noise. Just go through his twitter posts going back to before the first several incidents, he's been very obvious about it. e.g. "Let's fix this" and then he posts a news article about diseases affecting large poor populations that the pharmaceutical industry is ignoring. Then he buys out the only maker of the drug, raises the prices, and magically there is a new generic industry born. He's done it a few times now.
And, he got in trouble with Retrophin coincidentally because he purposely went on reddit boasting about how no one could stop them from jacking prices up to out them for it. They didn't want the bad publicity, their entire business is to hide in plain site. Retrophin does the same thing his new company does but they try to stay under the radar by only raising prices to within limits insurance companies are willing to pay. He makes it obvious in order to force change in an industry that won't change otherwise.
That's my two cents.
Your comment is likely true. However, it's assholes like Shkreli that make life more difficult than it needs to be for most people, whether his dealing were in the financial or pharmaceutical industries. His kind is not welcome in free society. He personifies what is wrong with the US today.
The main thing Shkreli did was point out exactly how broken government regulations around pharmaceuticals are. The patent on the drug in question expired several decades ago, yet he was still able to lock down the market and keep free-market competitors at bay because of government idiocy.
I think it's almost the reverse. The shenanigans he has been pulling have been going on for years but never faced much scrutiny til now. They only affected small patient populations at any given time. Now he has given everyone a single, hatable face to hang the problem on - during election season no less. Plus these particular shenanigans aren't ones that are used by big pharma, but DO affect their reputations, so as long as the reforms are on target they won't be fighting them. On the other hand, the securities fraud charges have been in the works for a long time (and come from a completely different arm of the government.
If he just get to share cell with someone with HIV he may learn a thing or two.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Until the day the customs do an inspection and confiscate the meds because they aren't labeled right.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Don't buy into pharma's fear campaign. They want you to think that drugs purchased from another country at a cheaper rate are somehow suspect or dangerous so that you'll be happy paying extortionist prices for the same drug locally.
Their laws about buying externally and reselling internally violate the Sherman Act and should be struck down. Good luck getting that done with the bastion of corruption that's been haunting the halls of government for decades now.
If those drugs have been manufactured in India, then they probably are in fact suspect and dangerous.
Read about Ranbaxy's HIV drugs and their $400 million dollar fine.
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound, the implementation of it seems to be painfully flawed. The rest of the modern world solves the major costs of healthcare through taxes and requires the pharmacies to offer the cheapest variant of a specific drug (different manufacturers have to compete) to push down costs.
Healthcare in the US is a sick story.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Burn the wrong person and you will get a backfire that makes a serious mark.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I have the uneasy feeling that Shkreli and Bieber would get along pretty well.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor...
If only...you couldn't maximize the karma any further. :)
or they get medication that does nothing or kills them instead.
He's obviously a sociopath, but he's possibly actually very very clever .
With his drug shenanigans and his very public record collection, there are very few people who have not heard of him & think he's a grade "A" arsehole.
It seems very likely that selecting an unbiased jury will be impossible.
The US doesn't allow judge only trials for offenses at this severity does it ?
If that's the case, he may be able to walk.
Outside-USA sources - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , http://blueskydrugs.com/Produc... . and an info post from a 'supposed supplier in CA - http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
redneck geek
I was going to make some snide remark to the effect that you shouldn't offer to define terms you don't understand, but instead I did a bit of reading and discovered that you're actually right about the nature vs nurture thing. So I learned something this morning. Thanks!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Wouldn't the free market just take care of this? You can't really do price gouging if you can get the product at a fraction of the price somewhere else - or are the alternatives not available as widely? "As of September 2015, Daraprim imported directly from GSK UK is available for less than US$7 per tablet" and "On October 22, 2015, Imprimis Pharmaceuticals announced it has made available a formulation of Pyrimethamine and Leucovorin in oral capsules starting as low as $99.00 for a 100 count bottle." (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)
Let any yahoo sell pills to Americans over the internet with no hope of accountability.
Import restrictions and accountability are two different things.
He is surely not worse than Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street.
It can't be coz you are wrong, can it?
Of course not, because 'murica. Or something.
No, schizophrenic is something completely different. John Forbes Nash (as depicted in A Beautiful Mind) is a schizophrenic.
The government does only what the lobbyists wanted and what the general public let go through unchecked, convinced by a F.U.D. campaign that it would be better to set those rules.
"Wake me up when patients can import drugs from abroad, without any hassle, to keep miscreants like Shkreli in check with competition."
As long as there are patents, this will not be possible.
You should consider a single payer system that keeps prices down by stating how much they will pay.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Time wounds all heels.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This sends a clear message: Screw with the costs for Obamacare and we will find a way to take you down. If they looked hard enough, they'd be able to enough to bring in a good percentage of pharmaceutical CEO's. But this guy was singled out for a reason.
If Obamacare has to pay by law, every drug company should raise their prices 10x. It's free money. They would be stupid not to.
Consider fundamental economics. The price found is a function of supply and demand.
More demand, less supply, price goes up.
More supply, less demand, price goes down.
