CDZ Could (actual) Conservatives support this kind of single payer?

[hadit]

Where did you get that idea? Of course Canadian shareholders pay the same as US shareholders

The reason is that your congress isn't permitted to negotiate prices.

I get the idea from reality. The company that first develops and produces a product has a limited amount of time to be the sole provider of that product, because of patents. After the patent period is up, the other companies can then manufacture and sell the product without the cost of developing and testing it first. In the case of drugs, that cost runs into to hundreds of millions of dollars. Naturally therefore, when an American pharmaceutical company brings a new drug to market, it has to charge high prices to recoup the costs of development. Canadian drug companies just need to wait out the patent period, then produce and sell the drug for far less. This is how business works.

 

[YoursTruly]

It would depending on how high the deductible is. Once you meet that, it covers the rest.

Catastrophic covers catastrophic stuff.

 

[hadit]

Catastrophic covers catastrophic stuff.

It's called catastrophic because it covers very expensive things, not because of WHAT it covers.

 

[woodwork201]

I don't have time to read 21 pages of this so I apologize in advance if it's been covered.

We have a single-payer system: Medicare. Ask anyone on Medicare if they like their insurance. Medicare already has death panels and other arbitrary limits on coverage and makes predetermined medical decisions that should be between patient and doctor.

 

[woodwork201]

I get the idea from reality. The company that first develops and produces a product has a limited amount of time to be the sole provider of that product, because of patents. After the patent period is up, the other companies can then manufacture and sell the product without the cost of developing and testing it first. In the case of drugs, that cost runs into to hundreds of millions of dollars. Naturally therefore, when an American pharmaceutical company brings a new drug to market, it has to charge high prices to recoup the costs of development. Canadian drug companies just need to wait out the patent period, then produce and sell the drug for far less. This is how business works.

Do you work for big Pharma? Because it's a lie that they have to charge exorbitant prices. The sell at a profit the same drugs in other countries for far, far, less, nearly 90% less, than they sell in the United States.

What the Mylan Epipen Scandal Tells Us About American Capitalism

The fact that this sordid practice of manipulating the patent laws to fleece people with allergies has any legal bearing at all only serves to further de-legitimize the "establishments" of both major political parties, the Congress and all the other governing and regulatory institutions.

www.huffpost.com

American EpiPen Price as Much as Nine Times Higher than in Other Wealthy Countries, Public Citizen Survey Shows - Public Citizen

Mylan charges Americans three to nine times more for an EpiPen than the price in other wealthy countries, according to a Public Citizen survey.

www.citizen.org

Patent protection is provided for in the Constitution but the protections are excessive. For one thing, the Federal Government, or shall I more correctly say American Taxpayers, funded the research to create the Epipen and then we get gouged for it. By the way, Joe Manchin wrote the law that made this possible and his daughter was the CEO of the company that makes the Epipen. Her salary went from 2 million to 19 million after this price hike.

The 5000 per cent rise in price of Aids drugs in 2015 is another example where government protections, this time of a 62-year-old medication, allowed Turing Pharmaceuticals to raise the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill because they were the only ones approved to distribute the drug.

Then there are things like the TIVO patents - issued without a working product on the idea of digital storage of video for later playback. This in spite of the legal requirement that a patent must be for an actual product, not an idea. That's why your cable box only allows you to pause for 30 minutes to an hour. It's why you pay a Tivo fee every month, 30 years later.

The patent wars between Apple, Samsung, and Google have cost consumers billions in excessive fees as simple UI features, whether to swipe or touch, and when to do which, for example, become the targets of patent lawsuits.

Pharmaceutical companies aren't charging ridiculous prices to recover research costs; they're charging ridiculous prices because US law protects them. This is not capitalism or free trade; this is corporatism where taxpayer dollars fund and protect these companies and then the government protects them while they extort sick Americans.