Healthcare going forward

[Benvolio]

Don't they understand that allowing some people to negotiate drug prices but not others is inherently unconstitutional? Private sector insurance companies negotiate bulk prices; if the government agencies can't, that's inequality before the law.

If agencies are the victims of your imagined inequality, it is simply a restriction which the government has placed upon itself. Agencies are not separate from the government. The government has chosen to be unequal. But it is, as I said,a very silly notion.

 

[Benvolio]

Prescription drug advertising has been banned for ages. The drug companies have been doing just fine. You just happened to latch onto one of the more shady companies. Advertising isn't necessary.

Besides, we get enough drug advertising on American television stations. Seriously, I love the commercials where it takes longer to list off all of the side effects than it does to advertise the product.

Argue all you want. Banning drug advertising has worked. If it didn't, our prices would be higher than yours.

You see, people don't see a commercial for a drug and think, "Oh. I'll get my doctor to prescribe them for me." Nobody sees a commercial for a drug and decides to go out and catch the condition that they drug is going to treat. Nobody. I certainly didn't see a commercial for Metformin and think, "That sounds like fun. Taking Metformin for the rest of my life. I think I'll get diabetes so I can take them."

And now there are dozens of commercials on American TV for other treatments for blood sugar and A1C reducers, and there are very serious dangers with them, including death. Prescription drugs are supposed to help keep people alive. Not kill them.

Legitimate prescription drugs do not need advertising. The fly-by-night pill pushers do.

They may not advertise in Canada, but the can and do advertise in the much larger US market without price controls. If they are doing fine, it is because of the sales in the US. But when I looked, I only found Valeant as a manufacturer. Who are these manufacturers who are doing fine without advertising in the US??

 

[peeonme]

My doctor friend -- captain of our cross-country team when we were in high school -- says he daily gets patients asking to be examined for a particular affliction because they saw symptoms described on a drug commercial. So far the largest number in a year that actually had a problem was three! And he says those would have been caught in a regular check-up anyway.

What the advertising really did for those patients was cost them time and the co-pay for the visits, and use up their doctor's time finding nothing.

It also costs their health insurance money, which is past on to others in higher premiums.

 

[gsdx]

Who are these manufacturers who are doing fine without advertising in the US??

I've told you. Look behind the pharmacy counter. All those pills were manufactured by someone, and none of them are advertised.

I was simply offering a suggestion for bringing down the high cost of drugs in the United States. Nothing complicated. Nothing difficult. It's more important to you that people die than to have lower drug costs. You want the drug companies to become richer and richer instead of making people healthier and healthier. That speaks volumes about you.

 

[gsdx]

For some reason, these commercials seem to be obsessed with things following women around- pills, leaky bladders. And the side effects warnings are always blurted out quickly because they're really scary:

I've never seen these, and I've never even heard of some of them.

The second Abilify commercial was 1:30 long. The side effects began at 0.34 and ended at 1:15. It took half the commercial to list the side effects.

They're advertising health risks as much as they are a medicine.

 

[KaraBulut]

I've never seen these, and I've never even heard of some of them.

The second Abilify commercial was 1:30 long. The side effects began at 0.34 and ended at 1:15. It took half the commercial to list the side effects.

They're advertising health risks as much as they are a medicine.

I can't recall the last time I watched a television show without seeing one of these types of commercials.

Just like I can't remember what advertisements in gay magazines were like before the magazines were loaded up with antiretroviral ads.

 

[Kabluey]

Well, the Donald certainly has thrown a big monkey wrench into conservatives plans for repealing and (but probably not) replacing the PPACA. The Donald, in a recent interview, stated that the health care plan that he's working on (RIGHT. . .snark ) will offer universal coverage and lower premiums. Even if he is pulling all this out of his ass, because he's the conservative standard bearer, their congress critters are now going to be saddled with two things that conservatives hate.

This is just going to get more and more interesting

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/16/donald-trump-may-have-just-destroyed-the-republican-effort-to-repeal-obamacare?ref=yfp

Funny that our resident republican seems unable to see the comments here about trump's universal healthcare talk... Does not compute?

 

[Kulindahr]

If agencies are the victims of your imagined inequality, it is simply a restriction which the government has placed upon itself. Agencies are not separate from the government. The government has chosen to be unequal. But it is, as I said,a very silly notion.

You seem to be unaware that the government is subject to a thing called the Constitution. It is not allowed to treat citizens unequally.