All supply, one buyer...buyer's market = set's the price willing to pay.
This is why it works in one payer countries.
So long as you continue to believe that such 'socialist' ideas are bad (not really your fault as you've been indoctrinated to think this since you were in diapers), you will be stuck with a system that fucks you every which way.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Bring the nation's attention upon a thoroughly broken system that has been quietly abused for years?
Crime is crime, greed is greed and so on. This guy didn't idealistically bring his own livelihood in danger to highlight the failings of "the broken system". That's like saying the bankers who undermined our economy with irresponsible practices driven by shortsighted greed were heroes - it's a disingenious argument.
This guy is going to simultaneously get himself thrown in jail AND get the pharmaceutical industry even MORE heavily regulated with his dumbass shenanigans.
Don't you think some regulation is long due if a company has the power to raise the price of a drug by over 5700%, just like that?
That said, I'm feeling some nice warm fuzzy schadenfreude about this, after what he did with Daraprim.
I have some pills that can manage your schadenfreude. Unfortunately as it's an orphan drug so I've decided to jack the price up to $5000 if you want to avail of them.
So you say that he' a sociopathic, shameless, heartless profiteer with no human decency. I hear that the Republican party is looking for a new leader. He sounds perfect for the job.
Is he most hated for rising prices of life-saving drugs? Sure, and that's a good thing.
But there's more. He must be the first man in history that managed to make American republicans publicly admit the failure of their beloved capitalism (they criticized Shkreli's practices in public). For that alone he deserves some credit: being an eye opener to some of the most hard-core believers in capitalism, and unambiguously exposing the pure evil to which uncontrolled capitalism (where profit is the only objective that counts) eventually leads. I bet none of this was Shkreli's original intention, but as with many major breakthroughs it came about by (un)lucky accident.
I think "cynic" is an understatement. What exactly do you think "the 1%" is? A made-up term for a group of particularly well-off individuals, or a secret society who actually meet and organise under that name, and could orchestrate this entire thing in the name of controlling public opinion?
Stay on the medication.
This is really pretty interesting. My parents have trended pretty seriously right wing since moving to Arizona for retirement. They absolutely hated the idea of Obamacare, every single healthcare reform that the Democrats proposed they would shoot down. But they buy their prescriptions in Mexico. That, friends, is literally what George Orwell called "doublethink."
I used to think you were pretty smart, but now I suspect I was just biased by your low Slashdot ID. There is nothing inconsistent about being opposed to Obamacare and also purchasing your medication from Mexico. The ACA is a handout for insurance companies which does nothing to improve the overall state of health care in the country because it does nothing to increase the number of care providers, and we already had too few of them before the ACA. Mexico is one of the world's larger markets for pharmaceuticals, and has a growing pharmaceutical industry, especially for generics. There is nothing at all which is hypocritical about getting medical care or supplies from Mexico if you are opposed to the ACA. In fact, due to the ACA, I can only afford medical care if I go to Mexico, because I am self-employed. I can either pay rent or comply with the ACA. Guess which I choose?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound,
What? No, no it is not. The basic idea behind the ACA is to keep the insurance companies in the loop, when they are the single thing most harmful to health care in this country. The ACA is an inherently shit idea, bought and paid for by corporations, and supported by idiotic sycophants incapable of connecting the dots.
the implementation of it seems to be painfully flawed. The rest of the modern world solves the major costs of healthcare through taxes and requires the pharmacies to offer the cheapest variant of a specific drug
Yeah, you don't get it do you? The rest of the world has something which looks nothing like the ACA. The ACA isn't a flawed implementation, it's corrupt by design.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Leave it to 'murrica to fuck up a perfectly good idea, that others can implement for the well-being of all, in an overly capitalistic and anti-social way.
They are the masters of inhumanism.
"Wake me up when patients can import drugs from abroad, without any hassle, to keep miscreants like Shkreli in check with competition."
As long as there are patents, this will not be possible.
You should consider a single payer system that keeps prices down by stating how much they will pay.
What planet does that exist on?
Of all the things a single-payer system does, keeping prices down is NOT one of them.
A single-payer system might HIDE the true price, but it won't keep it down.
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound ...
FUCK NO!!!!
Romneycare was designed to shift huge parts of the cost of Massachusetts health care to the federal government:
"There is nothing inherent in the economics of Massachusetts that should be singled out," said Gruber. "There's only two things that should be singled out in Massachusetts- one is we did have widespread acceptance of the mandate, which may not be true elsewhere. But the biggest thing that Romney's not talking about is in Massachusetts the federal government paid for about half of our plan. We didn't pay for it all on our own."
If Romneycare is the model for Obamacare, then Obamacare is a SHAM.
There's no one to shift the cost of Obamacare on to.
Oh wait, yes there is. The taxpayers.
It does keep it down, as the health service gets quite a discount considering it buys drugs for the entire country. You're arguing something that is patently not true.
It's the worst of both worlds - universal coverage with the prices of private healthcare. It's a first world joke.
You missed out the last part... "... by preventing people from being able to buy a life-saving drug". Yaaaaay. Not really the Robin Hood type.
