The Public Shouldn't Pay for Drugs Twice

[murray t turtle]

Seeing how annoyed you are, I think I hit the nail on its head again. China, through WHO was one of the voices that advocated loudest for US and British covid-19 vaccine makers to relinquish licenses. https://www.ft.com/content/a481c129-c5aa-4972-84a8-3a45bb000098. Typical forced technology transfer, sure we will buy it if you tell us how you made it and then once we knew how you made it, we will ditch you and make our own. LOL Nice try, China. No, we are not going to be fooled again, giving up our years of research & development that we spent billions of dollars on just for not even a few years of market access and then we fall behind and CCP takes the credit for China's "unprecedented advancement in medical science". LOL

If China wants free mRNA vaccines, then we want the secret sauce behind the targeted advertisement mechanism behind Tiktok. After all, we shouldn't pay for technology twice.

%%
THAT;
+ the Chicoms used that virus as a bio-weapon. That's why they locked down thier nation + kept chicom airports open. Good points seeing thru chicom propaganda/LOL
THAT is a personal choice if the University wants it as a royalty or out right sale.
NOT an anti-capitalist rant/LOL; + as they say in Chicago Vote Early + Vote Often.

 

[piezoe]

The fundamental nature inherent to medical care has, among all the World's nations, been most poorly accommodated by the United States. The requirements of good medical care run counter to the fundamental requirement for capitalism to work well. Capitalism is only well suited to markets where the buyer and seller are each equally free to accept or reject an offer. This we capitalists champion as "free and unfettered competition." Although truly free and unfettered markets, accept on a small local scale, are rare, the ideal can at least be approached in many markets; not in medical care though.

U.S. medical care has descended into a morass of rent seeking and regulatory capture. It is a disaster. The result is the worst access and outcomes among all developed nations; yet the most expensive by far. But why should we be surprised that this is the outcome of trying to force a market that's fundamentally unsuited to capitalist economics into a capitalist mold? Of course it is impossible for us to continue much further done the same path. Already the annual cost is >12K$ per capita growing at 9+% per year. Total cost, 4.1 Trillion, is within striking distance of one third of the economy! So I guess we should all wonder how much longer can we avoid a complete overhaul, continuing instead with a patch here, a patch there. I would guess far longer than makes any sense at all.

 

[VicBee]

Honestly I don't people are paying for vaccines or anything twice. The country's citizens that have paid for the funding of the vaccines and the drugs through their tax dollars get them for free.

You do understand that's the point the author makes, right? That US tax dollars finance the research, that the drug is then licensed or sold to a business which then sells it on the US and other markets for high profit. So a US citizen pays for the drug twice, once through taxes, then again at the pharmacy counter.
Good insurance covers the price of these drugs, but many in America have no or partial insurance coverage and end up on the hook for multi thousand dollars drugs.
This has nothing to do with China.

 

[TheDawn]

You do understand that's the point the author makes, right? That US tax dollars finance the research, that the drug is then licensed or sold to a business which then sells it on the US and other markets for high profit. So a US citizen pays for the drug twice, once through taxes, then again at the pharmacy counter.
Good insurance covers the price of these drugs, but many in America have no or partial insurance coverage and end up on the hook for multi thousand dollars drugs.
This has nothing to do with China.

Don't think public funding covers the development of conventional drugs but medications on a grand scale like vaccines. For conventional drugs like even for cancer, it's the drug companies themselves that fund their own research and development. This is why people donate to get those drugs developed.

 

[VicBee]

Don't think public funding covers the development of conventional drugs but medications on a grand scale like vaccines. For conventional drugs like even for cancer, it's the drug companies themselves that fund their own research and development. This is why people donate to get those drugs developed.

It's in the article...

"Pharmaceutical companies often reap the rewards of public spending. In fact, in the U.S, every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2019 has relied on grants from the NIH. Meanwhile, the companies sometimes turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for the same drugs their tax dollars helped create"

 

[Overnight]

It's in the article...

"Pharmaceutical companies often reap the rewards of public spending. In fact, in the U.S, every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2019 has relied on grants from the NIH. Meanwhile, the companies sometimes turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for the same drugs their tax dollars helped create"

Then maybe the NIH should have granted them the money as loans instead. Once the companies turn profits because of the money the NIH paid them to develop the thing, they pay back the NIH first? Or is that too much of an ask?

 

[VicBee]

Then maybe the NIH should have granted them the money as loans instead. Once the companies turn profits because of the money the NIH paid them to develop the thing, they pay back the NIH first? Or is that too much of an ask?

Isn't it what we do with students?

 

[Overnight]

Isn't it what we do with students?

Students cannot turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for their learning.

 

[TheDawn]

It's in the article...

"Pharmaceutical companies often reap the rewards of public spending. In fact, in the U.S, every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2019 has relied on grants from the NIH. Meanwhile, the companies sometimes turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for the same drugs their tax dollars helped create"

Grants, not large-scale funding like what they did with the vaccines. For grants, every single company's received them some time in their operation. If you count all those then we are paying twice for everything. LOL Tesla has received huge funding from the government on developing the EV and yet we still pay a hefty price to buy it so are we paying twice for it? Companies often get grants from the government for hiring students for internships and co-op opportunities so are we paying twice for the products that they sell or the services that they provide? One of the most heavily subsidized industries in America is the agricultural industry. So according to this article, we should be getting our groceries all for free then because otherwise we will be paying twice for everything that's coming out of the farmers' soil. I took a closer look at the article, the author might be writing the article to lobby for cheaper drugs maybe because he's diabetic and is incurring a heavy financial burden for his medications for which I sympathize but I can totally see somebody pivoting this to lobby for the opening up of license of proprietary drugs like the mRNA vaccines.

 

[TheDawn]

Students cannot turn around and charge the public exorbitant prices for their learning.

Not to mention universities still charge an exorbitant amount of tuition when in fact we should get free education like in Sweden. Tell that to Harvard!!