Affordable Care Act - catastrophic plans cancelled

[Eumelia]

Originally Posted by Jimbo485

Are you using slang against such countries as:

Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Estados Unidos do Brasil
and various others....?

Look at the name of your country in your own passport. You are burying yourself deeper in your own ignorance....

Sorry, I can't help any further..... but I have to observe that it is this same attitude that stunts your health care, puts a man on the moon, invades a country on the basis of a lie, etc...

Jimbo, as Americans we are of course guilty as charged. However, please consider that the countries you mention all attempted to fashion themselves after what was once a great country - the United States of America. You may well be jealous, but I think you will soon find your burden lightened, as the USA is currently in a precipitous decline. Perhaps soon you may pity us.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Eumelia

So for my health-care, I want the equivalent of my own water well. Am I permitted?

If you can do your own open heart surgery , by all means fire ahead

Dave

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by colemj

OK. One more time. I am talking about prescription drugs. I have explained to you how they are priced. Did you pay attention? Why do you keep telling me I have not?

Mark

Please provide just the part that explains how prescription drugs are priced.

If you don't know the answer, that's fine, too. But don't waste all of our time debating arguments that nobody else made.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

I didn't make up data -- I provided the source. You really honed in on one statement, and tried to use that to "prove" the entire discussion was invalid. I provided data from the World Health Organization. You provided what you consider "more up to date" data from the pharmaceutical industry. Even with the "more up to date" data you provided, the underlying argument is correct. The U.S. is a large consumer of pharmaceuticals.

I'm saying that the pharmaceutical market is quite manipulated. In other words, not a true "free market".

I challenge you to admit how drugs in the U.S. are priced. Certainly with your amazing grasp of the industry, you can tell us this.

I think what you're going to find is that large organizations like Medicare or the VA set prices, right? Now is that more like the free market, or government regulation?

Try for a moment to understand what is being said.

Wait a minute. In this post, you quoted me as saying:

"Originally Posted by colemj View Post
Look, you keep making up data in support of beliefs you hold. $5 aspirins, US is >50% of consumption market, socialist regulations are causing high US drug prices, etc.

I keep proving those "facts" wrong. You keep ignoring that and making the same claims while telling me that they are all true regardless of the source of the "actual" data.

And to put an even finer point on it, what I'm really saying is that when we took the time to address health care, we should have also eliminated the provisions that outlaw Medicare being able to negotiate pharmaceutical pricing. Let's not pretend for a moment that the pharmaceutical industry wasn't lobbying very heavily to minimize the ACA's ability to get better pricing for pharmaceuticals.

Try for a moment to understand what is being said.

Mark"

For the record, I never said the paragraph starting with "And to put an even finer point on it". That was made up by you and attributed to me by adding it to my quoted post.

Bad form.

Mark

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by colemj

Again, the discussion was narrowly on the pharmaceutical market and not the general healthcare availability. There are many different types of markets underlying the healthcare access entirety. For all intents and purposes, the pharmaceutical industry is operating in as free of a market as exists in the US. The insurance industry is in a protected market with no price controls. The provider industry is in another chimera of a market.

I am not arguing that access to healthcare is not a societal right. Other people have been arguing that. I simply point out that there is no fundamental right to access without society being involved and making choices. The types of choices that are required are unpalatable to some here.

Perhaps I am being too subtle?

Mark

No your not being too subtle , I fully agree with your post above. The problem being that when you allow the pharmaceutical industry to operate into a market where the consumer is constrained , is a recipe for profiteering and is exactly what you have got.

Dave

[colemj]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Please provide just the part that explains how prescription drugs are priced.

If you don't know the answer, that's fine, too. But don't waste all of our time debating arguments that nobody else made.

I already did. In a previous post. Meetings are held with economists, lawyers, etc and the market for the product is determined and dissected. Pricing is set based on what those market conditions will bear.

There is no collusion with service providers or insurance companies or governments to set high prices. They price to what the market will bear. The prices are not higher, because the profits would be lower. The same for why the prices are not lower.

I can't be clearer.

Please provide an explanation of how YOU think drugs are priced in the US. I'm getting tired of asking you this question.

If you don't know the answer, that's fine, too. But don't waste all of our time.

Mark

[CatInHand]

Originally Posted by colemj

I already did. In a previous post. Meetings are held with economists, lawyers, etc and the market for the product is determined and dissected. Pricing is set based on what those market conditions will bear.

I'll second this. I used to work in that industry.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by colemj

Wait a minute. In this post, you quoted me as saying:

"Originally Posted by colemj View Post
Look, you keep making up data in support of beliefs you hold. $5 aspirins, US is >50% of consumption market, socialist regulations are causing high US drug prices, etc.

I keep proving those "facts" wrong. You keep ignoring that and making the same claims while telling me that they are all true regardless of the source of the "actual" data.

And to put an even finer point on it, what I'm really saying is that when we took the time to address health care, we should have also eliminated the provisions that outlaw Medicare being able to negotiate pharmaceutical pricing. Let's not pretend for a moment that the pharmaceutical industry wasn't lobbying very heavily to minimize the ACA's ability to get better pricing for pharmaceuticals.

Try for a moment to understand what is being said.

Mark"

For the record, I never said the paragraph starting with "And to put an even finer point on it". That was made up by you and attributed to me by adding it to my quoted post.

Bad form.

Mark

Your entire argument is in bad form. If you had stuck with what we were talking about, I wouldn't have been trying to itemize your random quotes about nothing in order to debate them individually.

Your argumentation technique is to take things out of context and distort their meaning.

