This is just pathetic. I feel for you, Far, and everyone else who's well being is nothing more than a profit margin to these assholes. It feels like we've gone back in time 2000 years, when people thought the sick were sick because they were sinners and the prosperous were the blessed. What the hell is the point of health insurance when they won't cover the cost of essential medications? Yeah, it might not be the most profitable thing for them to do, but that's their goddamn JOB. If they didn't like the figures they should've tried car insurance.

It's especially nice for this to catch on as we move into a recession. I guess those insurance companies have to pay their mortgages too.

Move to Canada.

I submitted this link to Fark and they put it on the main page. Here's one particularly good post from the discussion on it (note that he is responding to someone who claimed that he'd spend $300,000 on treatment recently and that people who are nailed by this should quit complaining or change their insurance plan, and snarkily said that there's "no free lunch"):

I thought so too until he went all green on me.
I don't exactly blame him for the recent gas tax hike, but we're in a really crappy time for new hemorrhages of tax dollars, and he's been pushing some of them himself.

Those drugs are only cheap in other countries because American's pay so much for it. If we stop paying for, they will either pay more, or the drug will never exist. If we start importing those drugs at reduced prices, the prices will go up.

While I am empathetic to your condition Scry, there is no such thing as "Universal Health Care". There is only so much money, so many doctors, so many chemists, etc. They have to be rationed. You could pay for a lot of medication by refusing to put an 80 year old grandmother in the ICU for months (thus sentencing her to die). I am very glad that I don't have to make decisions like that.

Someone in my life will likely die soon from arthritis (eating her liver). The personal face of disease tears at the fabric of emotional stability. I can only imagine the folks who have to pass these death sentences avoid human contact as much as possible, or go insane.

Agreed. The pharma companies seem to want it both ways. They want deregulation on their industry and restrictions on where folks can buy their goods. They are only pro Free Market where it suits them.

If we are going to rely on the market mechanism to determine the effectiveness of drugs and the needs for them (as pharma seems to be indicating by their insistance on heavy advertising and superfluous wang pills), shouldn't it follow that the market should be allowed to operate on the consumer level as well?

If the products they are pumping out are so inefficient as to rely on a captive audience that is forced, artificially, to pay a premium, one or both of two assumptions is clearly wrong: 1) the market is a utile mechanism for determining logical public health policy or 2) the products that pharma are putting out are appropriate for a market in which consumers have real choice.

I, personally, think the answer is all of the above.

It's also more profitable to do charity events for awareness, than it is to actually try to find a cure for

On the other hand if you do invent a cure for and you are the only company that has it, and have exclusive rights to it for 5 years, its a freaking goldmine. As long as you are the only company that has it.

They advertise penis pills because they make monstrous profits off of them. Are you really going to criticize them for selling something that the public obviously wants? People also need food to survive. I'll bet they spend a lot more on advertising than on food research as well. Those bastards. Hamstringing companies that have the nerve to turn large profits by selling large amounts of high demand products is an adventure in socialism. Check Britain's NHS or Venezuela in general for how that turns out.

Government involvement (Medicare, etc.) and wanton consumerism (medical insurance) took the "market" out of health care a long time ago. What other insurance do lots of people actively use repeatedly? If people used their car or homeowners insurance like they use medical, they'd be living without in short order, or paying through the nose. Thanks to intervention, that doesn't happen in medical.

Who is forcing anyone to buy anything? Define "logical public health policy", because every time I see that being used, it looks a whole lot like, "People who need health care should be guaranteed to get it inexpensively and immediately, no matter what the cost." You seem to be arguing that just because a company made a drug, everyone who wants it should be able to afford it, and screw the company if they actually want to make money.

It could also be related to:

1) Adults who have the money and are interested are far more likely to be seeking a cure for what they already have than prevention.
2) There are plenty of other ways not to get AIDS, all of which are cheaper than developing, manufacturing, and distributing a vaccine. You can't catch AIDS just by being in a room with someone who has it, unlike smallpox, influenza, etc.

