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Citing 'Moral Requirement To Make Money', Pharma CEO Jacks Drug Price 400% (arstechnica.com)
The chief executive of a small pharmaceutical company defended hiking the price of an essential antibiotic by more than 400 percent and told the Financial Times that he thinks "it is a moral requirement to make money when you can." From a report: Nirmal Mulye, CEO of the small Missouri-based drug company Nostrum Laboratories, raised the price of bottle of nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 last month. The drug is a decades-old antibiotic used to treat urinary-tract infections caused by Escherichia coli and certain other Gram-negative bacteria. The World Health Organization lists nitrofurantoin as an essential medicine. In an interview with the FT, Mulye went on to say it was also a "moral requirement" to "sell the product for the highest price," and he explained that he was in "this business to make money."
But maybe it's what they teach at MBA courses.
Anyhow, time to decommercialise medicine. Yes, I know it sounds pinko commie socialist. Even so.
https://www.campaignmoney.com/...
Either that or he just thinks his campaign contributions are best placed with them.
The sad part is, if making money can be called a "moral requirement", apparently it is more important than the truly moral cause of healing as many people as possible.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
if you accept the premise of private, for profit insurance as a means to access medicine and healthcare and that these companies will be privately traded companies with shareholders then yes, that's where the moral imperative lies. This is one of the consequences of such a system.
We already know the solution is single payer healthcare. We can see it working in a dozen countries. The question is will we swallow our pride long enough to vote the sorts of people in that'll give it to us?
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the stench of evil.
So, no patents? Simple solution: contract with some other drug makers to duplicate it.
As much of the money to buy these drugs comes out of the public's pocket, perhaps it would be a better idea to invest public funds in the supply chain up front. Set up a gov't funded manufacturing unit to produce orphaned drugs and steer around patents on things like EpiPens.
Have gnu, will travel.
There are no patents on this. It's an old medication. What keeps other companies from selling exactly the same substance? Answer: Government regulation.
Government needs to do more to help more companies make these medicines at reasonable prices.
Actually it was I, not Ms Mash, who posted this story.
I’m always amoused when these low-budget shkrelis claim to be defenders of the free market when they make insane price moves. If we actually did have a free market in pharma, we would be able to fill our prescriptions for this compound at the world market price of $18, as per the closing line that was oddly edited out of my post.
The only way price increases like this can be made to stick is to have the FDA on your side, preventing us from being able to compete. Time to rip out the FDA’s ability to keep competition out of the market. Let it manage testing, not price manipulation.
This is exactly how for-profit industries work.
Maybe instead of trying to find ways to make for-profit healthcare marginally less of a roiling tire fire for Americans, we should instead nationalize healthcare, like the rest of the civilized world.
:|
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
And not because he's a greedy little cunt, but because shit like this is an assault on the English language. The words you're looking for are not "moral imperative" you fucking dim-witted imbecile.
moral (môrl, mr-) adj. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary. adj. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson. adj. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
Ok... decades old drug, these guys are taking advantage of a government-mandated monopoly (patent) that turned into a natural monopoly - US patent exclusivity is seven years. FDA needs to create a process to automatically institute a fast-track for generic competition in cases like this where a drug's price is increased by over a defined threshold (100%?). The resources required to staff such fast tracking should be recoverable in reduced cost to Medicare/Medicaid/etc. Let the Pharmacy Benefit Managers pitch in, for that matter... they are supposed to be all about managing the price of drugs. This is a simple way to do it.
That's what we should be doing with assholes like these that pull shit like this.
I seem to recall some orange-faced liberal from New York City telling us he'd force drug companies to lower the price of their drugs. You know, use the power of big government to dictate to private companies how they should run things.
He wasn't lying when he said that, was he?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Big Pharma is extremely corrupt. This is just the tip of the iceberg that will be exposed later this year / next year.
Placing profit above people's life & health is immoral. How much profit is "enough" ?
--
Main St. built America
Wall St. robbed it.
Some argue that it is already the case for people who feed off of the misery of others and through the profiteering acts of assholes like this guy their numbers are ever increasing. It won't even need to ba a majority before the backlash comes because at some point a significant is going want to hold these assholes accountable whatever the majority thinks.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
It is a recurring myth that corporations are somehow absolutely required by law to seek profit. It seems now is a good time to mention that this is absolutely not true. Corporations are only required to do what their charter says, which usually includes some notes about profit, but also more importantly defines the role the company will take (like improving healthcare).
This CEO is avoiding the legal implication by claiming it's a "moral" requirement. Of course, that means there's no written guideline to which we can refer that will identify this as blatant greed, so it becomes a matter of personal judgement. I hope that's remembered in the future whenever the CEO tries to claim he's always acting in the public interest.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Usually the point of operating a business in a capitalist nation is to make money.
And in a communist nation, as per Karl Marx, the point is for the common people to steal money from the rich and successful people, sometimes through the use of violent and bloody means. When all the people with an IQ above 95 are dead, all of the books have been burned, and society has returned to a scientific and philosophical dark age, you will have a communist utopia. This is all, shockingly, in the Communist Manifesto.
I hope they tax the shit out of this guy and then spend his tax dollars on the poors. That'll show him.
To a certain extent. The idea, much like "the customer is always right" is enshrined, but not correct. Also if he wants to play the moral game, then it's the moral right of his competitors to undercut him, kind of like Epipen.
The CEO has a fiduciary obligation by law to provide the most value to his shareholders. If the market will pay a 400% increase, he's doing his job.
Except when it comes to the demand curve in health, the fcuker goes vertical.
Is this right? No, and it's why I believe we're going to see big pharma get a bloody nose one of these days especially in regards to antibiotics which are quickly becoming useless in the face of common diseases.
and get free doctors + meds in prison
You know, the government knew all about Shkrelli's crimes before he raised the price of that drug. And then he got known for being an asshole that raised a generic drug's price in this same way, forcing the government to do something about him. Congratulations, Nirmal Mulye, you've just made yourself very interesting to the FBI.
When are we going to start? It's been too long already.
"He tells it like it is"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Patents have never been to spur innovation. Their purpose is to preserve knowledge. We as society decided we would trade a limited monopoly on an invention for the complete description of that invention. The invention was supposed to be innovative such that any other person knowledgeable in the craft would say "hey, that's a really good idea, I can use that". I should want to read patents because they would teach me, they should be a resource when I want to solve a problem. Journalists should publish them in trade journals because of the innovation in them.