You're not too good with numbers, are you. 70% of the 1,000 people surveyed by NBC and WSJ think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Extrapolating that to all of the US is, well, what I'd expect from someone who would rather make an incorrect point just to make a point. Stop lying, please.
There he goes again, letting his childish, irrational hatred pollute another discussion. Grow up, you tiny-minded fool. Your children won't thank you for being so intellectually lazy.
You're even worse with numbers. If you look at the original poll, you'll see there's a 3.1% margin of error. So it's 67 to 73% who think we're headed in the wrong direction. Statistical sampling isn't for the weak of mind, or those who cling to beliefs in the presence of facts...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yep. Was looking at Healthcare.gov last night -- $800/month premiums with a $13,000 deductible, means I'd be shelling out nearly $23,000 before the insurance company pays a single penny (family of four).
ACA is welfare for insurance companies.
governments typically make things worse
Quack Quack Quack Qauck
Doubleplusgood no-think comrade!
Help me out because I don't understand how it works with socialized healthcare....but how are they able to give patients lower prices for medication that the governments buy from America? How do they not have to pay the same price as private insurers? Seems like if only one company was making a drug, they could charge a price and choose not to sell it if someone wanted it cheaper.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
AC is suggesting that the sticker cost is not the true price, because there is subsidy of the drugs etc on the back end through taxation. It's a reasonable argument, though I can't say that I have enough information to come to a conclusion either way as I've read/heard conflicting things about the true costs of systems like Canada's or Germany's.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
we don't need drugs from abroad.
what we need is the power for our public servants in medicare/Medicaid to negotiate/control drug prices, something most other countries take for granted in their government insurance programs, yet ours are banned from doing. it works, and is a big part of what keeps their costs down. so naturally we don't do it. instead we talk about decreasing medicare/Medicaid coverage, and increasing their premiums.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
its common industry practice.
a few day before and after his jacking up prices other companies had done it too several times.
he just got caught being a d--- about it.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
When you work with representatives it is not the job of the general public to check what goes through and what doesn't go through. Even if the general public opposes to what goes through (as many do), they don't have any power to change it.
You are describing another form of government, one that isn't used in the US, nor in Europe. In my country the 'general public' is represented by powerful unions, but I can assure you that while they have done many good things, they also make many mistakes and are often an annoyance.
Maybe the Swiss model is close to the model you describe? The general public has the power to put forward laws, just like the lobbyists in the US, and they can even vote for the laws themselves.
Probably go into lobbying.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Was, RIP
because all of our medicine has maple syrup in it.. seriously, that shit is addictive!
If Obamacare has to pay by law, every drug company should raise their prices 10x. It's free money. They would be stupid not to.
In Canada, where the government pays for drugs, the drugs are far cheaper than they are in the US. They work out deals with the companies because they buy en masse.
Trolling is a art,
You missed out the last part... "... by preventing people from being able to buy a life-saving drug". Yaaaaay. Not really the Robin Hood type.
Now just to be clear, who is it that is preventing you from buying Daraprim from Canada at $1.09 per pill? Who's the big evil preventing people from buying a life-saving drug?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Part of me wants to say "yes".
Then I remember that pretty much ANY time the government gets involved, shit just gets worse.
Basically it's the difference between having your leg amputated at the knee and having it amputated at the testicles.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Nope, legal, not penal or economic. It is our laws that reward large profitable companies, while punishing the small ones, that are at fault.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is congress that allows, if not encourages this. They are the ones to blame.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Except he was buying up the marketing rights to drugs whose patents had expired a long time ago. There's the trick - he showcased the protection layer that the pharma industry has bought to get around the expiration of their patents. Want to freeze out generic competitors? Tightly control the distribution of your branded drug, and the FDA will make sure that the work-alike drugs never make it through testing to release to market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine#Availability_and_price
Another source of all the high costs is our terrible litigation system. You can sue a doctor for millions for leaving a medical sponge inside of you, even though it won't harm you in any way. These lawsuits cause ever doctor to carry malpractice insurance which costs a fortune, causing them to have to charge more money to cover it.
The man who delivered both of my children went out of business because of OB/GYN malpractice insurance costs, and he was never sued.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Right, that's fine. But what about Canada? And the UK? And Germany? And any number of 1st World Countries whose medical industry has far higher success rates than the USA? Why should people in the USA pay many times what the rest of the civilized world does for worse results?
No shit. Seriously, has everyone in the USA gotten so stupid that they can't remember how fast they pulled the ACA out once they had the house, senate and the Presidency? That 2000+ page monstrosity was presented within minutes. You don't get that overnight. The insurance industry has been salivating for this piece of crap for FOREVER.
No, there are a couple of (official) methods in use in the USA to prevent free-market competition. Plus what appears to be a gentlemen's agreement to not compete too hard with each other.