Government forcing some patients to have to pay a higher price while others are allowed to negotiate a lower price is imposing inequality. Government is not granted any such authority in the Constitution; indeed it is forbidden to do so.

So you've just demonstrated that you suffer from the same affliction you see abundantly in liberals: you don't give a shit about the Constitution if it gets in the way of your ideology.

 

[Kulindahr]

I've told you. Look behind the pharmacy counter. All those pills were manufactured by someone, and none of them are advertised.

I was simply offering a suggestion for bringing down the high cost of drugs in the United States. Nothing complicated. Nothing difficult. It's more important to you that people die than to have lower drug costs. You want the drug companies to become richer and richer instead of making people healthier and healthier. That speaks volumes about you.

Die? That's extreme.

But it's clearly more important to him that the government ignore the Constitution in order to adhere to his ideology.

 

[smokeshadow]

the real reason that conservatives have been trying for 8 plus years to repeal the PPACA is because it taxes the 1% and the 0.1% and they don't like that It's a shame that some idiots have such little compassion for their fellow man that they begrudge them health coverage because they don't like paying for something they personally don't benefit from

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ffordable-care-act-tax-cut?yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp

 

[Kulindahr]

the real reason that conservatives have been trying for 8 plus years to repeal the PPACA is because it taxes the 1% and the 0.1% and they don't like that It's a shame that some idiots have such little compassion for their fellow man that they begrudge them health coverage because they don't like paying for something they personally don't benefit from

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ffordable-care-act-tax-cut?yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp

I not from the article that once again the GOP thinks that unearned income is holy while earned income should be taxed even if it drives people into misery. The real tragedy is that unearned income wasn't just reclassified the same as regular income.

 

[gsdx]

Die? That's extreme.

No, it isn't. If people can't afford the drug that keeps them alive, they die. Ben tries to justify the necessity for advertising for the drug companies to raise prices in order to make money. Money is more important to him than to keep people alive. Think Martin Shkreli. Greed, pure and simple. No advertising. No R&D. Nothing. Just greed. Why do you think the drug lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington? They control the government when the government should be controlling them.

Even some of the stupid commercials you see on television list 'death' as a possible side effect of their drug.

 

[Kulindahr]

No, it isn't. If people can't afford the drug that keeps them alive, they die. Ben tries to justify the necessity for advertising for the drug companies to raise prices in order to make money. Money is more important to him than to keep people alive. Think Martin Shkreli. Greed, pure and simple. No advertising. No R&D. Nothing. Just greed. Why do you think the drug lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington? They control the government when the government should be controlling them.

Even some of the stupid commercials you see on television list 'death' as a possible side effect of their drug.

Hmm. Maybe.

So the alternative to "death panels" is just plain death.

 

[Benvolio]

No, it isn't. If people can't afford the drug that keeps them alive, they die. Ben tries to justify the necessity for advertising for the drug companies to raise prices in order to make money. Money is more important to him than to keep people alive. Think Martin Shkreli. Greed, pure and simple. No advertising. No R&D. Nothing. Just greed. Why do you think the drug lobby is one of the most powerful in Washington? They control the government when the government should be controlling them.

Even some of the stupid commercials you see on television list 'death' as a possible side effect of their drug.

That of course is not my position. Advertising helps lower prices by spreading the R&D costs over more units, and yes, create a profit. It is not that making money is more important than saving lives; it is essential to saving more lives. Liberals believe that new drugs just appear by magic. And drug companies who charge for the drugs are greedy and don't care about lives. There is a simple solution. Tell your Doctor that you don't want any drugs manufactured by greedy people to make money. Tell him you only want drugs developed by altruistic, non-greedy liberal socialists, untainted by the profit motive or any desire to recover their investment.

 

[KaraBulut]

I not from the article that once again the GOP thinks that unearned income is holy while earned income should be taxed even if it drives people into misery. The real tragedy is that unearned income wasn't just reclassified the same as regular income.

That's one of the great mysteries- why the public has allowed capital gains to be taxed at a lower rate than payroll income. The taxes on those who work and get a paycheck is double the rate for those who live on off investment income. The bill passed under one of those Orwellian legislative titles: "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003":

Under the new law, qualified dividends are taxed at the same rate as long-term capital gains, which is 15 percent for most individual taxpayers. Qualified dividends received by individuals in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets were taxed at 5% from 2003 to 2007. The qualified dividend tax rate was set to expire December 31, 2008; however, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (TIPRA) extended the lower tax rate through 2010 and further cut the tax rate on qualified dividends to 0% for individuals in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets. On December 17, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010. The legislation extends for two additional years the changes enacted to the taxation of dividends in the JGTRRA and TIPRA.[6]

Source

 

[gsdx]

That of course is not my position. Advertising helps lower prices by spreading the R&D costs over more units, and yes, create a profit.