Inventors will invent because we want to solve problems, because there is profit in providing solutions to our customers. We don't need patents to do that. (and we don't need drug patents either - our way of developing drugs is wasteful and broken)
Today when someone actually comes up with something innovative they often don't patent it. Manufacturing methods, if they are truly useful are rarely patented. Small companies can't defend a patent and any inventor who is altruistic will publish their idea almost anywhere other than the patent office. Not only are patents now unreadable (I can't make any sense of any of the patents my name is on) but we are told not to read them because it might increase our companies liability.
When companies spend more money on patent lawyers than on new product development (Apple, google, Oracle) or get screwed when they don't (RIM/Black Berry) we have a problem.
It is now your moral duty to shun East Texas and actively fight patent laws.
Whatever perversion of the patent system that still has this drug covered decades later, it needs to be changed.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Europeans and Canadians aren't starving.
In fact, they are far better off than the average american.
Americans are just too uneducated and unenlightened to see the benefits of proper socialised medicine.
The world scale also includes the Communist Parties of Cambodia, North Korea and Cuba. As well as whatever name Maduro's vampire party in Venezuela calls itself. So you might as well be saying "on a global scale, which includes all of the dysfunctional shitholes with no rule of law, confiscatory policies and a penchant for firing AA batteries at political prisoners, the DNC is actually pretty damn good."
So in other words, by expanding the Overton Window until it looks likes an event horizon bringing in the entire plane of possible human political choices, you've basically made a tautilogical defense of the DNC.
It's heartwarming to consider how far we've come since Ivan Boesky had to assert that "You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." Thank god! At last, it is moral imperative. The question now is.. Can you NOT be greedy and still feel good about yourself.?
It's a tougher question than people might think.
This is their goal, to siphon all money they can out of the working class and into the hands of the already rich without consequence for any harm that happens along the way. That is how they stay rich. And like morons we allowed corporations to become these unstoppable money siphoning machines. Good luck fixing this in a peaceful way this since the corporations now own your governments and make their own laws.
In reality, for-profit insurance companies have a vested interest in drug prices being kept in check, because it gets harder to sell people policies when they're stuck increasing their rates sufficiently to cover these inflated medication prices!
One of the negatives of single-payer healthcare is that it would be funded from taxpayer dollars, meaning as per usual -- central government lacks motivation to keep the costs down. Since they don't have to show a profit on THEIR books, they simply find other avenues to extract the required revenue to pay whatever they're asked to pay.
The real problem here is that this Nirmal Mulye character fails to understand that the pharmaceutical industry isn't truly a "free market" business. It already receives special favors by way of the FDA protecting exclusive rights to a new drug for years after it's brought to market, and rules preventing overseas competitors from selling their offerings here as cheaper alternatives. They're very much a protected monopoly on a given drug, holding customers (whether they be end users paying out of pocket, or insurers paying on their customer's behalf) hostage to either pay any price they dream up, or to simply do without the cure.
I'd love to have that guy locked in an airtight room. "I can sell you some air - it only costs $5000 per litre, cash up front." "But, but... I don't have that much cash on me!" "Well, I'm sorry sir, but it's a moral imperative for me to make as much money as I possibly can. Ten thousand people who suffered badly because of your drug-price gouging want to do a group buy of all these air tanks. Unless you can beat what they're offering, I'll have to sell it all to them - it's just the right thing to do!"
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
There are dozens of other manufacturers of this same medication (see https://www.pharmacompass.com/...), and four newer alternatives to this medication that are more widely prescribed (https://healthplans.providence.org/providers/news-and-events/provider-enews-archives/older-articles/uti-drug/).
Basically, this CEO wants to get out of this highly-competitive marketplace, but is too stupid to just shutdown it's manufacture and sell all remaining stock of the product.
I love it when incompetent people try to boost their personal wealth, but slit their own throats in the bargain.
This sort of complete market capture for unlimited periods needs to die.
Rework the system to give these companies 10 years of sole manufacturing rights.
Then 10 years of royalties on their drugs being mass-produced across the industry.
After that, let competition decide the winnner.
And if someone hits this sort of market capture, it then behooves competitors to produce their own brand, driving prices back down.
Because this shit is insane.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Somebody else created this possibility, can't blame the CEO for taking advantage of the situation.
Somebody else created these guns and liquor stores, can't blame the robbers for taking advantage of the situation.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's just as moral to shoot the CEO in the head. After all, saving millions of people money is the moral thing to do, right?
There are no remaining patents on this, surely? So how does he keep a competitor from starting to sell this for a lower price?
If it's decades old, then it must not be patented. Why isn't a competitor beating the living shit out of them?
Or to put that another way, maybe this company happens to charge that much, but what does it actually cost a user buy?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Your ignorance is showing.
There are dozens of other companies that "make and market this drug". Look it up before embartassing yourself again.
"decades-old antibiotic" a protected market was granted. When does the public (common good) get compensated for granting that original protection. Seems to me the manufacturers just keep buying extended protects from the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats (worldwide) to gain excess profits. This applies to both patent and copyright excessive extentions.
;)
Just my 2 cents
internationally is that you're buying from countries that have single payer healthcare and therefore can negotiate much, much better drug prices than private insurance companies can/do.
The free market doesn't solve drug prices. There really is only one solution and it's single payer. Healthcare doesn't work like traditional goods because a) unless you have an 8 year degree you lack the necessary information to make informed purchase, b) it's a matter of life or death, meaning you can't really shop around and c) you need it infrequently enough that you can't rely on repeat purchases to weed out low quality (I buy a new video card every 2 years or so but I'll probably only have 1 set of heart stints).
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I want to nationalize the _paying_ for healthcare. It's an important distinction.
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Nirmal Mulye's definition of "moral":
'Something I want to do', likely aided and abetted by others around him, totally in their self-interests and motivated by Greed. That is his idea of "moral".
Yes, businesses exist to make a profit, and I support all ordinary business practices. Bringing morality into it is a slippery slope into a bottomless pit of contradictions and cross-currents. Suggesting that Greed motivated actions are a moral good is so bizarre and warped that it needs to be summarily dismissed. This idiot should just shut his trap and let smarter (and morally clearer) individuals talk about such matters.
Nirmal Mulye is a symptom of a larger disease. The answer is not more government, rather the problem is way too much government already and the lack of importation options, private and commercial.
