the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

[thesightless]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/12/house.medicare.ap/index.html

go go go

get this fucking bill passed PLEASE> the country needs it. the people require it. its morally right. the only thing will be hurt here is a few companies that already have asinine profit margins.

and to GWwho.

shut the fuck up on this subject. you are rocking our economy and job sector, fucking up your stupid war, so you have good and bad, but on this one.... you are just being stupid on behalf of your cronies.

[toasty]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/....ap/index.html

go go go

get this fucking bill passed PLEASE> the country needs it. the people require it. its morally right. the only thing will be hurt here is a few companies that already have asinine profit margins.

and to GWwho.

shut the fuck up on this subject. you are rocking our economy and job sector, fucking up your stupid war, so you have good and bad, but on this one.... you are just being stupid on behalf of your cronies.

word. and why the hell not, imo? If negotiating on the open market is good enough for private entities, it ought to be good enough for the government, too.

[thesightless]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

seriously, as anti-socialism i am, i dont even think, i know that socialising the pharaceutical industry will only help people world wide, so what if 3 of the 3k+ companies are removed from the NYSE.......

and if they dont want to nationalize them, at least force "non profit" status and HEAVY regulation in regards to how much profit they keep in reserve, advertising, and lawsuits.

[rubyraks]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

wow, I never thought the day would come when I'd hear those words from you...

damn pharmies!

[thesightless]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

dude, even with a good policy, i still have to fork over 120 a month for the shit i take for my arm....

[rubyraks]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

does the fact that for profit pharmies will never look for the cure because it's unprofitable factor in?

[Lorn]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

I'm sure it does.

[thesightless]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

even better for us would be to actually find one and charge everyone else for it, i.e. the cold war human virus research and cure research, ....

infect everyone, keep those who you allly wqith around.

[subterFUSE]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

Sightless..... do you understand WHY drugs cost so much in the USA vs. overseas, or Canada?

This is a topic I know a lot about, because my dad is a healthcare lawyer.


The reason is a simple one. Government Price Controls.


In Europe and Canada, the governments have set price caps on pharmaceutical sales. While this helps the people in their country, the effect on the USA market is to raise our costs.


It's simple business economics:

Research and development for new drugs costs money. A shitload of it. It also takes a long time. The average drug takes years to reach market. However, the patent for the drug is only good for 20 years. (It used to be 17 years) What people don't understand is that the patent goes into effect WAY before the drug ever becomes a reality. So that 20 year timeclock is ticking while you work your ass off to develop the drug, test it on animals, then to human trials, then get it approved by the FDA, and finally bring it to the market. By the time all that happens, drug companies rarely have more than a year of exclusivity left in their patents. And then you have companies trying to void your patent early. Once the patent is expired, the generic companies come in and copy your drug. But since the generics don't have the cost of R&D (because you already did all the research for them) they can undercut your prices. So.... you spend nearly 20 years and billions of dollars to bring a drug to market, and you have like 12 months to recover those costs.

But in Europe, and Canada the government says: "Hey, you can't charge market price. You can only charge what WE decide is fair." So, the drug companies are left with a choice:

1. Don't sell their drugs in Europe.
2. Sell the drugs at the government set prices, and recover the losses elsewhere. (Namely, the USA where we do not have price controls)

Either way, they have to charge more money for the drugs.


So in an indirect way, the USA is actually subsidizing the prescription drugs of practically the entire world. THAT is why we pay so much for drugs. We're paying more so the rest of the world can pay less.

[Lorn]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

If people stopped taking a prescription for every little sniffle and sneeze we might see something change as well. Demand is out of control. And not in a good way...imo.

[AntonyM]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

Time for the government to subsidize Pharmasudical R&D
probably do one way or another already.
Like your points subterFUSE
will see what happens

[subterFUSE]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

Government subsidization of drugs isn't the solution. The free-market provides far more capital than the government can. Leave it alone.

The only change I would make would be to tell Europe and the rest of the world to fuck off. Let them die from preventable diseases if they insist on imposing price controls. They aren't helping us, so why should we help them?

[AntonyM]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

Government subsidization of drugs isn't the solution. The free-market provides far more capital than the government can. Leave it alone.

The only change I would make would be to tell Europe and the rest of the world to fuck off. Let them die from preventable diseases if they insist on imposing price controls. They aren't helping us, so why should we help them?

How much market share would the US pharmasudical companies
lose globally with your approach? Aren't there already other companies
out there making what could be considered generic versions of brand name drugs
so isn't the american public the biggest suckers in this equation by essentially
being held hostage by the pharma companies and their political allies.

[subterFUSE]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

How much market share would the US pharmasudical companies
lose globally with your approach? Aren't there already other companies
out there making what could be considered generic versions of brand name drugs
so isn't the american public the biggest suckers in this equation by essentially
being held hostage by the pharma companies and their political allies.

Antony.....

