g5000
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2011
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- #81
The vast majority of pharmaceutical R&D expenditures are done in the US. Other countries use our drugs and benefit from this and don't have to recoup the R&D costs like American firms do.Socialised Medicine in US....
It is interesting, it would definitely give better value to Americans in some ways...
The US privatisation of medicine has made the most expensive in the world with low coverage compared to other first world countries.
The problem is the in grained stuff in the US system now... Doctors are paid multiple times what there corresponding Doctors are in other first world countries, in UK a Doctor is upper middle class with a nice house, US Doctor in the same position could be a multi millionaire.
Same for Pharmaceuticals... Collective bargaining in EU has drastically reduced the price of drugs and because of equality laws, the price the Government pays has to be offered to the public at the same price. There are no special discounts which means everyone pays the same.
The EU butts heads with Big Pharma to make medicines cheaper
The bloc’s pharma reform aims to get new drugs to patients faster, for less money. But it clashes with the industry’s priorities.www.politico.eu
EU at present has individual countries agreeing prices but now wants to move to one price for the EU... Bigger Market, lower prices... Big Pharma doesn't like it, it hurst there massive profits..
Is there abuse? Yes.
Also, we use the most advanced medical technology on Earth, and that costs.
I have proposed the fix to our costs many times on this forum.
I should be able to pick the phone and call ANY health insurance company in the country, exactly like I can do with home, auto, and life insurance.
There's a reason you can't. Health insurance companies hate competition. It's a simple as that. And they have bribed both parties to keep it that way.
When you hear a Republican say they want people to be able to buy insurance "across state lines", that is not the same thing as buying insurance from any company in the entire country.
It's a scam.
Secondly, you are held hostage by your employer-provided health insurance. This is bending the cost curve up.
The reason I called Obamacare a bait-and-switch con is because Obamacare more deeply embedded this situation of being hostage to your employer.
Obama was heavily paid by labor unions to do this, to raise the tax exemption level for their luxury employer health care plans.
If I could buy insurance over the phone myself, I am no longer hostage to my employer.
What's more, I don't lose my insurance if I lose my job.
Even better, I get big discounts if I bundle all my insurance together.
If we could buy health insurance from any company in the country, that would engender fierce competition, and this means lower rates.