These simple, old generic drugs at most only need purity tests not the FDA's battery of legal bs. The FDA's "protection" is about promoting and protecting extortion rackets. I'm a little surprised the neighborhood bootlegger hasn't already re-emerged.
In formerly third world countries, nitrofuraton can be anything, from under 1 cent per pill, under $1 per 100, to maybe $50 per 100.
The shortest path to Pharmaceutical Industry price regulation is the path he's currently taking.
At some point, Congress will have no choice but to regulate what these folks can charge for medicine lest the voters remove them from office. ( This is where your older voters wield immense power )
The more these CEO's keep jacking the prices by absurd amounts, the sooner the regulation hammer will come down on them all. The other CEO's know this and wish folks would quit putting them all into the spotlight.
His smarter investors will be quick to point out that the " Moral requirement to make MORE money " will be seriously undermined by industry pricing regulation.
But, by all means, stay the course. The industry certainly won't get any sympathy from those they're screwing over in the never ending quest for greater wealth.
The last fool that jacked the price up a few hundred % ended up in jail... although not for jacking the price.
First used in 1953. it's got lots of generic versions available - just buy and import one of those. Sounds like a small pharma lab identified a drug without really any other US manufacturers and is trying to capitalize on it - before someone else just fires up and brings in the generics from one of the big pharma companies for pennies on the dollar.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The real problem isn't the economic system but the management withing the organization.
If rules are setup where a person or group is granted extra power and authority without correct checks and balances then one group will get everything and the other will not.
Communism and Socialism to a lesser extent needs an effective and fair governance to make sure just distribution of resources is given.
Capitalism is can work with less governance as its invisible hand of Supply vs Demand will normally keep things balanced on the whole. However people are smart and abuse the system and can create a lot of extra pain and suffering on the way of being balanced. Where we are having government trying to guide this hand.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Enjoy
If they aren't dying then it's better
I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
I'm a Canadian too, and the circumstances you've cited are worst-case and relatively uncommon. Non-critical illnesses are at a lower priority than critical ones, but people get the care they need, regardless of the depth of their pockets. So yes, our system is better, in most ways.
"Oh no... he found the
These are now the most evil "morals" I've ever seen.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Grant oriented and government laboratories have not been very efficient at developing vaccines or drugs for treatments, generally.
The commercial incentives have spurred corruption (fake science journals, etc) and absurd pricing but it has proven to be more efficient, overall, at coming up with drugs that work.. even if they actively suppress vaccines and cures.
I wonder, would bounties work better? Would government buying out these drug patents work better? The prices would need to be very high but the results could be well worth it.
I think we should do two things:
(1) Offer bounties for cures and vaccines of the most critical ailments (affecting most people and/or cause the most suffering); then make the patents generically available to commoditize them to lowest production prices. Being as those bounties would need to be very high (multi-billion dollars), these would have to be for a limited number of ailments.
(2) Invest heavily in technologies that can speed up and reduce costs of research and development of new vaccines and treatments. This will include AI, automation, or anything that helps.. even if it's purely methodological.
Otherwise, allow the industry to work as it does.. filling in the gaps as best it can.
Obviously, your 'invisible hand of Supply vs Demand' isn't working in this particular Capitalist case. The problem is our perverted version of Capitalism. We grant monopolies on pharmaceuticals, and then act in total denial of the ways monopoly distorts supply and demand.
So, I'll grant this guy his 'moral imperative' to charge as much as he can. As long as we recognize (and insist on) Government's moral imperative to fix the distortions of the market caused by, yes, important government interventions like patent protection. I.e., there needs to be a government enforced limit on how much as he can charge. And then let the market work its magic within that reasonable playing field. And if the market doesn't work in all cases - well, maybe those gaps need to be filled by the government too. That's not fascism or slavery or any of the hyperbolic anti-government names you want to use. It's just a simple acknowledgement of reality.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
When this fucker goes to hell with a FastPass, he'll be an ordinary working-class American with a UTI at this time. After he dies penniless from gangrene after his dick falls off, he's sent into a fever dream where he's forced to give the laughing, CEO version of himself a blowjob. This copy also has a UTI-riddled rotten zombie dick that jizzes out spiders. Next, GOTO 10.
(shame there's no hell for this guy...)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Quebec underfunded healthcare for years, the rest of Canada is in much better shape.
Because these systems are always partially or entirely tax-funded this obviously means that wait times for some non-critical operations can be higher, because people in immediate risk take priority but this is true in the states as well. If you actually compare waiting times for a specialist for example, you'll note that US is pretty much on par with the UK, and that Canada is on the slower side of other universal model countries (which, is all advanced countries other than the US). I work for the largest health care district of the Finnish single payer health care system with about a million people under it, I can quote you some numbers (these are from 2015 because they're publicly available (Finnish only though), can't access the current stats from home). Of the 27 most common types of surgery, we had altogether 26 658 people in queue in 2015, of which 19,5 % waited for more than 6 months. The median wait time was 87 days. For the 2 heart-related surgery-types on the list (bypass and percutaneous coronary intervention the median was below 30 days). The question here is: would it be better for the uninsured in the US to wait a bit to get good health care from the existing system with public money, or wait til' they die or go bankrupt? Is it beneficial for the US economy as a whole to remain the only country where people have to go into debt due to medical problems?
Thing to realize is that this is about availability, not quality. Quality-wise the US model is not significantly better nor is it worse. In fact, quality-wise the system is just fine for the people who're insured, the main difference is that the lack of universal public insurance leaves some people outside of the system driving up deaths. And the far more commercialised nature of the systems drives up margins and administrative costs (which is a large part of the huge spending difference (about twice the average spending of comparable countries) between the US and the rest of the world. In fact, medicare for example is already cheaper (per head covered) costs-wise than private options, largely cause it has better costs-management and lower administrative costs).
The are plenty of universal models out there which aren't single payer like Canada or here. All the US would have to do to implement such would essentially be to allow medicare/medicaid like option for all , and it would likely bring total costs down in the long term and better care for everyone.
But sure, keep posting anecdotal stuff about wait times instead of the larger picture., that's always constructive!
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
You have to keep in mind that Quebec's system is bad for reasons other than socialism. The main problem in Quebec, is that the government keeps driving medical professionals out of the province. Also, the percentage of the Quebec budget is 34.3%, You think Canada is expensive? Canada spends $4753 each year for each person on healtchare. The US spends $9892
LOL!
Who decides what is "needed"?
Who decides what is a, "priority"?
Do they just give you a pill and send you home?
