Why Socialism and Communism Are the Same

[Dr_Manhattan]

Well I am mostly talking about what is in the market place already. Of course I understand the cost and the sizable issue that goes with liabilities and introducing drugs on the market and the FDA. I am glad I never went into that type of law, although occasionally my dealings in trade crosses paths in deals that have already been approved and are looking for bigger capital.

[TWR]

Trump has enough business acumen and business people helping him on policy I think he might actually make it part of his 2020 campaign.

We damned sure need some relief and prescription drug pricing relief would take care of one of the most significant healthcare issues in the country.

Keep in mind that those liability issues are why they have to set aside hundreds of billions of dollars and those issues remain for as long as a drug is on the market forcing them to keep ever larger cash supplies on hand.

Nobody is going to insure them against those losses so they have to be self insuring as well as developing and producing new and old drugs for the current market.

We created that mess ourselves and we’ve got to address it.

[AZRWinger]

@TWR

We’re paying through our noses to subsidize the countries that have price controls.

I’m a big fan of as little regulation as possible but we need a prescription drug bill that requires manufacturers to sell their wares for the same price in the US as they are being paid abroad.

Do something fair like average pricing where you take the average price paid for a given drug in fifteen other industrialized nations and fix that as the wholesale price for the US as well.

Let those other countries start paying the true cost of medications instead of the US consumer toting the bill for them.

No, let other countries pay the same prices as we do.

If we let other countries set the price of pharmaceuticals even by averaging, their governments will dictate rock bottom pricing. Countries with socialized medicine have cost and budget as the primary concern.

We need to streamline the FDA review and approval process to truely reduce costs and speed up delivery.

[TWR]

No, if we went that route it would do nothing to help the US buyer and would serve only to inflate the profits of the Pharmaceutical companies.

A “true cost” or “average pricing” would raise the prices overseas to cover the actual cost and lower prices here at home.

The Pharma’s still get to enjoy a reasonable profit and ROI but we get to stop subsidizing pharmaceuticals for the rest of the world as consumers here at home.

[AZRWinger]

@TWR

A “true cost” or “average pricing” would raise the prices overseas to cover the actual cost and lower prices here at home.

A so-called true cost model means government price controls. That’s adding billions to cost of bringing a new drug to market by making manufacturers essentially government contractors.

Let’s say the so-called greedy US manufacturer sets the cost of their new drug at $60 per dose. The socialized medicine regimes of industrialized nations bid $3. Why not? They can simply deny the treatment to their populace while denouncing greedy Americans if the manufacturer refuses to export at a loss. With no export revenue domestic prices will increase even more.

I have provided a hypothetical example illustrating the weakness of average pricing. Kindly explain how this ersatz auction method would result in lower prices for the American consumer.

[TWR]

Absolutely not.

All this does would be to force countries we are currently subsidizing with our patient dollars to pay the actual cost.

This doesn’t do anything to hurt drug company profits either and could serve only to lower costs to the US Taxpayer (Medicaid and Medicare) as well as those of us either with private insurance or private pay and would also lower the cost for those who have employer provided insurance.

Say you have a pill that costs 1000.00/mo in the US.

Countries X, Y, and Z have price controls saying they will only pay a maximum of 600.00.

The cost is the same for the mfg to produce it.

This would require some formula that looks at the true cost of production and a reasonable profit margin. The current margins of 14-20% are fine for me.

However it works out this would require that the wholesale price is the same whether it’s sold in the US or abroad.

Right now we’re getting screwed and subsidizing the rest of the world.

[AZRWinger]

@TWR

Say you have a pill that costs 1000.00/mo in the US.

Countries X, Y, and Z have price controls saying they will only pay a maximum of 600.00.

The cost is the same for the mfg to produce it.

This would require some formula that looks at the true cost of production and a reasonable profit margin. The current margins of 14-20% are fine for me.

What you are outlining is a biding system to price pharmaceuticals. Foreign healthcare systems, many of them government run, don’t have to actually pay the prices they set for American pharmaceuticals.

Why would socialized medical systems, an extension of foreign governments, bid $600 for a drug that cost $1,000 a dose in the US? Like the VA administrators who buried requests for care, foreign socialized medicine bureaucrats only concern is meeting budget targets. There is no downside from their perspective to bidding $6 a dose. Get it for $6 or have the US manufacturer refuse to sell it to them, either way they are saving their country from greedy Americans.

The so-called true cost model introduces yet another costly layer of bureaucracy and regulations to drug pricing. Successful introduction of a new drug depends on the quality of the company’s lawyers and lobbyists.

[AlexC]