Malpractice

[midcan5]

'When it comes to health care, economists ignore their own rules' Dean Baker

"Fundamental economic principles tell us that goods should be sold at their marginal cost of production—the cost of producing one more unit of the good. If a company needs to pay twenty dollars for the material and labor used to produce one more shirt, then shirts should sell for twenty dollars plus a small profit-earning markup. The price-equals-marginal-cost principle maximizes economic efficiency and limits opportunities for fraud and corruption. Building on this principle, economists also strongly advocate globalization: the elimination of trade barriers allows consumers to buy goods and services from where they are cheapest, thus maximizing global efficiency and output.

Unfortunately, when it comes to health care, these principles are routinely violated. Prescription drugs that could be manufactured and sold profitably for a few dollars per prescription may instead sell for thousands. Performing one more high-tech scan or other medical test may require just a few cents of electricity and a couple of hundred dollars worth of a technician’s or a doctor’s time. But diagnostic procedures can be billed at several thousand dollars a shot. Prices are often well above marginal costs, yet economists involved in health care reform rarely recognize this as a problem."

Boston Review — Malpractice

 

[Garinold]

From what I have read of this post, and some of the article, the author seems to be completely out of touch with the actual marginal costs of providing quality health care. The cost of educating a health care professional, depending on specialization, is equal to or greater than the cost of educating any other professional in any other industry (i wish I could post links to outside sites..just google cost of medical education and yull see the cost of a basic MD, not including extra specialization). On top of that the cost of creating, testing, going through FDA guidelines, and manufacturing prescription drugs is astronomical. Added to this is the cost of malpractice insurance, which only seems to increase year after year. All of these costs get kicked down to the consumer.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

From what I have read of this post, and some of the article, the author seems to be completely out of touch with the actual marginal costs of providing quality health care. The cost of educating a health care professional, depending on specialization, is equal to or greater than the cost of educating any other professional in any other industry (i wish I could post links to outside sites..just google cost of medical education and yull see the cost of a basic MD, not including extra specialization). On top of that the cost of creating, testing, going through FDA guidelines, and manufacturing prescription drugs is astronomical. Added to this is the cost of malpractice insurance, which only seems to increase year after year. All of these costs get kicked down to the consumer.

Midol is the board communist. He does not live in OUR world. Talking to him about overhead is pointless cause he does not grasp the simple concept that if it cost a drug company 500 MILLION dollars to create a drug, they have a limited amount of time ( per patent protection) to recoup that cost with a small ( and when we say small in regards to 500 million, we don't mean small really) profit.

Same with doctors fees, they spent 8 plus years in college at very large education fees and have to recoup that money. Preferably not in 30 years.

Same with equipment. Just because a machine cost 100 grand, that is NOT the cost it took to create the machine, create the production line, pay for the advertising, etc etc.

But Midol lives in fantasy land. You will learn this if you stay around long.

 

[Garinold]

Lol I'm such an idiot. Patent protection time NEVER occurred to me. So a company Patents a drug's formula...it takes X years to test the drug and get it FDA approved, cost range from labor fees (through all phases of production), equipment, insurance, manufacturing, distribution and taxes....and then when you get the drug to CVS you only have a limited amount of time to make your money back before some competitor takes the formula...sweet

Anyone that studies IP law know the length of time drug companies get to maintain their drug formulas from competitors & can provide a citation?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Lol I'm such an idiot. Patent protection time NEVER occurred to me. So a company Patents a drug's formula...it takes X years to test the drug and get it FDA approved, cost range from labor fees (through all phases of production), equipment, insurance, manufacturing, distribution and taxes....and then when you get the drug to CVS you only have a limited amount of time to make your money back before some competitor takes the formula...sweet

Anyone that studies IP law know the length of time drug companies get to maintain their drug formulas from competitors & can provide a citation?

To tired to look it up but seems to me I heard it was 7 years. But even then Countries like Canada and others ignore the patents and use generics before the patents expire. They basically blackmail the US Government into accepting their blatant disregard for the law.