Yeah! We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to elected officials to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
Not earning money... but *making* it. Which means, either stealing it (euphemism: profit, job creation), or literally making it up (euphemism: banking, stock trading).
I'm strongly against dismissing capitalism as a concept, mind you.
It's more intended as sarcasm, to highlight the need, to separate such behavior and capitalism.
Since the ICD 10 defines sociopathy and psychopathy as two words for the same illness, and "sociopath" gets used as an euphemism ("he's just a sociopath"), I would call it "psycho-capitalism". How would you call it?
That's the market distortion introduced by the Govt and sponsored by big pharma
When in was in Europe last time, we needed a prescription filled for a drug that in the US cost $600 (Mind you that was the insurance negotiated price in the US). The european pharmacy provided the equivalent medicine for 6 euros. No insurance was ever involved. That is the scam. Most of us would not need to exorbitant insurance premiums if the medication were priced at their world price. That is the real fleecing of America. We should be outraged on in the streets about this but they have obfuscated all of this in such a way that most Americans don't know that they are getting fleeced anymore.
are you a virtual slave to your employer because if you loose health insurance your self or one you love will surely die? Because thats the norm here for people approaching retirement.
Anyone who is not willing to quit their job and move across the country to find work in a new field that maybe offers better health care coverage really just hates America. They are the problem with the US health care system! Not the insurance companies! Not the employers!
Legitimate business transactions make money because a legitimate business transaction is a benefit to both buyer and seller. The seller sells the item because he's being paid more than it cost him to make or acquire. The buyer buys the item because it's worth more to him than the price that's being charged. That is, legitimate economic transactions are positive-sum.
Taxes transfer money. And inefficiently at that (you have to pay someone to calculate the taxes, pay to make the payment, and pay someone to collect the taxes). That is, taxation is negative-sum. So taxes in and of themselves cannot make money.
Taxation can be a net gain if the tax revenue is spent on things which benefit the economy more than the amount of money spent. For example, building a road may cost $1 million. But if the amount of money saved by companies transporting goods due to the new road exceeds a cumulative $1 million, then the road is a net benefit and spending to build it was worth it. So government spending can make money, but taxation on its own cannot. However, unlike a business, there is no inherent pressure to force a government to make sure all spending of tax revenue is justified in this manner. That is, a government can't go bankrupt if it wastes money - it can just continue to raise taxes to pay for wasteful spending, up until the amount of its spending equals the sum total productivity of all its citizens (effectively approaching 100% taxation, which is what leads to the runaway inflation Venezuela is experiencing).
In this particular situation, the "proper" price for the drug is the one which maximizes revenue. If the company sets the price too high, then sales decrease enough to offset the higher price, and the company makes less money. The "proper" price is when (units sold)*(price per unit - cost to produce) = a maximum. At that price, the drug is being distributed most efficiently - an equal split in the benefit of the drug between the buyer and the seller. In this way, if the benefit is extremely large, the profit is large, which attracts other manufacturers to enter the market, thus increasing competition and lowering prices (sellers take a smaller cut of the benefit).
Usually when these situations crop up where a company can jack up the price beyond reason, it's due to it being the sole supplier (having a monopoly). That's what happened with Epi-pens. Except natural monopolies are extremely rare, and AFAIK every one which has formed has been dealt with with anti-trust regulations. The remaining monopolies are all due to poor government regulation. In the case of Epi-pens, it was the FDA approval process raising the cost of entry for any competitor so high that nobody else felt it was worth entering the market (competing with an established supplier could lower the price to just above manufacturing cost, meaning it could take decades to make back enough money to pay for the FDA approval process).
According to wiki, Nitrofuratoin has been around since 1953. There are generic versions available, so it would appear the patents on it have expired. The only people having to pay the exorbitant new price are those who insist on buying the name-brand version instead of the generic version. If the generic version is not available for sale in the U.S., then that's a problem with the FDA approval for manufacturing the generic, not with a company jacking up prices. Unfortunately, TFA never explores this aspect of the problem since it appears to be a single-minded hit piece against pharmaceutical companies.
We have a moral imperative to identify and remove sociopaths from our society - be they CEOs or entire corporations.
imagine a soft, buttery paw gently pressing down onto a sleeping soldier's face. forever.
We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to elected officials to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
False dilemmas aside, in a private system your healthcare decisions are not made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy. You can switch insurers, or pay out of pocket to go to another doctor. When the whole country is one system you have neither of those choices. You are literally forced to accept the fate handed to you by a single bureaucracy.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
You are welcome on my lawn.
+1.
The US' system may not be qualitatively better or worse, but it definitely is more expensive per unit of healthcare services than other systems. Learned that when in Sweden a few years ago - public healthcare is not inexpensive, but it is far less expensive than free-market systems.
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
It's a legal requirement to make money, not a moral requirement.
Jesus said to help the poor and become fishers of men, not banksters.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You don't even seem to have understood the meaning of the words even as far in as, "pros and cons."
Your doctor decides what is needed, and what is a priority.
Co-worker went in to the Clinic for neck pain.
They took an MRI.
Within 30min, they had him at an ER Surgical room, going in for emergency spinal surgery.
"Damn expensive" means what? Here in the USA we pay about 50% more as a portion of our GDP for our healthcare, overall, compared to Canada.
Who waits for an MRI for that long?
My co-worker had his MRI done within 2 hrs.
I have had MRIs scheduled within 2 days.
A fractured arm isn't an Emergency situation, people can go days without it being treated and be fine.
If the Triage at the ER receives people that are going to -die- without treatment, they will be bumped ahead of you. just like in the US.
As I stated the invisible hand of capitalism causes a lot of pain the in the process. If prices get too high for people to afford, the company will go out of business due to lack of customers, or be forced to lower its prices. But for this correction to happen a lot of people will be hurt in the process.
This is why Socialism is a popular alternative, with higher regulations attached to a free market, it allows a lot of the pain to be eased. At the expense of massive growth.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In Phoenix, we had to wait 4 weeks to get an MRI scheduled (Wrist)
Vs 2 Days in California (Neck)
Vs 3 Days in Calgary, Canada (Neck/Upper Back)
Given personal experience, US can be much much worse.
