justabubba said:
for the wage earner, isn't this the source of funds for almost all of the employee's purchases? why treat health insurance any differently that any other commodity?
i would make it a separate compensation package to prevent employers form eliminating it entirely or absorbing it into an already depressed wage.
justabubba said:
isn't this part of the Obama plan?
there are some good parts to the plan, but under his plan, many will still be tied to employer-specific coverage.
justabubba said:
why would such effect be the expected outcome?
because medicare doesn't have to produce large profits and attract shareholders. having it in competition will force health insurance providers to bring down premiums as much as possible. the pricing of the medicare buy in can be adjusted to be competitive with other plans, or it can be made available to those who fall below a certain income threshold.
justabubba said:
why? a cure for cancer or a cure for aids for $1 billion. that would be a bargain in my opinion
and it would bankrupt nearly everyone who underwent the treatment, making it only available to the super-rich.
if a company wants to charge an outlandish price for a groundbreaking drug, that should affect the length of their patent.
justabubba said:
seems to me like you are seeking the drugs be made available faster at the expense of some problems not being found
i was a member of the thalidomide generation. my Mom actually took it for morning sickness while carrying me. fortunately, i was not one of the (directly) afflicted but here is a cite to see images of that tragic outcome. one which resulted because we allowed that drug to proceed to market too fast
my mother took a pill decades ago during pregnancy. in the 1980s, it was found to cause respiratory defects. i was born with emphysema in one of my lungs, and had to have an upper lobe removed at two weeks of age. the defect was likely due to the medication. the company was sued, but my parents thought participating would be an exercise in futility.
however, this momentary lapse into anecdotal evidence is irrelevant to the point, other than to prove that i have skin in the game, so to speak. something has to be done to reduce the cost of bringing a drug to market if we are to bring the cost of the medication down. i don't see a way of doing that without having the consumer accept a degree of risk, much as they are doing now.
justabubba said:
if they must relinquish the unique ability to manufacture and profit from what they have developed then what incentive will the pharm company have to engage in private research
i was referring to the manufacture of drugs developed
publicly. a publicly developed drug could be manufactured publicly or privately.
justabubba said:
is it other than supply and demand? if so, what alternate pricing mechanism is being employed
demand for these products is inelastic. while the company should profit from the discovery, it should not be permitted to hold the drug hostage and demand a ransom that would cause widespread increases in the cost of access to healthcare. the system as it is set up is imploding from the bottom up.
if your argument is that no private company will develop life saving drugs if they are not allowed to charge ridiculously high prices for them, i disagree. and if you're right, we can address the need by developing pharmaceuticals publicly.
justabubba said:
how does single payer coverage cause cost/price to come down?
because single payer would mean one large group that would only pay a certain amount for medical services. this would put a downward force on overall prices.
justabubba said:
on this we agree. trouble is, there seem to be few realistic ways to address this growing problem
agree. the chance of my own solution being seriously entertained is minimal at this point; it may become more likely after a systemic collapse, however. but since we are speaking of solutions, it can't hurt to consider solutions whose time has not yet come.
