Anyway, the point of this post is to concede that just because Donald Trump advocates for something doesn't mean the thing for which he is advocating should be opposed. (Would that my conservative friends took this approach to President Obama, but water under the bridge and all . . .).
Anyway, I saw this in the Opinion section of the Indianapolis Star this morning. )Full disclosure, one of the authors of the piece, Fran Quigley, is (or at least was) a professor at the IU-McKinney School of Law, where I attended. I did not have Prof. Quigley for any courses.) Here are some quotable pieces of the article, starting with cold statistics:
A vial of insulin can cost a person with diabetes 10 times as much as it did in the late 1990s.The price of an EpiPen has risen 450%. Some new treatments for cancer and other diseases are priced as high as $750,000, even when taxpayers paid for the most critical research to develop those drugs.That last part about taxpayers paying for the most critical research is very important, it would seem to me. No innovation is done entirely from whole cloth; instead it is created by combining pre-existing components with small amounts of new innovation to create a newly usable product. In the case of so much R&D, "we the people" are footing the bill for the foundational research.
Well, at least some entities are getting fabulously wealthy. Martin Shkreli anyone? However, what are the real-world effects of pricing these necessary drugs so high?
One of every five Americans report either skipping medicine doses or failing to fill prescriptions each year due to cost. As physicians and a lawyer working on health-care access in Indiana, we have talked with people who have suffered strokes after they could not afford to fill their doctors’ prescription for blood pressure medicines. We have talked with mothers who have lost adult children who had been forced to ration their insulin.That sounds perfectly awful! I guess that means that Americans just don't care about each other?
Americans are outraged, and rightly so. In poll after poll, strong majorities of people across different political parties agree that our government needs to do more to rein in drug pricing abuse.Oh. Never mind.
What strikes me as interesting about this whole debate is the ferocity with which people argue against the government bargaining for better prices.
For a quick detour, I'd like to explain a bit about what life as an insurance defense litigator is like. For starters, I am handed 1-2 lawsuits per week by various insurance carriers. Because I get such a volume of business from them, I charge less than I would to a "private, one-off" client. I would likely quote a rate of $200/hour to a private client (a pretty good deal by local standards . . . go ask a litigator at Ice Miller to handle your matter for that price and see how that works out). Insurance companies, on the other hand, won't pay above $150/hour. Mind you, all of my overhead is the same for the insurance company cases as it is for the private cases, but I can rest assured that the insurance company will actually pay my bill and will continue to send me business. That's why I take the lower rate.
Something similar happens with doctors vis a vis Medicare. My brother is a surgeon and despises the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services because they pound his rates down so aggressively. Nonetheless, his practice continues to accept Medicare patients. I don't really know why, but they have determined that it is in their business interests to do so.
Nonetheless, for some reason, Big Pharma (looking at you, Eli Lilly) gets a special dispensation.
Negotiation is the right prescription for curing out-of-control drug price increases. Thanks to benefitting from taxpayer-supported research and government-granted monopolies, the pharmaceutical industry enjoys some of the highest profit margins in modern history, even after spending more of its revenue on advertising than on research. That is why President Trump and a whopping 92% of Americans support allowing our Medicare program to negotiate down drug prices.Wow. Mark today on the calendar. I, and 92% of my fellow Americans, agree with a Donald Trump position.
Negotiation is the right prescription for curing out-of-control drug price increases. Thanks to benefitting from taxpayer-supported research and government-granted monopolies, the pharmaceutical industry enjoys some of the highest profit margins in modern history, even after spending more of its revenue on advertising than on research. That is why President Trump and a whopping 92% of Americans support allowing our Medicare program to negotiate down drug prices.Interesting twist on American exceptionalism, no?
As a final point, I would reiterate to my more conservative friends that if the market isn't working, the market won't be used. If the current system is not delivering, it will eventually be replaced, and all of the filibustering and lying about the replacement won't change that.
The widespread frustration over our U.S. health-care system’s tragic flaws, where we pay the world’s highest costs for very poor coverage and health outcomes, is building momentum for a single-payer system here. Over half of Americans support single-payer, and more than 100 members of Congress have signed on in support of Medicare for All legislation. Businesses of all sizes are struggling with health-care costs, leading leaders like Warren Buffet to support a single-payer system.Talking points can only take you so far. Eventually, people will figure out that we don't have the best healthcare system on earth, that the insurgency is not in its last throes, and that you can't necessarily keep your plan even if you like it.
As a final point, please bear in mind that this is not to disparage the hard-working healthcare professionals in this country. They did not create the system of financing healthcare. However, if the present system continues to work for fewer and fewer people, the present system will be replaced sooner or later.
I agree with most of that but Big Pharma is in bed with many politicians in our government and lobbyists . In more ways than we will ever know or want to know they have big influence in our government .
ReplyDeleteI agree that drugs should be cheaper . I will not ever agree that socialized medicine is the answer . And your brother won’t get any richer that way either ... he probably would make less . He takes Medicare Medicaid patients because it’s the right thing to do . Most doctors do not become doctors for the right reasons . It’s usually for the money and prestige.
Speaking to the fact that people do not buy their meds because they are too expensive. Again I will say that their are several programs available to these people that are low cost or no cost . Time and again I witness people not buying/taking their drugs not because they don’t have the money , but because they choose to spend all their money on cigarettes , tatoos , illicit drugs etc . Of course there are always the ones who are just non compliant , just because . That said , drugs shouldn’t be so darn expensive for sure . I still can’t support socialized medicine though . It’s a job killer for one .
Employers seem to be moving their employees to the HSA with the employee fronting their own cost of healthcare .
For me , for selfish reasons , I support having Medicare made available to people at 62 . Thereby people can vacate some of these jobs and let the young people have them !