People die in the US from preventable diseases. Chronic disease. From stuffing twinkies in thier neck and loading up on a pound of beef when they are in the mood for a "healthy" meal.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
This is the reality in your free market situation:
You are disgruntled that you are not getting a proper treatment through your provider for the illness you currently have, often straight up denying claims or not covering illnesses that were specified somewhere in fine print in your 1000-page contract. You cancel out of anger and try to sign up for next competitor. The new provider deems you have pre-existing condition and deny you. You say, "oh, shit, I better go back, quick!" But then your previous provider denies you as well for having pre-existing condition even though you insured with them for decades before jumping ship. Now you solely pay out of pocket for exorbitant amount of money draining your savings and/or taking out second mortgage against your house OR you stay with your shitty provider that barely covers you. Few months in, now you're broke and declare bankruptcy.
You think this is a cool story? It happens to millions of people in US every year.
https://www.cnbc.com/id/100840...
I'm Canadian, and I can assure you that our "socialised" system is:
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
We need to stop providing all medicine anyhow. If God didn't want us to have diseases, he wouldn'g give them to us. When you treat a diseas with a man made medicine, you are working against God's divine will. Either die, or recover, and do it on your own dime and time. Canada will be treated to the fiery flames of hell.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
NOOOoooOOOO, that's not right. At least be honest here.
It's "Because I Can."
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
People die in the US from preventable diseases. Chronic disease. From stuffing twinkies in thier neck and loading up on a pound of beef when they are in the mood for a "healthy" meal.
Fear not citizen. There is a weight limit to get into heaven and recieve God's endless paradise. Fat 'Murricans adipose tissue is what powers the flames of hell.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
False dilemmas aside, in a private system your healthcare decisions are not made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy. You can switch insurers, or pay out of pocket to go to another doctor. When the whole country is one system you have neither of those choices. You are literally forced to accept the fate handed to you by a single bureaucracy.
Precisely correct. After my father died, he switched insurers. The free market addresses everything and has never failed.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Who waits for an MRI for that long? My co-worker had his MRI done within 2 hrs.
I have had MRIs scheduled within 2 days.
A fractured arm isn't an Emergency situation, people can go days without it being treated and be fine. If the Triage at the ER receives people that are going to -die- without treatment, they will be bumped ahead of you. just like in the US.
You do realize that fractures start to knit immediately after the fracture. I had an aunt who needed her elbow re-broken because of that
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
are you a virtual slave to your employer because if you loose health insurance your self or one you love will surely die? Because thats the norm here for people approaching retirement.
Anyone who is not willing to quit their job and move across the country to find work in a new field that maybe offers better health care coverage really just hates America. They are the problem with the US health care system! Not the insurance companies! Not the employers!
I am not certain if you are poe-ing us or what. Here is an example that runs counter to your argument. My wife's boss has a blood clotting problem. His wife had a breast cancer issue, totally cured now.
His health insurance company wanted to drop him badly. To the point of charging him somewhere between 30 - 40 thousand a year. He tried to get insurance elsewhere. The answer was always no.
He was stuck. Had he been an employee, moving to another company would have left him completely unable to get insurance. Forced immobility, and at the mercy of the insurance company, and if an employee, employment
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In Phoenix, we had to wait 4 weeks to get an MRI scheduled (Wrist) Vs 2 Days in California (Neck) Vs 3 Days in Calgary, Canada (Neck/Upper Back)
Given personal experience, US can be much much worse.
Do not abuse the narrative with facts.
I wonder how many of these free market health insurance zealots are on medicare and or medicaid?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What else would you expect from a company named Nostrum Laboratories?
nostrum |nästrm|
noun
a medicine, especially one that is not considered effective, prepared by an unqualified person.
Almost all major world powers limit the amount drug companies are allowed to charge. This is exactly why! I don"t give a shit about freedom or capitalism when it comes to life-saving procedures and medicines. This should be illegal and no one should make a profit on suffering. People that think this is acceptable are garbage people, in my opinion.
WTF?
Obviously, your 'invisible hand of Supply vs Demand' isn't working in this particular Capitalist case. The problem is our perverted version of Capitalism.
There are things that should always be driven by market forces. Cars, houses, recreational activities.
There are some things that should never be driven by the profit motive, like health care.
If a country's leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills https://www.clearbankruptcy.co... at 42 percent, It is kind of obvious that there is a problem.
And no amount of calling people commies or socialists is going to erase that figure.
I'd even venture that this is keeping good capitalistic medical companies from getting the money they deserve.
And having insurance often doesn't save your backside. Many bankrupt people had insurance.
Let's face it - even if there is something wrong with single payer, it does not follow that the US system, with the highest costs, and the leading cause of bankruptcy, is anywhere near good.
Regardless, I have made it clear in an advance directive, that if medical treatment is going to bankrupt my family, I'm going to refuse treatment and die as soon as possible, immediately if I can. Look for more of this.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
At some point you're going to have to post how you really feel, because sarcasm doesn't work well all the time in written form. Some people are going to start thinking you're actually believe what you're writing. Just saying. (it really shouldn't be that way, but in this day in agethere's a lot of incredibly stupid people out there)
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Citing 'Moral Requirement To Make Money', Pharma CEO Jacks Drug Price 400%
You know, some developed, capitalist countries do have this thing called "price controls" for things like, medicines and health-care related things.
We need that in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, but nooooo, that's szhozhulusm!!!
Wow they don't triage in America? It's worse than we all thought!
You don't even seem to have understood the meaning of the words even as far in as, "pros and cons."
Yeah, my usage of the double meaning of "con" as in "disadvantage" in addition to the noun form of "an instance of deceiving or tricking someone" was a bit subtle. Good thing I didn't try to also employ "con" in the verb form and instead stuck with "scam". That sort of word-play has no place in serious discussion of societal issues.
Also, I left it to the reader to decide how sarcastic I was being. A bit of a literary rorschach test. Very prone to confusion.
Your doctor decides what is needed, and what is a priority.
Co-worker went in to the Clinic for neck pain.
They took an MRI.
Within 30min, they had him at an ER Surgical room, going in for emergency spinal surgery.
Good outcomes. But at some point, someone decides how much to pay doctors, where to build hospitals, and what procedures will be financed. It is important that those decisions rest with private, for-profit entities because public ones are evil because of reasons.
Mod Parent Up!
Or Down.
I'm ambivalent. Or not.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Yeah! We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to faceless corporate overlords to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
Fixed that for you... :(
are you a virtual slave to your employer because if you loose health insurance your self or one you love will surely die? Because thats the norm here for people approaching retirement.
Anyone who is not willing to quit their job and move across the country to find work in a new field that maybe offers better health care coverage really just hates America. They are the problem with the US health care system! Not the insurance companies! Not the employers!