Bought and paid for.
A little out of date, this uses 2005 numbers, but I'm sure the trend hasn't reversed yet.

EDIT: The more Updated Version was just a couple clicks away. Time to update my bookmarks!

LilCodger,
I'm going to disagree with you because the need for drug patents is very much a factor of government, but I disagree with you on why it is. You have public health issues in there too, if the drug companies could not have to report what is in their medicine there would still be an incentive to make the drug, but look at aspirin. It isn't exactly a money maker compared to Viagra, simply because pretty much anyone can make it.
let's take a hypothetical case where you invest billions of dollars into researching something, and it turns out that you can make each pill for $.50 in materials that are relatively common, just not used together before. This pill needs to be taken daily, and it is completely effective when taken daily. How much should you charge for this pill? How long do you think it will be before someone takes your pills and figures out what is in them? then what do you do?

Don't get me wrong drug companies are greedy, they are businesses- the whole point of their existance is to make money (which by the way goes out to all the shareholders, much like oil companies do) and as much of it as possible.

Because there is essentially unbounded demand for healthcare. Regardless what a person's beliefs on universal healthcare are, at some point lines must be drawn - we cannot afford to provide for all medical procedures.

I think we're on the same page here. Check out what you originally quoted:

This a valid concern, particularly in a country where citizens seem to think they should enjoy a high level of services and a low level of taxes. This is a huge financial and logistical concern. How do we pay for it? What level of service do we provide? Preventative care? Full board quadruple bypass, cutting edge life-extending care?

Beyond that, we want a system that both encourages and rewards the advancement of medicine without bending the taxpayer over to do it. What is that system?

We can provide anything we want really, but lines must be drawn unless we plan to continue to rack up debt. I, personally, am not willing to entertain the idea unless it's agreed we'll pay for it up front (rather than by borrowing the money).

My mom has MS and though i forget the number offhand, her monthly medication is over a thousand. My brother's cancer drug to suppress nausea during chemo costs in the thousands just for a 30 day supply. I dont remember how much of it is covered.

Reading this article, just reminds me how the whole insurance/pharmaceutical industry seem on cusp of extortion. They are in a unique position to ask their customers to put a price on their life / quality of life.

Insurance may have started with that concept of spreading the cost for the benefit of all, but like everything else these days, its more about profiting and stockholder ROI.

Damn, what a pessimistic start for the day. I'm glad I read the article though.

Not my argument, but it sounds like you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Your question was Answer: Because those retarded laws were written, sponsored, and pushed by the drug companies, including financial protections and R&D subsidies because their multi-billion dollar industry with a 25% profit margin is in DIRE need of protections. Just because you CAN doesn't mean it is ethical to do so. EVEN if it's for a profit.

But back to the insurance issue: An insurance policy is a gamble. The issuer gambles that the client will pay more than they use, and the client gambles that what procedures they might need are covered by their plan. Ideally this setup should be as close to a zero-sum equation as possible, the client never paying more than the combined output of the combined needs of that issuers pool of clients. Instead Issuers are charging inflated costs and posting profits. Casinos without the flashing lights and free cocktails... and when someone loses they might die. Yay! Now we find that the dealers are changing the rules in their favor to continue posting profits despite rising costs which their contracts with their clients SHOULD obligate them to cover using the previously agreed upon client contribution scale. This is like a casino running the numbers and figuring out that they pay out too much on the black-jack table and deciding to no longer pay out on anything over a Full-House. It only affects the big-winners, so the majority of people will never notice... but if you happen to score a big hand I'm sure you'll be pissed because the deal was "I win, you pay."

Rezzy, equating serious illness with winning big at the casinos since 2008!

EDIT DISCLAIMER: I pulled 25% out of my ass. In an industry where they get to make up their own numbers about cost, production, development, that number could be ANYTHING! And they'll be able to show you the ledgers to prove 10%, 2%, 50%... whichever is more advantageous at the time.