1. By and large, drugs imported from other countries are banned. Companies can do it, but why import cheaply when you can manufacture a local version for way more money? http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm194904.htm
2. "Marketing Rights". Don't want your drug to lose value once the patent expires? The FDA blocks untested generics, and if the distribution of the branded version can be controlled tightly enough then the tests can't be run to certify that the new generic is a work-like for the approved branded product. This was what Shkreli took advantage of, mentioned in the first sentences of "availability" in the wiki article you linked - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine#Availability_and_price
He's being thrown to the wolves because he took too-much advantage of this dirty secret and called attention to it. The masses need a sacrifice so they can feel like someone paid, before they go back to numbly watching the Superball or whatever.
Well, the basic idea of having an affordable healthcare for everybody is sound, then it went down the crapper by creating a half-baked solution that ended up being more expensive than effective.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The only physical copy in the world, the album comes with a contract that bars the buyer from publicly releaseing [SIC] the songs for 88 years.
So, because he won't break a contract to let you hear some music, you hate him?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I wanted to weigh in here.
First, please read this article: http://www.ibtimes.com/should-government-control-price-prescription-drugs-2112771
I'm normally a proponent of free-markets. But they obviously don't work when it comes to healthcare - people have to pay no matter what, so why shouldn't abusive pricing be the norm. The linked article parrots an oft-quoted arguement; "If the US had price controls then we would have lack of investment in research". That research isn't doing shit for the USA now. We have the most expensive health care in the world by far, and it has demonstrate-ably worse outcomes than almost anywhere else. USA does not need to be the sucker when it comes to big pharma's carnival con, they can go try to fleece someone else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ2UeOTO3I
Fuck them. They've had forever to clean up their act and do fair business. It's time to mandate a more ... modest existence for these assholes.
The 1% is not a group of people with mutual interests. The 1% is a group of people that belong to the 1%-group because their average income belongs to the 1%. 99% of the people have an average income that is lower than this 1%.
There is no problem with this, there will always be a 1% of people with an above average income. The problem in the US is that the average income of the 1% increases faster than the average income of the 99%. When you take 10% vs 90%, we see that the average income of the 10% has increased slightly, while the income of 90% has stagnated. When you divide it even further, you will see that the average income of the top 40% has stagnated, while the average income of the 60% has decreased. You can keep on choosing different methods in dividing groups of people, but the lowest 20% brackets has not only a decreased average income, they earn so little that they can no longer pay the bills. Their income is so low that they can't offer their children a future (as in they are no longer able to save money so their kids can go to college).
This problem has been going on since the 80's (as a result of Reaganomics). Several decades later the inequality of income has risen to all time heights. Never has there been a country in written history were the inequality of economy was as has high as the modern day US. But it is not just that there is an inequality. The inequality is still rising.
But it is not only the 1%. You can also divide the 1% in a 1% vs 99%. In that bracket there is even a wider gap. the 1% of the 1% earns 80% of what the 99% of the 1% earn. With each division it become more and more apparent that the higher you move up, the higher the difference in inequality. You could essentially divide the society in 99,99 vs 0,01% and the inequality becomes even more apparent.
Economist don't know whether this evolution is a good thing or a bad thing. There has never been a similar economic system, even in the European Belle Epoque, generally accepted as the most unequal society, the inequality was not as large as in modern day US.
The 0,01% are extremely powerful in the US. They decide on almost everything, even on how to organize the education system and of course the amount of taxes they are entitled to pay (generally nearing 0).
What is the long term effect of this? It has been rising since Reagan and it has resulted in economic growth, but the economic growth isn't their anymore, or is virtual. Lots of money is printed while the inflation remains low which is not normal. Even with a surplus of money printed every day, money has a deflationary trend. There is inflation because so much money is printed, but in a normal economy that amount would have caused inflation rates of 8-10%. The only explanation for this is that a very small part of the economy is able to get that extra money, while the people who need the money most don't get a share of it. One of the proofs for this is that stagnate average income for the 60% of the lowest income and the rapid rises of income within the 1% bracket.
Nobody can predict the future. Will the majority of the poor become servants for the 1/0,1%? Will people remain calm and blame nothing but themselves and just go live on the streets? Will people without any future just stay in their ghetto controlled by the police who operates for the higher classes. Or will their be a large scale revolt that completely destroys the economic system?
... will the simplistic economist be right after all. The more a very small elite earn, the more trickles down into the economy, the less poverty their will be? How long should we wait before we see a reversal of the growing gap between available opportunities for the kids born within a particular social group (social group based on the average income, not their believes or backgrounds)?
Or
What nobody can deny is that the average person is living a better live than the average person in the early 20th century. Even with the high inequalit
Yes. Wu Tang Clan is nothing to fuck with.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How about the fact that not selling the drug means not earning money from it?
The profit margins of Pfizer and Exxon-Mobil are way out of whack. Yet somehow, those of Apple and Starbucks are just right.
#FeelTheBern
Replying to myself...
One important thing for avoiding overpaying for medical drugs is to avoid the marketing effect - in the US doctors are strongly encouraged to prescribe certain drugs with misc. compensation, in some cases actually prescribing people the wrong kinds of drugs to reach compensation goals!