I am not certain if you are poe-ing us or what. Here is an example that runs counter to your argument. My wife's boss has a blood clotting problem. His wife had a breast cancer issue, totally cured now.
His health insurance company wanted to drop him badly. To the point of charging him somewhere between 30 - 40 thousand a year. He tried to get insurance elsewhere. The answer was always no.
He was stuck. Had he been an employee, moving to another company would have left him completely unable to get insurance. Forced immobility, and at the mercy of the insurance company, and if an employee, employment
That sucks. I really mean that.
Clearly the result of governmental meddling in the free market. Good thing we don't have socialized medicine for all. Any attempts to increase the fraction of the population covered by the socialized medicine we do have are just an attempt by the elite to take our freedoms and ruin the country - don't fall for it.
Just to be clear: I don't really mean that.
Your signature is a fascinating counterpoint to your post.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Yeah! We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to faceless corporate overlords to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
Fixed that for you... :(
Well there is that....
I don't recall the ACA having anything in it that would make insurance companies pay $2800 for a $15 treatment. There are several laws that prevent the gov't from negotiating drug prices and prevent consumers from importing drugs, but those weren't part of the ACA.
We have a _very_ efficient single payer healthcare system. Medicare. All we need to do now is expand it to everybody.
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At some point you're going to have to post how you really feel, because sarcasm doesn't work well all the time in written form. Some people are going to start thinking you're actually believe what you're writing. Just saying. (it really shouldn't be that way, but in this day in age there's a lot of incredibly stupid people out there)
Well, if I don't really care what people think I think, and my goal is to influence how they think or behave, what is the most effective action?
My experience is that saying "I disagree with you, and here is why I think you are wrong" seems to cause people to ignore everything after "I disagree with your". Today I have trying out saying "I agree with you, and here are some pretty stupid reasons why I agree that maybe point out some major flaws in your position". Maybe (wishful thinking) that will lead some to more deeply examine their positions.
Unfortunately, I suspect that even the wildest exaggerations and most biting satire is unrecognized by a significant fraction of those that it is targeted.
Hopefully my feeling that 99% of the world has gone down the tubes is an artifact of global communication advances and human psychology and that things were not REALLY better back in the day, but that it always feels like things used to be gooder than now.
if I don't really care what people think I think, and my goal is to influence how they think
You must be deeply conflicted!
Required reading for internet skeptics
Hurr durr
if I don't really care what people think I think, and my goal is to influence how they think
You must be deeply conflicted!
Aren't we all?
e.g. someone with heart failure gets more priority than someone with a non-fatal illness basically. ever heard of triage? if you think it doesn't happen even in non-socialized systems you are sorely mistaken.
In France you aren't chained to any single doctor. You can pick whichever doctor you want. Then the states pays them at rates agreed upon between the government and the medical association.
Yet if you compare the amount of money spent per outcome the results are quite clear. In the US for example infant mortality is quite high and people don't live longer than in Europe. So you aren't getting the best bang for the buck clearly. What you do get is overcharging and people getting treatments they don't need so they can be charged more. My father for example had a herniated disc. Some doctors wanted to operate him (fuse the discs). He didn't get the operation (which had a high risk of putting him on a wheelchair) and the discs calcified on their own in 3-4 years... So he no longer has any pain whatsoever.
s/fuse the discs/fuse the vertebrae/
Funny I think I would rather wait 26hrs for a fractured arm (can't say I have ever had that kind of a wait in Canadian ER though) then having to sell my house just to pay for the hospital bill.
So please, don't say our system is better than in the US. People are not dying in the streets up here, but when you have a condition, you better be patient. A patient patient.
The reason we don't have people dying in the streets up here is because some of the more minor problem need to wait (its call triage). If you really aren't that patient for a non-life threatening problem you could always go to a hospital in the US (be sure to bring your credit card).
That sucks. I really mean that.
Clearly the result of governmental meddling in the free market. Good thing we don't have socialized medicine for all. Any attempts to increase the fraction of the population covered by the socialized medicine we do have are just an attempt by the elite to take our freedoms and ruin the country - don't fall for it.
Just to be clear: I don't really mean that.
Roger, that. And to our proponents of the present system, even those who extol the pre Kenyan Terror baby O'Blamacare. Know this:
When over 40 percent of bankruptcies are because the shitty citizens simply cannot pay their medical bills, that means that the upstanding citizens like Martin Shkreli and Nirmal Mulye do not get their rightful and morally needed money. How can the good right thinking citizens put up with that sin. We need to start executing these foul creatures that are not providing God's emissaries on earth the money that is their due.
Seriously though, people who approve of people losing everything over a hospital bill nee do enjoy that experience for themselves.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Your signature is a fascinating counterpoint to your post.
Yeah, when I'm in high sarcasm mode it tends to look a little strange.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Was she in life threatening danger? No? Did it ultimately get fixed and healed? It did? Yea thought so.
She could have been put in a physical state in which she might have had to get SSI - which of course, you'd shit your pants in anger about.
May you live to 120 and personally experience every part of the US healthcare system.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
As you say. One (US) Memorial Day weekend (not the holiday itself) I came down with acute Cellulitis. I was vomiting and passing out, and screaming in pain in the emergency room for about 12 hours before I was seen. They were short staffed that day, as all but one of the doctors had taken off.
This was normally a very good hospital, but not that time. Admittedly, it wasn't a life-threatening emergency...probably. I'm still not sure. I think that was the time I ended up needing a couple of weeks of home care with intravenous injections of antibiotics every few hours.
P.S.: This happened several times before I had a doctor who traced the source of the infection to some open athlete's foot infection sores between the toes. This was cured by always wearing strips of unspun wool between my toes every day, and by drying between my toes before I added the wool. Since then it's been decades without a repeat of the problem, where it had happened nearly once a year for three or four years before that.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This happens in America too, if you're poor. Sometimes if you're middle class. And it's still damned expensive. Also remember than there is more to the world of healthcare than America and Canada. Some countries do very well with their free healthcare which leads to high health outcomes.
I am unable to confirm that 50% of the budget of Quebec goes to health and human services (a broader category than just "health care") for 2018 it is apparently $38.5 billion (Canadian of course) out of a budget of almost $110 billion, or about 35%. And however "damn expensive" it is, it is cheaper by far than the U.S.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
US healthcare is essentially about fixing problems instead of preventing them. The insurance companies promote this based on what they cover and don't cover. It's a great country for healthcare if you're wealthy, though it's not very impressive if you're not. The first thing you hear at the reception desk for most doctors is "let's see what your insurance covers". An amazing number of people use the emergency room as their primary care because they can't afford insurance.
