Drug Prices Too High? Sometimes, They’re Not Costly Enough

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/upshot/drug-prices-too-high-sometimes-theyre-not-costly-enough.html

by tysone • 10 years ago

20 42 10 years ago

slantaclaus2• 10 years ago

As a type 1 diabetic in the US forced into paying $400+/month in copay to a premium PPO plan in the US for insulin that costs $1200+/month without insurance, on insulin that costs a mere $180 month WITHOUT INSURANCE in Canada, I say:

SHILL

Scoundreller2• 10 years ago

So you are buying your insulin in Canada, right?

(I don't mean mail order, but a border run).

Insulin doesn't require a prescription here.

true_religion2• 10 years ago

Insulin doesn't require a prescription in most US states either.

slantaclaus2• 10 years ago

Not yet.

thescriptkiddie3• 10 years ago

Have you considered an HMO instead of PPO? My brother is a type 1 and his copay with Kaiser is less than $25 per month. Obviously the HMO plan is more expensive, but not $400 per month more expensive and the $0 copay for appointments and immunizations is nice.

diabetesthrowaw• 10 years ago

That's just another horrible and perfect example how U.S. citizens suffer thanks to their government officials being non-americans and rigging the system for profit and using people as cattle.

Here, all my insulin, check-ups etc. were covered by the welfare state until they changed it a few months back to cut expenses. Now I have to spend ~80€ a month from my unemployment check to keep myself alive and it makes me beyond depressed, I couldn't even begin to comprehend how horrible it must be for you.

sgift4• 10 years ago

Or one could accept that for essential things it is a very bad idea to hope that the market will provide and instead the state could provide them itself, which could guarantee a steady supply.

MaulingMonkey2• 10 years ago

How does shifting the burden from a profit-motivated company to a hell-if-I-know-by-what-motivated government bureaucracy guarantee anything?

sgift4• 10 years ago

hell-if-I-know-by-what-motivated government bureaucracy

If I have to decide between a company which is guaranteed to not be motivated by my well-being and a government which is at least partially motivated by that (unfornately only partially due to issues[1]) I know what to choose.

[1] Mainly lobbyism and greed. Where people are there is greed, where there's greed there's potential for misbehaviour.

leohutson• 10 years ago

Because countries with public health care spend less on health care. Its fine if you have a moral disagreement with having a public sector, but the facts don't lie, the health insurance bureaucracy, misleading pharmaceutical marketing/sales etc, is way more inefficient than even the shittiest implementation of a public healthcare system.

Buge• 10 years ago

Interestingly this is somewhat similar to what the US is doing for some food items. For example farmers are being paid to milk cows then dump in on the ground. This makes sure we have higher milk production capacity than necessary. Then if a disaster strikes or war that could reduce production, we have some extra production capabilities to help.

Symbiote2• 10 years ago

This is one of the main reasons for the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, which has existed since the 1960s and covers a lot of food types.

The excess food is stored, and if it's not needed is sold (or sometimes given) to other countries. This is criticised as farmers in those countries might be left unable to compete.

danjayh4• 10 years ago

Three words for interesting (relevant) google food: toilet paper USSR. State production does not guarantee a steady supply of essentials.

thescriptkiddie3• 10 years ago

The USSR suffered from mismanagement, poor treatment of workers, rampant corruption, a lack of natural resources, and crippling trade embargoes, and they nationalized virtually their entire economy. There are plenty of other examples of nationalizing critical industries going well, case in point Britain's NHS.

Broken_Hippo2• 10 years ago

And neither does a market, regulated or not. You can generally find bad examples of such things.

At least it is possibly to cut back your use of toilet paper without dire consequences so long as you have clean water. It might not be pretty or wanted for most of us, but it is possible while still keeping clean. Bidets might get more popular, if available, and others would learn from the folks that use cloth diapers and real washclothes on their babies.

This situation isn't as easy to fix when you replace toilet paper with medication or health care. It isn't like one can simply make do if they are out of medicine.

grahamburger2• 10 years ago

Is the government incentivized and managed well enough to take big risks on new drugs and have a good chance at making them work?

Sometimes I wonder how much the rest of the world benefits from the US's capitalist-ish healthcare policies. How much do drug companies rely on their ability to charge US customers insane amounts of money to help recover their costs of developing new treatments?

stephentmcm• 10 years ago

No is the answer to your second question, other first world nation's governments pay for the drugs and bear the cost burden.

tsmffh• 10 years ago

If you truly believe that -- move to Venezuela.

sgift4• 10 years ago

Or maybe I stay where I am, in a country with a healthy mix of government provided services and market provided services. Shocking idea, isn't it?

Scoundreller2• 10 years ago

tl;dr: Generic drug makers, with low profit margins, don't have a lot of excess capacity. Any disruption to supply can have a lasting effect, especially for complicated products like injectables.

Part of the fault is regulatory: Once that product is labelled for sale in country X, you can't sell excess inventory in country Y, even though it's the same product from the same production line.

ars• 10 years ago

Sounds like what's needed is a drug reserve, to act as a buffer if there is a disruption.

The artificially short expiration dates for drugs makes this hard. Drugs last a LOT longer than they say, but no one wants to spend the money to see how much longer.

thescriptkiddie3• 10 years ago

This is actually a huge deal. Insulin is famous for lasting several times the listed shelf life if properly refrigerated, but people unaware of this still throw away unfinished vials. Other drugs are so stable they may never expire, so the dates on the bottles are completely arbitrary.

ekianjo• 10 years ago

Yup, but running stability studies is also costly too, not so much for the testing, but for regulatory approvals - you need to write up the stability part again, argue why the results are still acceptable in case you see any increase of degradation products, and pay a fee and wait 6 months to 1 year to get it approved, then enjoy paying again to relabel all your package, PIL, etc... that goes with it.

Most of the time, unless you had a realllllly short shelf life at submission timing, the additional work is not worth it for the pharma industry side. Resources are better used working towards new/pending products.

frederikvs• 10 years ago

Even if it didn't cost a dime, some drug companies might not be interested in longer expiration dates. If the expiration date is passed, and you throw it out, you'll have to buy a new supply. More profit! It's a perverse effect, but that's the way it is.

legulere• 10 years ago

Not a problem of too low prices, but a failure of the market. Which means you need the state to intervene. And that's exactly what they did with the 2012 FDA laws mentioned at the end of the article.

an_account• 10 years ago

It's worth noting that the failures in the market were often due to high (state imposed) regulatory burdens, and that the 2012 FDA laws helped to loosen those burdens.

known• 10 years ago

http://www.genericpedia.com has price list of generic medicines

Drug Prices Too High? Sometimes, They’re Not Costly Enough

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