In many other countries there are ways to avoid this, one is that drug firms can't give compensation to someone prescribing a certain amount of their product, another is to automatically switch a named product to the lowest priced generic equivalent and a third way is to restrict marketing to consumers so that the medical doctors can select medication without pressure from people insisting on a certain type of drug just because they saw a nice ad on TV...
The ACA is an inherently shit idea, bought and paid for by corporations, and supported by idiotic sycophants incapable of connecting the dots.
Not by corporations. By lawyers. Yes, the insurance companies were bad -- but the checks put on them are few and far between. "Existing Condition" and "Elligibility" changes were nice, but token gestures.
The real problem is TORT. "Grandpa died in the hospital when he was 98. Someone should pay for this!!!! Starting with the hospital, the doctors that treated him, the vendor of the bed he was placed on, the manufacturer of the bed he was placed on, the same thing for the tubes in his throat, the needles, the oxygen, the saline, etc!!!"
So everything EVERYTHING in the hospital is ultra-expensive because everything EVERYTHING must be insured against that kind of bullshit. So the hospital is forced to buy a $15,000 wrench that it can only use once, in order to prevent being sued for $200,000, even if everything went right. And it's the same exact fucking wrench you can get at Home Depot, just stamped with a "We spent 2 million dollars certifying that this wrench can be used in medical procedures and it has insurance on it to [help] prevent everyone down the line from being sued if you use it correctly in a medical procedure" all to prevent the ghetto lottery from being played out. And people still sue for everything medical related whenever they possibly can, and there's nothing to stop them. So when you're angry about paying a $15,000 medical bill for clearing your cataracts, remember that the hospital threw away $25,000 of single-use supplies when they finished on your eyes. Haven't we all enjoyed the view as community hospitals have disappeared, out of business, across the country and been replaced by hospitals touting the name of insurance companies?
But when Obama was approached with "Tort Reform" on healthcare, he wasn't going to throw his fellow lawyers under the bus. "No Tort Reform" was his mandate. He basically put the gun in the mouth of any useful, meaningful healthcare reform, and blew its brains out.
Patients should not be able to import their own prescriptions. At all. There's a reason shit like daraprim and amoxacillin are behind the prescription counter instead of on the shelf. And I guarantee you if you were allowed to fill a prescription from an online "pharmacy" in russia you'd be able to find another that lets you buy random meds without a prescription.
Pharmacies should be able to source their stock from abroad if the source country has confirmed adequate quality controls, yes.
But that's not what "Wake me up when patients can import drugs from abroad" advocates.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
What planet does that exist on?
I'm sending this from Sol 3, and when it's implemented it's not perfect but it works. I believe Sol 3 is called Earth. Please see this starmap for an overview.
A single-payer system might HIDE the true price
The data in terms of cost and outcomes for single payer systems vs. the insurance company/medicare/medicaid/social security/Planned Parenthood/charity/etc middle man system are available. Single payer costs less and has better outcomes, no matter what happens in your fantasy. From whom is this data being hidden?
I'm being obtuse. You mean that the price of specific procedures, drugs, and office visits is hidden from the patient at the time of delivery of the product/service. Would you help me to understand how the middle man system doesn't do that? I gather a bill arrives some time after the delivery of the product/service, but please help to me understand how the living fuck I'm supposed to find that out when I am at the doctor's office.
This would help me immensely as I will soon begin shopping around to get a procedure done, and as far as I can tell without actually phoning hospitals and my insurance up I need somewhere from between $500 to $3,000 to have this procedure done. Once complete, I will no longer need one of my meds. That med costs me close to $100 per month and is not covered by my insurance, so this procedure will pay for itself in time. I understand getting the information I need will be a complete pain in the ass because nobody at the hospital actually knows how much anything costs, further complicated by "religious objection!"
Note on "religious objection!" This didn't happen before Obamacare. I have religious objections of my own. I religiously object to paying for these things: birth control, viagra, vasectomies, and other optional things cisgendered people want (not need) that I never will. I don't want to pay for them. I live in a Just World where those things shouldn't be necessary. Cisgendered people religiously object to paying for health care services transgendered people need but they never will since they live in a Just World as well. Since democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and there are vastly more cisgendered people than transgendered people, I will always be at a disadvantage accessing the health care services cisgendered people have decided are immoral, and I will always be stuck paying for the health care services I've deemed immoral.*
I doubt single payer will ever solve that particular problem. In fact, that inherent conflict between the needs of a transgendered person and the "religious objection!" of cisgendered people was a big part of why I was a member of the Libertarian party for many moons. Now we have Obamacare, and I'm stuck subsidizing optional things cisgendered people need so they can have more sex. So, I've changed my mind. If that's the situation and if I can't get away from it, we need single payer instead of the current shit sandwich.
My taxes will go up? I don't give a damn. The health insurance I'm required to have is already effectively a tax, and fee I have to pay if I don't have it was contorted into being a tax! My taxes have already gone up! The health services I need will still get "religious objection!" under USA single payer? I don't give a damn! I'm already paying out of pocket! Have been for over a decade now!