1 - Why are drug prices in the US higher than drug prices in other countries?
2 - Why do drug companies in other countries where advertising is banned still make a profit?
3 - Why is more money spent on advertising than on R&D?
4 - What are people to do when they can't afford the medication they need to stay alive?
5 - Why are there so many dangerous drugs class-action lawsuits?

And your argument about my doctor is nonsense. Not a single drug that I am prescribed is advertised. Not a single drug that I am prescribed was known to me before the doctor prescribed it. Not a single drug I'm prescribed costs more than the same drugs in the United States.

Explain that, please.

 

[Benvolio]

That's one of the great mysteries- why the public has allowed capital gains to be taxed at a lower rate than payroll income. The taxes on those who work and get a paycheck is double the rate for those who live on off investment income. The bill passed under one of those Orwellian legislative titles: "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003":
Source

One reason for a lower capital gain tax is that part of a long term gain is inflation of the currency.
A lower capital gain rate encourages sales, generating the tax. A high capital gain rate makes sales prohibitive and lowers tax collection.
Dividends are corporate income which has been taxed to the corporation and should not be taxed again as it is distributed to the sharholder. Double taxation is unfair and bad economics.
I know that as socialists, you cannot agree, but now you know part of the reasons for our tax policy.

 

[Kulindahr]

That of course is not my position. Advertising helps lower prices by spreading the R&D costs over more units, and yes, create a profit. It is not that making money is more important than saving lives; it is essential to saving more lives. Liberals believe that new drugs just appear by magic. And drug companies who charge for the drugs are greedy and don't care about lives. There is a simple solution. Tell your Doctor that you don't want any drugs manufactured by greedy people to make money. Tell him you only want drugs developed by altruistic, non-greedy liberal socialists, untainted by the profit motive or any desire to recover their investment.

There are two possibilities here: either advertising is resulting in people who don't need them taking the drugs, or it's getting people who need them but weren't getting them to ask their doctors. From the evidence, it's far more the former, but let's look at both.

If it's the former, then the companies are profiting from doing damage to people by catering to their worries and making them risk side effects they don't need to. If it's the latter, it isn't the patients who need to hear the information, it's the doctors. So either way, advertising to patients is not benefitting the patients.

Now let's look at the arithmetic: the claim is that drug companies need advertising to sell enough drugs to recoup their costs. But if they're spending more on advertising than on research (and they are), then they could cut their research costs in half by not advertising, or at least by advertising only to doctors. Since the doctors have to do the research to learn whether their patients really could benefit from a prescription anyway, it would serve better to spend far less addressing that narrow audience and save half on research costs.

So the economic argument for advertising is weak at best. On top of that is the fact that such advertising is an attempt to convince people unable to analyze the claims that they need a substance, and is thus immoral (constituting a con). Finally, it is arguably immoral to make a profit off people's health needs in the first place, since it inherently deprives those unable to afford certain care of their full health.

 

[Kulindahr]

That's one of the great mysteries- why the public has allowed capital gains to be taxed at a lower rate than payroll income. The taxes on those who work and get a paycheck is double the rate for those who live on off investment income. The bill passed under one of those Orwellian legislative titles: "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003":
Source

The concept behind it is that investing in new factories, etc. is beneficial for the economy and should be rewarded. That's why I distinguish between stock purchased directly from a company, which enables a company to expand and improve, and stock purchased from other stockholders -- the first is beneficial to the economy and should be rewarded, while the second is mere paper-shuffling after the benefit has been derived.

 

[Kulindahr]

1 - Why are drug prices in the US higher than drug prices in other countries?
2 - Why do drug companies in other countries where advertising is banned still make a profit?
3 - Why is more money spent on advertising than on R&D?
4 - What are people to do when they can't afford the medication they need to stay alive?
5 - Why are there so many dangerous drugs class-action lawsuits?

And your argument about my doctor is nonsense. Not a single drug that I am prescribed is advertised. Not a single drug that I am prescribed was known to me before the doctor prescribed it. Not a single drug I'm prescribed costs more than the same drugs in the United States.

Explain that, please.

And with one exception, my doctors knew far more about the drugs they've prescribed than I did -- and that one was a fluke, due to it being used as an example in a college-level course.