Oregon Woman Denied Drugs for Lung Cancer, Offered Assisted-Death Pills

[Kregisen]

The same way prices fall on everything else - let the market work.

If the government passed a law that the insurers had to pay for this treatment no matter the cost, there is no incentive for the price to ever fall. If the government passed a law that capped the price, there would be shortages.

The harsh reality is that not everybody will be able to afford these treatments, especially in the beginning, but I'm pretty skeptical of the drug actually having any significant effect anyway. If I'm right...in a free market the pills would be sold exclusively to elite clientele, who would die anyway. The demand for the treatment would never rise.

However, if the pills really are wonder drugs then the demand for them would grow, and the company making them would scale up production and lower prices.

I think the issue really is - and this is one libertarians have trouble dealing with - is are we as a society willing to turn away when the media plays these sob stories for us? The answer seems to be no for most people.

Yes and I know how free markets work, and technically "company making them would scale up production and lower prices" is not always true. It's a parabola. If the quantity x (price-cost) can be made larger by increasing quantity while decreasing price, then they'll do it. A blanket statement of saying they will always increase supply and lower price is just like Art Laffer did under Reagan when he said when you lower tax rates, you will always get more total tax revenue. He was proved wrong, because again, it's a parabola, and there is a maximization point. Because of that, deficits skyrocketed under Reagan.

 

[JK/SEA]

You would think we could raise that kind of money, eh? Motivating folks for anything other than Ron & Rand however is problematic at best. I tried in 2010 and again this cycle for just 1000 people at $10 each, and it hasn't quite worked out.

Glenn, this is embarrassing...really it is. We can muster the troops in here to buy 'Kelly Clarkson' records, but we can't get the troops in here to see fit to send you, a true honest to God patriot a few bucks for your re-election....

With that said, i'll be sending some FRN's your way this weekend. Maybe we can get a moneybomb going for you...

 

[dillo]

I'm not objecting to patent laws in general. But length, I am.
You want the patent to last long enough to recoup loses and spur some profit. Not go on into perpetuity. There are some special cases where design patents have been extended for over three decades. And it wasn't Mary across the street who got the extension.

Consider two scenarios:
Company A makes drug X for cancer treatment.

Scenario #1
They hold a patent on it for twenty years. The only threat they face is if a competitor can make a better drug. If no company bests it for this type of cancer, their continued profits are assured.

I thought the limit was 14, I would say that sounds like a pretty reasonable number. How did they get 20 years?

Scenario #2
They hold a patent for just five years. If they don't start developing a newer, better drug immediately after finishing the first one, their monopoly runs out and they're one of many offering the same thing.

The problem with this line of thinking is the probability of them being able to come out with new life saving drugs every 5 years. If the drug companies know that they can't come up with a drug every five years then they probably won't invest in the first life saving drug if they won't be able to profit off of it. This is kind of what you see today, with all the male enhancement and other bullshit they put on the market instead of anti-biotics.
[/QUOTE]
Which spurs more innovation and progress? Long patents make lazy businesses that focus on marketing and streamlining over innovation. There is no incentive in scenario one for them to do anything for over a decade. They would literally be competing against themselves, which makes no sense.

Maybe our bloated patent system is better than no patent system. I can't say, as no modern economy has existed without one. But I can say there's a lot to be improved. And the simplest thing to implement is a reduction in the number of years a patent lasts.[/QUOTE]

The incentive would be to make more money, continue growth in the company

 

[jack555]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492





A sad story about the healthcare issue. The point they try to raise in the article is that the insurance companies should just fork over the money, no matter how much it costs, to keep the patient alive another 6 months, but I think the real issue is the high cost of some drugs to begin with. Healthcare is not my specialty, so I don't have any specific recommendations for keeping drug costs low, except maybe looking at allowing more competition or less regulation, but arguing over who should foot this bill I think is the wrong way to go. Really it doesn't quite matter who pays for it anyway, because the insurance company wants to make a profit, and if their costs go up, their profit maximization point for premiums will also go up, so if they pay for more expensive treatments like this, their premiums they charge will go up to cover it anyway.

The million dollar question is, how do you make expensive drugs like that cheaper than $4,000/month?

I will be a pharmacist in 6 months.

To answer your question there is no way to make them cheaper because once it is cheaper another company will make another $4000 drug assuming they can produce one that shows benefit. I don't believe most insurance/the government should pay for any treatment that's costs more then say $100. I at least think people should have the option of buying insurance that doesn't cover expensive drugs because it would make health care so much cheaper. Look at antipsychotic drugs they are 500/month only because the government pays for such a significant portion of them. If you made people buy these expensive drugs themselves demand would crumble and so would prices. I will say if the demand for expensive drugs crumbled you would have far fewer new drugs and new research but we already have a good arsenal of drugs I don't think we should be paying for $150 blood pressure medications when there are $10 generics available. Just my 2 cents. Edit~a possible exception would be antibiotic therapy as we will probably always require large amounts of new research in that field in the long term.

 

[jack555]

The most likely case is, the $4000/month drug wouldn't help or cure her

. Bingo, just like the $150 blood pressure medication is problably barely better than a $10 generic if at all.