In Finland one of my coworkers (American) had a child there, all the neonatal checkups, birth, and followup visits all free and top quality. In America, you may be told that you've already had the alloted number of doctor visits and the insurance won't pay for more, and if your baby isn't premature then you're told to move out of the room as fast as you can.
Back in school we worked for over a year to get health insurance for grad students. The first year a baby was born with some complications and the insurer dropped ALL of us, claiming we were a bad risk. So we were left without insurance, which was a very common thing. When you make less than $20K a year a lot of students just didn't bother with health insurance and rolled the dice.
Before Obamacare you often could not switch insurers if you had a preexisting condition. Also those other insurance plans can often be more than you can afford. And paying out of pocket is a fantasy affordable only to the wealthy. You can't even afford the drugs out of pocket.
The top factor in personal bankruptcies in the US come from unexpected medical expenses, either as a primary cause or a contributing factor. Medical care in the US is expensive (both before and after Obamacare). When you're living paycheck to paycheck, the deductible you have to pay on a medical bill before insurance kicks in is too much.
I want the insurance company that tries to prevent the high expense problems in the first case. That's rare in the US. Though I'm with a plan that does this, it's not your typical PPO or HMO. Free classes at the clinics, no cost flu shots, low co-pay so as to not discourage doctor visits, etc.
I'd like the see the insurance company kick in some dough to get people to the gym as well, kick in dough for kicking smoking, cover 100% of the cost of medicine for chronic conditions (blood presure, diabetes), etc. It makes financial sense too for the insurers.
And in the US the emergency rooms are crowded. Too many people who can't afford insurance treat the emergency room as their primary care. So you will see people with the flu hanging out in the waiting room making sure everyone else gets a chance to catch it.
Quality wise, the US has some awesome hospitals and clinics - but not many of them. Sure the Mayo Clinic may be really good, but you won't be getting in there and will probably get your care at a regional county hospital that has budget problems.
I spent two days in a small Alabama MRI clinic while working on some other machine. Maybe 10 years ago. During that time the place was not hopping, and they could easily have doubled the number of patients that came in and still have time for a long lunch. So if there was a backlog of patients waiting then I'd have concluded that something fishy was going on. Maybe some hospital system just want to keep everything in-house rather than send out to unaffiliated clinics?
When over 40 percent of bankruptcies are because the shitty citizens simply cannot pay their medical bills, that means that the upstanding citizens like Martin Shkreli and Nirmal Mulye do not get their rightful and morally needed money. How can the good right thinking citizens put up with that sin. We need to start executing these foul creatures that are not providing God's emissaries on earth the money that is their due.
I think the fix for that is to put medical bills in the same category as student loans so they are difficult to discharge via personal bankruptcy. We don't want people running up their medical debt just so they can get it discharged via bankruptcy!
Socialize the risk, privatize the profits, that's the American way!
However if government gets too small that capitalism will quickly break down. People who advocate for smaller government need to specify how small it should be. I suspect many of them would prefer no government.
For me, it's not the size of the government that matters as much as the quality. In other words, do you get a return on investment from your taxes? In America, despite have low taxes we certainly gripe loudly about them, and I think that's because we just don't see much benefit coming back the other way.
We don't want a faceless government bureaucracy ultimately beholden to elected officials to set health policy! We want all our healthcare decisions to be made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy ultimately beholden to shareholders! Clearly that is the one true path to success!
False dilemmas aside, in a private system your healthcare decisions are not made by a faceless corporate bureaucracy. You can switch insurers, or pay out of pocket to go to another doctor. When the whole country is one system you have neither of those choices. You are literally forced to accept the fate handed to you by a single bureaucracy.
Every "single payer" system I am aware of does allow one to pay for items that are not universally covered (dental in Canada for example) items out-of-pocket. In any case, while the ability to "switch providers" would be good in theory, in practice it seems to be fairly uncommon. The point at which one needs to make these types of decisions are exactly the times at which one is least able to make them.
I do worry that my above comments have been labeled "insightful". One never knows if one's message is being read as intended...
But the market doesn't operate as the advertised when the preconditions don't apply. This is a medicine that some people need, it's a matter of life and death. And they're not paying for it out of pocket most of the time, hopefully insurance covers most of the cost. So there's no incentive to just stop using the medicine. Also there's not a clear and open market because the customer has limited information - doctors often do not provide a choice to the patient of a cheap versus expensive drug that do the same thing, and thus the patient does not know that there are alternatives.
There are no real market forces at work in this situation. This is not like seeing a loaf of bread priced at $100 and deciding to go to another store or just not eat bread at all.
Capitalism certainly allows for regulation, that's not a socialist thing it's a necessity for any system of government. Even the patron saint of free market economics, Adam Smith, believed that regulation was necessary. The political factor at work here is how much the government is beholden to corporate interests versus interests of the citizens.
Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
The number of bankruptcies is not always solely due to the medical bills alone. However the medical bills certainly do occur as a major factor even if not the only factor. In many bankruptcies you cannot point to a single cause. So a family may be on the edge and already deep in dept, and then the medical bills go and exacerbate the problems to unmanageable levels; or it could be the other way around so that the medical bill caused the initial debt which was compounded by predatory interest rates.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
You can switch insurers
You mean the same way we can 'vote with our feet and dollars' and switch broadband providers? Even before ACA, there were usually only a couple of insurers in any given area. Choosing between duopolists isn't much of a choice.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I've had those experiences here in the states just the same. The only upside to America is that when I wanted a couple bumps on my head removed I had it done immediately. But for anything that was complicated or needed a specialist I had to wait. I had heart palps that made me feel like I was having mini heart attacks and I had to wait 3 weeks to get in to see a specialist. I never did see the specialist, just his Nurse practitioner. That cost me $800 bucks out of pocket, and I had some of the best insurance you can get.
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Not only that, but the reason they're effectively a monopoly is because of patents-- which is already a form of government regulation.
Patent law isn't the only regulation that boosts drug prices, nor is it necessarily even the strongest among them. Drugs like pyrimethamine and epinephine have seen drastic price increases in the United States market decades after the patent had expired.
Not true, here in the UK if you want to pay the cash you can either go private or go to another country.
Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
I did see different numbers, so yes, there is that.
But bankruptcy aside, there are issues.
Some people do not believe that single payer is at all an option. Most of the people I know of that bent do not want to pay higher taxes.
Then again, what is spiraling insurance rates but a tax? Even if you say it isn't, the money is gone. I spend at least as much on healthcare insurance as I do on Taxes. Funny how the people who shit their pants over any tax, make cricket noises about that little thing.
Some will say Government is corrupt. I say people are corrupt. Doesn't matter where you put corrupt people.Private industry is showing us that every day.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
I never took a poll, but my acquaintances who are dead set against socialized medicine are the recipients of socialized medicine. The meme of "Keep your filthy government hands off my Medicare" is their exact attitude. But they don't think they are having the government pay for them. Or if they understand that, mot think that everyone but them is mooching off the system. Well, maybe not their buddy down at the Legion - but yeah - everyone else.
"This American Life" did a great piece on dissecting the US Healthcare conundrum.
People too poor to get healthcare would use emergency rooms - the most expensive medical service on the planet.
Of course, they were too poor to pay
But there is that bill. Hospitals distribute that bill among the customers who do pay.
Health insurance rates go up because the bills have gone up.
Employers drop insuring employees. Many of these uninsured employees find the Emergency room healthcare route. They likewise can't afford to pay the bill. Hospitals re-distribute the costs again. Insurance rates go up again. Less people are insured. Emergency rooms again.
A classic positive feedback loop. This ship was taking on water, and listing bad.
O'BlamaCare, or better named Romneycare isn't all that hot. But it is a start. The problem is that before the Insurance system was going to collapse, there was a large amount of dollars to fight over. So fight we did.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I mean I guess it's not honest to say it's a "moral requirement".... But at least he named the actual reason - profit. Perhaps he should have made a lie that sounded more "feel good" (even though we'd still know it was BS. Instead of : "More requirement to make money," he should reword it as "Moral requirement to pay those involved in the research, production, and distribution costs." We'd know it was BS.... But at least it'd be an attempt at PR that might fool a few people?
We'd lose this hilarious quote though, so he probably made the better choice.
Not true, here in the UK if you want to pay the cash you can either go private or go to another country.
Not certain who you are replying to. Some quotes would help.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you really want to see something corrupt it's a government contractor. Private corporation working for the government. There are so many levels of "I just don't care" going on there with so little accountability, all mixed in with a big profit motive to. And all these small-government types are all for outsourcing important government jobs to private contractors so that there is actually higher cost, more corruption, worse outcomes.
If you really want to see something corrupt it's a government contractor. Private corporation working for the government. There are so many levels of "I just don't care" going on there with so little accountability, all mixed in with a big profit motive to. And all these small-government types are all for outsourcing important government jobs to private contractors so that there is actually higher cost, more corruption, worse outcomes.
And don't forget, The winner of the US-Iraq war was Halliburton. Which just happened to be really closely related to Darth Cheney. So there you have a political figure who is all about privatization.
The whole Private market uber alles crowd is fueled by those who stand to make incredible profit, and useful idiots who have been trained in Government is the enemy doctrine.
Any group, public or private sector can become corrupt. But that is related to people, not the private or public of it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's the same in Canada, the patient picks a Doctor and the Doctor bills the Province.
We also actually have over a dozen medical systems as it is a Provincial matter with the feds legislating mimimums
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Most non-Canadians (and lots of Canadians) don't understand that we have over a dozen healthcare systems, each Province and Territory runs their own healthcare system with the feds setting minimum standards. So each Province is different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Each Province is different here as healthcare is a Provincial responsibility. The federal government sets minimum standards and also does some equalization payments so the rich Provinces help the poor ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Criminal. What's the difference between ransomware and holding a cure for unreasonable prices and a loan shark?
Or, for that matter, holding a hostage captive for a large sum of cash?
Not much difference, if any.
You are still doomed to (damnation) unless you can find the cash to pay!
Also, a bit like terrorism!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
His greed is too naked and therefore will lead to the nationalization of his drug company. He might have the factory but we have the votes.
https://www.quora.com/Which-ca...
Casteism
Then it is time to take certain sectors out of the commercial realm. Clearly the market is dysfunctional here. Healthcare should not be commercial. States should find innovation just like much of high energy physics is not commercially funded. Mere production, free of intellectual property, can be left to the industry.
There is nothing subtle about misunderstanding people.
When you're speaking, you can choose misleading words and that is a matter of style. When somebody else is speaking, and you're replying, and they used a normal meaning of the word, then in that situation when you choose a different meaning of the word you might as well keep your joke private, because intentionally misunderstanding is just being stupid. The other person can't have missed anything in your words, because they're the one who already chose the meaning of their words. And you're using a different meaning, while purportedly attempting a reply.
People who misunderstand other, intentionally or not, are not being "sarcastic," they're being dumb-asses. It isn't like a Rorschach Test because it is prone to confusion, it is like that in that you'll spew out a response based on your own internal mechanisms without even being conscious of any connection, or lack of connection, between your own thoughts and the ideas you're purporting to respond to. In fact, we can learn just how stupid and aliterate you are by your response, we don't really even need whatever the original idea was. Because you didn't succeed in engaging it.
Well, I guess your response clearly demonstrates that my meaning was unclear. My apologies for not being more literate. I have been suitably chastised by your demonstration of my failings. Thank you.
You clearly are interested in my comments, so I will try to make them more explicit.
I feel that while a single-payer, socialized system of delivering healthcare to the entire population is a worthy goal, I accept that there are difficulties and negative consequences to probably any conceivable system of that type. However, I feel that it is possible to minimize those downsides when compared to the negatives associated with the current way healthcare is funded and delivered in the USA. I also recognize that aspects of the current way healthcare is funded and delivered in the USA have many positive features, some of which may be difficult or impossible to replicate in a single-payer, socialized system of delivering healthcare to the entire population. The fact that the USA is virtually alone among G20 nations (G30? G50?) in not having some form of "universal" health care, would seem to indicate that such systems are not impossible.
I am sorry to have sewn confusion in my off-the-cuff response to a such a clear analysis of the "pros and cons" of Canada's health care system, as embodied by the AC's statement:
"Please, do not introduce logic to this thread...it in will not be tolerated. You should also be ashamed for pointing out the cons of socialized medicine...only the pros should be so smokey the emphasized...there must be some..."
I guess I was just "so smokey the emphasized". I hang my head in shame.