In particular, I religiously object to being forced to pay middle men for a system that religiously objects me!
tl;dr [citation needed]
* Disclaimer for the sarcasm-impaired: I actually do want women to have access to contraception services. The pill is dirt cheap and saves money in the long run. If you believe the pill is murder, you're beyond my help. Also, the Just World is a fantasy.
No, frankly, they aren't.
"Wake me up when patients can import drugs from abroad, without any hassle" implies grandma fill her own prescription without the hassle of those pesky profiteering pharmacies inserting themselves into the supply chain. And those pharmacies are the main quality control mechanism, as well as gate keeper to prevent abuse. Because if they give out chalk pills or drugs to people without prescription they get jailed. A website owner in china with 20 drums of lead paint to get rid of, not so much.
Lift the import restriction and let patients import their own drugs, and a bunch of hassle free "pharmacy" websites out of china would gladly sell you any drug you requested without prescription.
I'm all for letting the guys with training and accountability source their stock from a country with adequate quality controls. But that's not what billy is advocating for.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
This man's life depends on him not being worth a nanosecond of jail time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yet he did set up a copay system for the uninsured to get them their meds at the original cost or even free. The extreme markup was set based on what insurance companies were willing to pay and served as both a money making system for his company and a sign that the system is in major need of reworking.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Personally, [TRIGGER WARNING! Socialist propaganda!!!!]
I see no reason to allow for-profit drug companies to exist. Their goals are generally orthogonal to the needs of their customer base. A nice big expansion of NIH (and its budget) would let all drug research and production be based on need, not profit margin. Orphan diseases, no longer an unprofitable micromarket, could be addressed. And so on.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
He was able to do what he did mostly because of the regulations. If it were easier to get generics approved, price gouging would be a highly limited proposition. Not saying we should be lax about approvals... just that this is a problem.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
From your own link:
Yep, sounds like "Big Pharma" is really fucking over patients with this move.
Once again, capitalism saves the day.
Sigh ... idiot. Education commencing in two links.
First: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/10/21/the-daraprim-price-hike-and-a-role-for-antitrust/
Second: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli#Price_hike_controversy
Specifically
Baum noted that "This is not the first time a sole supply generic drug—especially one that has been approved for use as long as Daraprim—has had its price increased suddenly and to a level that may make it unaffordable," and announced the availability of the compounded replacement for Daraprim as a part of a larger corporate program, "Imprimis Cares" to make "novel and customizable medicines available to physicians and patients... at accessible prices."
If you need me to connect the dots ... Imprimis has a public relations campaign that made this a golden opportunity for them. Otherwise, the FDA normally presents a large enough barrier to entry that most drugs that could go generic remain without competitors.
"Help me out because I don't understand how it works with socialized healthcare..."
It basically comes from the fact that just like in any other free market, big customers have stronger leverage power than short ones. Goverments are big customers. Another purely market-driven advantage is that governments don't only buy one prescription from a lab, but whole parts of their catalogues: you don't want to sell me [miracolous medicine only your lab has] at a fair price? OK then, your [much more common remedy for pimples but that still is a cash cow] gets out from the payed-for prescription list and we'll use the one from [competing lab] instead.
"Seems like if only one company was making a drug, they could charge a price and choose not to sell it if someone wanted it cheaper."
Socialized healthcare means that government controls the whole value chain of healthcare, not just prescriptions. Controlling the whole value chain means that you can leverage expensive treatments from cheaper ones as long as epidemiologically makes sense and you have the money. It's very unusual that there's exactly one prescription for an illness, you usually have an spectrum and you can decide which one you are going to pay for -and leverage this to get better pricing.
Another advantage of controlling the value chain in whole is that, i.e. you can control your doctors to preferentially prescript a generic instead of a branded one when it makes sense -and be tracked by government for that, and be questioned by patients if they don't follow the rule because, in the end, they'll know that [expensively branded amoxycillin they'll have to pay in full] is no better than [generic amoxycillin they can get at zero cost for their pockets].
Again import restrictions and accountabilities are two different things.
Allowing the import of non America products does not mean that don't need to comply with various quality standards. Otherwise those of you lucky enough to live on the border wouldn't be driving over to Canada to get cheaper drugs in the first place.
"a third way is to restrict marketing to consumers so that the medical doctors can select medication without pressure from people insisting on a certain type of drug just because they saw a nice ad on TV"
Yes: since I (the government) pay for these prescriptions, it will be under my rules (prescription drugs can't be advertised at all except on specialists' media). And then, as I already told in a different message, in a socialized health care system, government controls the whole value chain, not only part of it so, even if a patient really, really wants a branded drug, he has no power over the doctor: he can't really vote the doctor out of business with his pocket, all he can do is choose a different doctor from the government-payed system which will behave exactly the same or go to a private doctor, which he will have to pay in full instead of getting it for free, to see if he's luckier there. Since the vast majority of doctor-patient relationships are within the system, most patients are sufficiently exposed to its results as for common sense to impose.
Let any yahoo sell pills to Americans over the internet with no hope of accountability.
Import restrictions and accountability are two different things.