I've never waivered from my original point, that health care (including pharmaceuticals) isn't really a free market. It is one of the most manipulated markets of any type.

The over-the-counter market for drugs is a free market, but I'd LOVE for you to tell us how the market place for prescription drugs is a free market.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

No your not being too subtle , I fully agree with your post above. The problem being that when you allow the pharmaceutical industry to operate into a market where the consumer is constrained , is a recipe for profiteering and is exactly what you have got.

Dave

The consumer is not constrained in the market, they are just not organized with regard to their purchasing power. That would require government intervention, or some other form of single-payer.

Profiteering requires broad and unbridled unethical behavior and usually collusion, price fixing and monopoly. This in no way describes the pharmaceutical companies when they are simply pricing to a market that is specifically and legally defined for them.

The problem is the market - on both the supply side and the demand side, not the companies or their pricing.

Mark

[avb3]

Originally Posted by colemj

I already did. In a previous post. Meetings are held with economists, lawyers, etc and the market for the product is determined and dissected. Pricing is set based on what those market conditions will bear.

There is no collusion with service providers or insurance companies or governments to set high prices. They price to what the market will bear. The prices are not higher, because the profits would be lower. The same for why the prices are not lower.

I can't be clearer.

Please provide an explanation of how YOU think drugs are priced in the US. I'm getting tired of asking you this question.

If you don't know the answer, that's fine, too. But don't waste all of our time.

Mark

Mark, without being argumentative, why are the two prescription drugs I take, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland five times and three times as expensive in the US as in Canada? These are common drugs nothing exotic.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by CatInHand

Of course you have the choice. You can take the hypertension drugs, or control your exercise and diet. Take the prilosec or watch what you eat. Stay home and get over the virus or go to the doc and get an antibiotic that won't help anyway. I've even known two people that chose to stop their cancer treatments because the cure was making them sicker than the disease.

The USA consume a lot of optional pharmaceuticals.

The only country I've ever been to that controlled water was a former Soviet Union country. Most do not. unless you are only considering the poorer countries that many cruisers visit.

Dave

[/QUOTE]

You have no choice , if you are in an acident , if get cancer , if you get a communicable disease or simply have bad genetics.

You have a choice refuse treatment and die or pay up . It's absurd in the extreme to argue that's a free market choice.

Water , water pricing and its delivery is state controlled in the vast majority of European states and in others its a highly regulated market with the state levying a fix fee etc. this is to prevent profiteering on a necessity of life. Would you deny water on the basis of lack of income !!! .

In many countries the price of basic foodstuffs is also controlled to ensure availability to the most needy. France even ensures a restaurant must provide a government controlled priced lunch. ( I love France !)

The fact is most developed countries provide free secondary schooling for the greater benefit of society. Some countries provide free third level education and most heavily subsidise it from the public purse, for the same reasons

Healthcare ( in the general use of the term ranging for elective to emergency ) should be treated exactly the same.


On the other hand I fully support privatising the military. Each time they go to war , they get to bill every citizen outside of the tax system.

I suggest the military put up each campaign on Kickstarter. When its fully funded , off the lads go to some foreign adventure

Do that in the US and you could gold plate the social medicine system with the amount saved !

Dave

[CatInHand]

Originally Posted by avb3

Mark, without being argumentative, why are the two prescription drugs I take, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland five times and three times as expensive in the US as in Canada? These are common drugs nothing exotic.

There are actually two price structures for prescription drugs depending on the patent status.

If a drug is patented, you pay what the manufacturer thinks you should pay, otherwise it's pretty much free market.

Are your drugs still under patent in the U.S.?

[colemj]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Your entire argument is in bad form. If you had stuck with what we were talking about, I wouldn't have been trying to itemize your random quotes about nothing in order to debate them individually.

Your argumentation technique is to take things out of context and distort their meaning.

I've never waivered from my original point, that health care (including pharmaceuticals) isn't really a free market. It is one of the most manipulated markets of any type.

The over-the-counter market for drugs is a free market, but I'd LOVE for you to tell us how the market place for prescription drugs is a free market.

I'm argumentative for taking umbrage that you made up a quote and attributed it to me?

Again, non-prescription OTC and prescription generic are not the same thing, and both are different from patent-protected drugs - you do not understand these distinctions.

I have explained how a company prices their drugs. Someone else in the industry has confirmed that here. You have not explained how you believe it to be.

Please answer my question on whether you think there should be patent protection and profitability for a company in bringing a new drug to market.

Mark

[CatInHand]

You have no choice , if you are in an acident , if get cancer , if you get a communicable disease or simply have bad genetics

.
These events are a minority compared to general care throughout a lifetime.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by colemj

The consumer is not constrained in the market, they are just not organized with regard to their purchasing power. That would require government intervention, or some other form of single-payer.

Profiteering requires broad and unbridled unethical behavior and usually collusion, price fixing and monopoly. This in no way describes the pharmaceutical companies when they are simply pricing to a market that is specifically and legally defined for them.

The problem is the market - on both the supply side and the demand side, not the companies or their pricing.

Mark

In the prescription drugs market the consumer is COMPLETLY constrained. He or she cannot change the prescription , cannot forgo the treatment ( or die which is absurd ) a person with a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol or hypertension does not have a lot of " options"

Hence it is not a free market. The consumer is effectively " forced" to by the product. When you allow a free market supply , you get profiteering , which is not a form of collusion , it is a function of the inelasticity of demand.

No more then if you gave 3M the rights to the atmosphere. !!!

Dave