Why Healthcare Reform Will Fail

[GoLeft TV]

Run time: 06:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6D0RT5Zgs   Posted on YouTube: July 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 17, 2009 By DU Member: GoLeft TV Views on DU: 1433

 
The GOP wants to scare us into thinking that healthcare reform is going to fail because people will have to wait months to see a doctor, fill out hours worth of paperwork, and receive less care in their version of a Socialist-style healthcare system. While they're right about it failing, they're wrong about the how. Mike Papantonio of Air America's Ring of Fire takes on the folks over at Fox Business' Happy Hour to tell them what we should really fear from the new healthcare bill.

[izquierdista]

1. What a stupid tart!

But I'm glad to see that FOX is giving people a chance to practice their English.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stlsaxman]

4. I actually thought the tart was the sharper knife in the drawer.

granted, all three are dullards.

[ProfessorPlum]

3. Ok, I know it's just a stand-in for drug companies' rapacious profits

but I get tired of the $2 pill for $50 ignorance. It costs companies ENORMOUS amounts of money to discover, develop, formulate, develop, and market drugs. The reason a pill might be cheap to manufacture is that the company has spent years and millions of dollars trying to figure out the least expensive way to manufacture it - and each drug brings its own set of new challenges, that require teams of highly skilled chemical engineers and process chemists doing applied research to solve them.

A pill might be inexpensive to manufacture, but that's not because you can just make it from materials lying around the house.

I have a job which is tangential to drug development, and I see how these professionals agonize over trying to make enough of a drug compound just to test it, let alone the problems of large-scale manufacturing for sales.

That being said, I do think the amount of return for drugs is an area which the government could regulate, especially for diseases where there is no alternative therapy.

[stlsaxman]

5. Ok, i know that the drug companies are operating at a loss and only trying to do what's best...

for the sick people that use their miraculous products...

but i'm gonna let those here who aren't left as totally speechless by your post as i am counter your defense of Big Pharma.

:puke:

[ProfessorPlum]

9. "I do think the amount of return for drugs is an area which the government could regulate"

Please read carefully.

[stlsaxman]

17. "i'm gonna let those here who aren't left as totally speechless by your post ..."

Please read carefully.

(and they did NOT let me down!)

:headbang: -"My homies ROCK!"

[ProfessorPlum]

18. it's NOT a defense of big pharma

I'm pointing out the "cheap pill" argument is stupid and distracts from solving the problem.

Your "homies" are as reading challenged as you are.

[GoLeft TV]

6. FYI

Merck made $2.5 billion off of Vioxx in 2003 alone. One pill, one year, $2.5 billion. Can you honestly tell me that they spent as much or more than that doing R & D? That doesn't count what they made off it in previous or subsequent years, nor does it count what they pulled in from their other pills. Yeah, they spend a lot of money making these drugs. But you failed to mention that they make their money back with profits usually after less than one year. From that point on, everything they pull in off a drug is profit (minus operating costs, of course, which don't amount to much in comparison.)

[ProfessorPlum]

10. "I do think the amount of return for drugs is an area which the government could regulate"

Please read carefully.

[tabatha]

7. You are wrong there.

There is quite a large amount of govt money that goes into medical research.
Also, Canadians may less for the exact same drugs sold at a higher price to US citizens.

[ProfessorPlum]

16. Canadians pay less than US citizens for the same drug because

Canada actually has a government that protects its citizens from being gouged, whereas of course the US doesn't.

And government money does fund a lot of basic research - providing clues to new drug targets, for example. But it does very little of the discovery/development/formulation of drugs.

How does that make what I said wrong?

[pattmarty]

8. And exactly how long do they get to retain their monopolistic exclusivity?????

[ProfessorPlum]

11. "I do think the amount of return for drugs is an area which the government could regulate"

Please read carefully.

[ProfessorPlum]

12. My point here is that it the matter at hand is what should

pharmaceutical company returns be for drugs, based on their amount of R&D expenditure, risk, time to recover invested costs, and the fact that in many cases they hold a monopoly on their customers health when they have a final product.