I prefer the way that they do it in Australia, that everything that even supplements sold to the public have to show structure and function. This immediately cuts out the kind of shenanigans that happen in the US like when you buy herbal supplements and find out later that there is 0 amount of the plant or substance in the pills you bought. That is what we call "Fraud" in the US.
The FDA does not regulate what it should be regulating and over regulates what should be given much more latitude. This is why we rarely have "cures" to dreaded diseases in this country, not because it is not technically possible and not because some idiot business fat cat asshole is not going to be able to make money off of it but because navigating the Maze of the FDA and getting to where you distinguish yourself between medical treatments and products sold at GNC in terms of credibility is a non-starter.
The thing that really gets my goat is that he paid $2 million for that one-off Wu Tang Clan album and didn't just share it with the world.
I hope he does hard time, but chances are he'll just go to a Club Fed and come out and get a book deal.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...
I wish there was a way that all the cancer patients could chime into the case and make sure he goes to a serious, federal, "Pound me in the ass" prison. I am talking "First day, kick somebody's ass or become someone's bitch" prison. Bubba would have a lot of fun with a hipster like Shkreli.
Because the drugs are still certified for sale and approved for coverage. I'll use Canada and my home province as an example. Many things are covered by medical. However, you still read of plenty of cases where somebody went to the U.S. doctors to get a prescription because
a) The drug wasn't approved in Canada, or not covered under the medical
b) The drug could be used in Canada, but required a lengthy medical process to get personal approval/coverage
So just because the system pays for drugs, it doesn't pay for all drugs. A lot of the hold-up is supposedly testing to ensure said drugs are safe or apply to the condition at hand, but I'm sure price-negotiation is a part of it as well (as in "we're willing to cover our entire population to use your drug if needed, but only if you sell it for $X").
The FDA and Customs / Border agents?
Patients should not be able to import their own prescriptions. At all. There's a reason shit like daraprim and amoxacillin are behind the prescription counter instead of on the shelf.
Woah there, the key word is prescriptions. At this point, you're the first person in this thread who said anything about being able to get these drugs without a prescription. When prescribed, though, we should be able to obtain drugs from reputable foreign sources. While I'd certainly be suspect of drugs coming from India, Russia, China, Mexico, etc., I totally agree with the parent AC that there's no problem getting stuff from Canada or many European sources, their supplies are as safe if not safer than ours.
There are certainly any number of Slashdotters who lean libertarian enough to think we should be able to get what we want, when we want it, from anywhere we want to, but that wasn't really the context of the discussion
That's not true at all.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4098594/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6066852/
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa021721#t=articleTop
If you're going to command the ridiculously high salaries that surgeons do, and charge the patient the ungodly sums that you do, you should do your job right or be prepared to make amends for not doing so. If that's not tolerable, go find another job where you're less likely to hurt people with your carelessness. Sheesh, the entitlement...
It is usually good form to quote the specific line you have an issue with. You didn't have an issue with the malpractice statement or that litigation is out of control, you have an issue with medical sponges causing issues. I was attempting to quote a non issue and apparently failed, are you going to try and claim that this changes what I was trying to say?
When people are getting millions of dollars from suing doctors and medical companies (drug manufacturers?) for minor issues, there is something wrong. Does it change a damn thing that I chose an issue that turns out to actually be pretty serious?
Oh yes, the entitlement, the people go to school into their mid 20s, pay an astronomical amount of money for that school, work practically free for years (residency) out of a desire to help people. They then have to pay these outrageous fees for malpractice insurance, even if they have never made a single mistake or been sued ever. How dare that group complain about the idiocy of anyone being able to bring a lawsuit against them for a hangnail!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I prefer the way that they do it in Australia, that everything that even supplements sold to the public have to show structure and function. This immediately cuts out the kind of shenanigans that happen in the US like when you buy herbal supplements and find out later that there is 0 amount of the plant or substance in the pills you bought. That is what we call "Fraud" in the US.
But you can still buy "homeopathic medicines" in Australia, so the rules are only partially enforced, usually only when some consumer kicks up a racket.
godel_56
I misclosed the quote tag and it was eaten. Apologies.
...out of a desire to help people
You watch too much TV. Knowing that this is not the case is perhaps what makes me not give them the benefit of the doubt. I've taught enough pre-med, and now, med students to know that a shockingly low number of the students are motivated by a desire to help people. A good number of my students are being supported by their MD parents, too, so there's not much of a financial downside for them. Your view may apply to the simple country doctor, but it is not representative of most MDs made in the last (at least) 20 years.
Frivolous lawsuits are bad and should be stopped, but most malpractice lawsuits are not frivolous.
Ok, so what government agency will vet the foreign companies to enforce those standards? You know, provide that accountability? Do you expect port authorities to open every package to check for prescription drugs and verify the contents with a national database of every prescription written?
You're arguing to shrink government while simultaneously expecting them to do something beyond their current capabilities.
Again. Trained and licensed pharmacies should be allowed to source drugs from outside the US, patients should NOT. You let consumers buy drugs online from foreign entities and you lose all accountability.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Currently prescriptions are filled by brick and mortar pharmacies who are capable of checking the legitimacy of a prescription.