There are a few things I feel you probably are not understanding here:


1. Often, the government set price caps in foreign countries are so low, that the US companies are selling their drugs at nearly a loss. They might capture some profit, but certainly not enough to run the company without charging the USA more money. If we didn't sell to these countries with price caps, then the profit lost would be almost negligible.

2. Generics. Do you understand what generic drugs are? A generic drug company is one which does not perform R&D for new drugs. Instead, they wait until the patent protection expires and then they copy the drug as best they can. Since they did not spend nearly 20 years doing R&D, and spend billions of dollars on that R&D, they are able to produce the drug for less. They can therefore undercut the prices of the name brands who actually developed the drug.

What this means to the name brand companies, who are the ones who we owe credit for developing all the new treatments and cures in the world.... is that they have a VERY strict set of conditions applied to the operation of their business. They have to come up with an idea for a drug. Then they have to patent that idea. When they get the patent, they have 20 years to bring that drug to market and sell it exclusively. So they have their chemists, biologists and engineers work tirelessly for years trying to figure out the secret of the medicine they are trying to invent. Once they come up with the compounds, they have to test them. First on animals, then on people. This process takes years. Then they have to get the FDA to approve their drug for safe use by the public. This isn't easy either. If you are lucky, you might be able to think of a drug.... get the patent..... get it through trials.... get it approved.... and get it to the shelf with maybe 6 months to 1 year of exclusivity left.

So you get what that means? It means that if you are a chemist for Pfizer, currently the world's largest pharmaceutical company.... you might spend your entire career working on a single drug. Can you imagine that? You work for 20 years, non-stop on getting a single pill to a patient for their use.

Not only that, but when you finally get that pill out to the public.... you only have a few months where you can sell it. So you need to recover the costs for R&D for all of those years. If you can't recover the costs in those few months left before the patent expires, then the generics are going to come in and take your market share. Remember that the generics didn't have to go through the process of inventing the drugs, and getting it tested for safety, etc...

So.... what do you think would happen if we pushed for generics harder? It would help generic companies make more money, right? Of course. AND, it would provide people with medicine at cheaper prices, too.... right? Yes, it would.

But can you think of any drawbacks to that plan? How about this.... Remember that the generic companies are not developing new drugs.... only making cheap copies. (In fact, they often are not "copies" at all, but futile attempts at copies) Since the generics did not spend years and years working with the drugs to develop them, they often can't create a good copy. Furthermore, they aren't subjected to the same FDA scrutiny. While this may be unimportant when dealing with an over-the-counter asprin, it's a totally different story when dealing with a chemotherapy drug.

More importantly there is the fact that if we didn't have the big drug companies working on new drugs, where are we going to get them from? Generics are not developing new drugs and cures. Governernments aren't doing it, either. So, if you eliminate big drug companies.... we aren't going to get cures for diseases 20 years from now.

Governments can't subsidize the health industry as well as the free-market can, plain and simple. Drug companies are corporations, and they raise capital just like any corporation does..... through selling shares of stock. People invest in these companies with the expectation of return on that investment. That return is driven by profit. Eliminate that profit, and you lose investors. Lose investors, and you lose capital for R&D for new drugs. And trust me, the government isn't about to subsidize the drug industry to the level that the open market will.

And generic companies are only one of the obstacles, too. Drugs companies also face huge costs from litigation. We are living in such a lawsuit infested world now, and the legal costs to these drug companies are unbelievable. Did you know that at just about any point in time, for any drug you can think of.... there are probably lawsuits in progress in every single state in the USA? Take a look at the Income Statement for a drug company sometime, and see how much money they spend in a single year on litigation. It is insane.



Socialized healthcare sounds like such a great idea, and people always talk about how well it works in other countries. Well, they fail to understand that a large part of the reason WHY it works in other countries is because we in the USA are indirectly subsidizing it for them by paying more. They pay less because their government sets rules which violate the basic principles of free trade, and we pick up the slack. If we go the same route in this country, you will see a major hit to the development of new drugs.

I think finding cures for future diseases is pretty important. How about you?

[asdf_admin]

Re: the one thing i will back pelosi all the way on.....

What a dirty bizz. Make money of people that are ill. Wonderful. Thank you USA.

PS. Mr. Fuse are you aware the Pharma companies take out doctors to "sell" their product? Are you aware that these sells people have an unlimited spending cap and wine and dine at the finest resturants? R&D. Gotta love it. I could go on and on. Still does not justify the price. Most research groups get FEDERAL grants to do their research. I am sure there is a lot of money at stake, but I really think it is more a bizz with underlying of "we want to help people". Here in the USA there is a very small % of preventive medicine, everything is after and everything is with the pill.

I think finding cures for future diseases is pretty important. How about you?

Probably the same line the Pharma companies use in their litigation. I do not buy one bit.

I hate to say this ... but Pharma companies are equivlent and as greedy as the tobacco industry. Political contributions equals hand in legislation, legislation equals company incentive which equals company control. What the tobacco company has been doing for decades. Pharma the " new smoke "