THAT's what Pap is getting at, but he's using a shorthand which deflects from the actual discussion. The price of manufacturing a pill vs. what its market price is doesn't even begin to take in all of the factors which need to be addressed - it's an emotional argument that doesn't do the discussion justice.

Suppose a pharma company puts out a pill that costs a dollar to make, cost them $300 million to develop, and for which they expect to gross $500 million a year on for 8 years. Is that evil? What if, the next day, one of their engineers discovers a way to manufacture the same pill for 10 cents apiece. Is that ten times more evil? Since the cost of manufacturing the pill is actually a very small part of their expense, it won't affect their profit much, so is that roughly equally evil?

It's just kind of a nonsense argument, designed to make people feel ripped off when they are being ripped off by the way medical & drug insurance is billed in this country. And pharmaceutical prices, too, but not directly.

What we need is a pricing scheme that allows a company to recover the R&D costs for a particular drug by sales of that drug over 2-3 years, or something like that, also allowing that those sales are financing the discovery of other drugs at the same time. It's a thorny issue (one that will ultimately be fought along the same old regulation/deregulation lines), but it really has very little to do with the cost of manufacturing the pills. That cost is expected to be small compared to all the other costs that go into bringing a drug to market.

[irislake]

14. I weep for Big Pharma

Weep. Weep. Weep. I cannot for the life of me understand why Big Pharma has such a bad reputation. More and more law-suits every day demonstrate the virtues of the drug companies.

[ProfessorPlum]

15. Jesus. Is this "miss the fucking point" day? Why didn't anyone tell me?

It's not that pharma isn't gouging people, of course it is. My point is that the "cost of the pill" argument is a stupid one.


It's like saying, "Hollywood is gouging us because it only costs them $1 to produce a DVD that they then charge us $14.99 for." Do you see why that is a dumb argument?

[axollot]

19. Look, I know it costs a lot of money to research meds - it's true BUT...

....what *is* enough profit on human life? If we give big Pharma a 'pass' we give defense dept/contractors, insurance companies, oil companies, wall street - everyone gets a pass, because all of it *costs* big time to 'develop'. Are we *really* so used to hearing the word billions that we do not blink an eye anymore? How much could most of us do with a few hundred let alone BILLIONS of dollars. We here these amounts so often, they are benign to our brain. How much is enough? Just a little bit more.......as the saying goes.
It's a shame how little the guy who does develop some of these products get in the end too. But there is a lot of 'kool-aid' drinking to your post and something that has been an 'excuse' of the 'right' (or wrong) to not provide govt health for far to long to miss it.
Cheers
Sandy

[ProfessorPlum]

20. I'm saying the argument about cheap pills is a weak, misleading,

and stupid one. NOT that pharma companies should profit egregiously from holding people's lives hostage.

What I wrote about the difficulty in developing drugs is true, not kool-aid.

But all that aside, I don't think pharma companies should just get to set huge profits for themselves, all other considerations be damned.


Finding a successful drug is a very difficult, expensive, frustrating business, where you not only have to be extremely good at what you do but also very lucky to have success. That is a fact. But just saying that doesn't mean I think drug companies aren't evil for grasping at ever higher profits.

What's become of reading comprehension around here?

[Hulk]

13. Why does Mike P. waste his time??

Just have them watch Michael Moore's last movie on health care. I'd take ANYONE of those over what we have now with our insurance debacle and profit gouging nightmare.

The doctors interviewed seemed every bit as content and affluent as any of our own....minus perhaps the plastic surgeons in this f*cked up country. The services in France, England, and yes...even Canada, make our medical experience look like some sort of nightmare from hell.

Yeah...I'll bet we can find a few horror stories once it is established. Wanna bet we can find a few MILLION nightmares to share today about the uninsured and the insured who have been raped by the insurance industry.

What a f*cking waste of time to talk with these goons on this propaganda network of idiots and clowns.