What do you expect to happen if people are allowed to order their drugs online? The creation of a national prescription database that foreign companies must abide by, and have port authorities open every package and check the contents for prescription drugs to verify with the national database?
Pharmacies should be able to source their stock from outside the US, but consumers should NOT. Letting consumers purchase their drugs online from overseas relies on some pretty powerful fairy magic to nullify all the ways it would go wrong.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I don't care much for the affordable care act, and I'm in favor of allowing people to buy medication from wherever the hell they please. There's no "doublethink" here. I'm just a free market guy.
The question is not really what they're allowed to do, because they seem perfectly content to import foreign medicines illegally. The question is why should they feel compelled to do that if the US healthcare system is so perfect it shouldn't be tampered with?
Breakfast served all day!
The only physical copy in the world, the album comes with a contract that bars the buyer from publicly releaseing [SIC] the songs for 88 years.
So, because he won't break a contract to let you hear some music, you hate him?
Buying the only copy of an album for the sole purpose of never allowing anyone else to hear it is a pretty shitty thing to do, yes. Though I disagree with grandparent, it's not "raise a prescription price from $0.99 to $70" sort of dickishness.
"I'm normally a proponent of free-markets. But they obviously don't work when it comes to healthcare"
Why is it then that it works for basically anyone else but USA (or, at least, it works better than for USA)?
"people have to pay no matter what"
Only, of course, no, they don't have to.
On one hand, there usually is more than one effective treatment for most illnesses (even if some treatments are liminary better than others) so, it's up to the buyer which one to subsidize.
On the other hand, in those cases where there's only one sensible treatment for an illness, it usually comes from a lab that produces more than one product, which means the buyer can leverage over the whole portfolio, thanks to the first point ("oh! so you don't want to sell me X at a fair price? OK, I'll put your A, B and C out of the subsidized list and will introduce those from a competing lab instead. Please, make your numbers and come back with a new offer").
Finally, a prescription not being in the subsidized list doesn't mean it can't be prescripted, only that the patient will pay for it in full. For the lab that means that if its product has any reasonable competition that it is in the subsidized list, it probably won't sell a single dose, and even if it manages to sell something, it will be only to those affluent enough to indulgence themselves the expenditure instead of reaching the target population in full; again, a matter for the lab to make its numbers and reach a conclusion.
Ok, so what government agency will vet the foreign companies to enforce those standards? You know, provide that accountability?
The same as it does now. If you think the reason you can't buy drugs from overseas is they don't pass the FCC standards then you really need to take a look at your own laws, specifically the ones funded by American Big Pharma.
big pharma will just toss congresscritters a few extra bucks this election cycle.. problem solved before it becomes one.
Ah, the 1%, those evil...doctors. And business owners. And contractors.
Because it really doesn't take that much money to be the "1%" in America. http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/income-rank/ And on a global basis, it takes $35K a year, unless your Macbook is more important to the equation than brown people in Africa and Asia. Which, for everyone I've ever met who talks about the 1%, it is.
Yes, that 1% are definitely a scheming, conniving conspiracy. Why, just last week I was at the meeting where we voted on this.
Or, it could be that a greedy shitbag is a greedy shitbag, whether he's abiding by the law or not, and someone with no morals wouldn't care much about the law, and would quickly get caught.
But I'm sure the "pharma" machine orchestrated it personally, and just neglected to bring it up at the board meeting.
The guy is obviously a sociopath.
According to Google CEOs tend to be Psychopaths.
And this guy exhibits the classic traits of a psychopath. Sociopaths tend to be loners and live on the fringe of society and have trouble dealing with people, psychopaths on the other hand are excellent manipulators and easily blend into society. Both have a complete disregard for society, laws and other people however.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound, the implementation of it seems to be painfully flawed. The rest of the modern world solves the major costs of healthcare through taxes and requires the pharmacies to offer the cheapest variant of a specific drug (different manufacturers have to compete) to push down costs.
Healthcare in the US is a sick story.
This.
The reason its implementation was flawed is because its political rivals recognised it as a good idea and sought to destroy it through any means necessary simply because it was a rivals good idea. Australia experienced the same thing recently with the NBN, a good idea with a good plan wrecked by the Coalition because it wasn't their idea.
Most, if not all other developed nations nations who have implemented single and public payer health systems are paying far less per capita for health care .
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yes the ACA is seriously flawed. And even with all it's flaws, insurance companies can no longer deny people coverage for per-existing conditions. That right there was something that was a ongoing tragedy that had to be stopped as soon as possible. I normally don't support crappy legislation that is only a partial solution, but when lives are on the line I don;t think we have the luxury of waiting for a perfect or even a good solution. Now that we don;t have people dying because they can't pay for cancer treatment, I think we can focus on improvements to the healthcare system in a more selective way.
The purchase came with a contract requiring him to not publish the album for 88 years. Unless he is willing to break a contract where the other party is the Wu Tang clan, he has no choice but to not publish it. I wouldn't want to cross them, they are scary people.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Both have a complete disregard for society, laws and other people however.
Sounds like a lot of CEOs, bankers, politicians ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .