Bush's 4th veto of his presidency is a good one

[ymu]

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The rest of the world are sensible enough to regulate drug company profiteering

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define and explain that please.

[/ QUOTE ]Well in the UK we have both the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, under which companies must repay any profits made from NHS purchasing over and above an agreed amount. We also have NIHCE which looks at the cost-effectiveness of health technologies and gives non-binding recommendations to the NHS about whether certain costly treatments nevertheless provide enough benefit to justify the cost. NIHCE (originally NICE) evolved from regional panels which did much the same thing but didn't always reach the same conclusion as each other, so the national panel was set up to make appraisals more transparent, fair and better funded.

This latter approach is rapidly developing worldwide, with the leaders being the UK, Canada and Australia with Europe and South America rapidly catching up. The basic principle is simple: no matter how much you spend on healthcare, there will always be a ceiling determined by the maximum income that can allocated to healthcare expenditure. Given this, there must be a means to rank health technologies according to the amount of benefit they provide per $ spent (measured from the patient perspective) so that it is the least cost-effective treatments that do not get funding when we hit that ceiling.

The experience in the UK has been that part way through the appraisal process, drug companies frequently drop the price of the technology to the level at which they believe it will come in as cost-effective, although quite often their drug turns out to be largely useless anyway when the evidence is examined, so we wouldn't use it regardless. This is a comedic article from the BMJ advising industry on this process: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1446 (it's in a section called "Snakes, ladders and spin", with a number of articles worth reading).

Last I heard John Howard (Australian PM) had dismantled their regulatory system in return for a free trade agreement from Bush. Much the same way as the UK Department of Health occasionally circumvents NIHCE advice if the Pharma companies get threatening.

[ymu]

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The US "subsidises" the rest of the world by allowing the drug companies to make obscene profits which are mostly paid for by American people. Yeah, OK. The rest of the world are sensible enough to regulate drug company profiteering, but you all see it as a threat to the freedom of the rich to get richer no matter what. So how come the top ten aren't exclusively US companies?

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Because of evil globalization, they can be European companies making money in the US. It's also interesting to note that more than 2/3 of the Nobels in Medicine over the last 10-15 years have been awarded for work done in the US.

[/ QUOTE ]No doubt about it, there is some great science coming out of the US. It doesn't alter the fact that US politicians are so heavily financed by private interests that the US public are being conned into forking over their hard-earned cash to a bunch of profiteers who find them the easiest market to tap because the politicians are so easily bought off. It's not something you can be proud of, now is it?

[natedogg]

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The rest of the world are sensible enough to regulate drug company profiteering

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define and explain that please.

[/ QUOTE ]Well in the UK we have both the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, under which companies must repay any profits made from NHS purchasing over and above an agreed amount. We also have NIHCE which looks at the cost-effectiveness of health technologies and gives non-binding recommendations to the NHS about whether certain costly treatments nevertheless provide enough benefit to justify the cost. NIHCE (originally NICE) evolved from regional panels which did much the same thing but didn't always reach the same conclusion as each other, so the national panel was set up to make appraisals more transparent, fair and better funded.

This latter approach is rapidly developing worldwide, with the leaders being the UK, Canada and Australia with Europe and South America rapidly catching up. The basic principle is simple: no matter how much you spend on healthcare, there will always be a ceiling determined by the maximum income that can allocated to healthcare expenditure. Given this, there must be a means to rank health technologies according to the amount of benefit they provide per $ spent (measured from the patient perspective) so that it is the least cost-effective treatments that do not get funding when we hit that ceiling.

The experience in the UK has been that part way through the appraisal process, drug companies frequently drop the price of the technology to the level at which they believe it will come in as cost-effective, although quite often their drug turns out to be largely useless anyway when the evidence is examined, so we wouldn't use it regardless. This is a comedic article from the BMJ advising industry on this process: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1446 (it's in a section called "Snakes, ladders and spin", with a number of articles worth reading).

Last I heard John Howard (Australian PM) had dismantled their regulatory system in return for a free trade agreement from Bush. Much the same way as the UK Department of Health occasionally circumvents NIHCE advice if the Pharma companies get threatening.

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Yeah, it's called price controls, and it's [censored] stupidity by any measure. You might as well advocate geocentrism, it's just as backward and just as discredited as price controls.

Make no mistake, your cheap drugs are subsidized by americans. Enjoy.

natedogg

[ymu]

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YMU, Your primary intentions probably aren't much different than others in this thread. The difference is, you think the government can actually be competent and regulate something efficiently.

[/ QUOTE ]There's nothing remotely difficult about cutting out the middleman and using mass purchasing power to get good value on behalf of individuals who need those services. For things like education, healthcare and essential utilities it doesn't really make any financial sense to do anything else. It's also pretty simple to suggest that the costs of government (the providers of a stable economy) should be borne proportionate to the benefit an individual derives from that stable economy. It's a very easy calculation to do. It's also a really easy sell when people can glance across the Atlantic and see the real cost to them of the alternative. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

You have to know that things are bad when you get this sort of story: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle1996735.ece
Especially when the right-wing press in the UK cover are sympathetic to his views. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[ymu]

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The rest of the world are sensible enough to regulate drug company profiteering

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define and explain that please.

[/ QUOTE ]Well in the UK we have both the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, under which companies must repay any profits made from NHS purchasing over and above an agreed amount. We also have NIHCE which looks at the cost-effectiveness of health technologies and gives non-binding recommendations to the NHS about whether certain costly treatments nevertheless provide enough benefit to justify the cost. NIHCE (originally NICE) evolved from regional panels which did much the same thing but didn't always reach the same conclusion as each other, so the national panel was set up to make appraisals more transparent, fair and better funded.

This latter approach is rapidly developing worldwide, with the leaders being the UK, Canada and Australia with Europe and South America rapidly catching up. The basic principle is simple: no matter how much you spend on healthcare, there will always be a ceiling determined by the maximum income that can allocated to healthcare expenditure. Given this, there must be a means to rank health technologies according to the amount of benefit they provide per $ spent (measured from the patient perspective) so that it is the least cost-effective treatments that do not get funding when we hit that ceiling.

The experience in the UK has been that part way through the appraisal process, drug companies frequently drop the price of the technology to the level at which they believe it will come in as cost-effective, although quite often their drug turns out to be largely useless anyway when the evidence is examined, so we wouldn't use it regardless. This is a comedic article from the BMJ advising industry on this process: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1446 (it's in a section called "Snakes, ladders and spin", with a number of articles worth reading).

Last I heard John Howard (Australian PM) had dismantled their regulatory system in return for a free trade agreement from Bush. Much the same way as the UK Department of Health occasionally circumvents NIHCE advice if the Pharma companies get threatening.

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Yeah, it's called price controls, and it's [censored] stupidity by any measure. You might as well advocate geocentrism, it's just as backward and just as discredited as price controls.

Make no mistake, your cheap drugs are subsidized by americans. Enjoy.

natedogg

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You could always try explanation instead of polemic. You have one, right?

[natedogg]

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It's also a really easy sell when people can glance across the Atlantic and see the real cost to them of the alternative. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]



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Go ahead, give us the calculation. And the 'alternative' isn't viable since you are free-riding on the americans' cost to develop new drugs.

natedogg

[ymu]

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It's also a really easy sell when people can glance across the Atlantic and see the real cost to them of the alternative. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Go ahead, give us the calculation. And the 'alternative' isn't viable since you are free-riding on the americans' cost to develop new drugs.

natedogg

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[/ QUOTE ]I think it might be the corporations who are free-riding on the rest of us. Sorry, you - we haven't entirely fallen for it, although our politicians are busy lining their pockets trying to persuade us and the pharmaceutical spin industry is alive and well. We can't see how salesmen and CEOs need to earn so much more than the scientists to safeguard drug discovery, or indeed why they waste so much money bringing me-too drugs to market instead of on genuine drug discovery, but I'm sure you can enlighten us.

You can prolly explain why it's a good idea that they cheat so much too. Can't be anything to do with the almighty dollar, that would be ludicrous. HARLOT plc: an amalgamation of the world's two oldest professions

[natedogg]

You're becoming ridiculous, so I'll give you the quick summary, even though you failed to provide the calculation you claim is so easy to do.

If a company wants to be in business, they need to make a profit. In fact, they need to profit MORE than a safer alternative such as government bonds or other, safer companies. They need investors to buy a share and take on the risk because very few companies can run on the angel investor who is willing to pony up the money it takes.

When it comes to new drugs, pharma spends hundreds of millions per drug title to get it all the way to market, and most of them *fail*. In america, they get patent protection from generics and can charge whatever the market will bear for a 7 year period. sometimes they can finagle an extension but basically they get 7 years to recoup their losses on the other drugs they tried to develop.

Once they have the drug developed it only costs a few pennies to make a unit. They can sell drugs to your socialist country under price control laws ONLY because it is a marginal extra profit on the returns they make here in america. If America has the price controls of other socialist countries... the company would shut down for lack of profit and lack of investment.

It's a very simple calculation.

If capital can get a better return elsewhere, it will. This would leave pharmas in the cold, closing up shop. Leaving you without Lipitor or take your pick.

You benefit from the profits of drug companies in america. The "obscene" profits you reference are nonexistent. Research the returns on pharma companies. they are in line with the rest of the S&P 500.

But, don't let me dissuade you from your rant. Carry on....

natedogg

[ymu]

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Bush vetoed a "children's health bill" today. this bill utilizes the classic political trick of naming a bill in some innocuous way that sounds wonderful for all, like the "clean air and water" act which provided access to timber for logging companies.

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I've often been told that Americans have no sense of irony, but I never believed it before.


Did you read any of the links Nate? How do you justify this?
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It's the money, dummy

This prospectus is addressed primarily to drug companies, with good reason. One of them now has 10 products with more than $1bn in sales each, and some 165 million people worldwide take its medicines. Its market capitalisation recently passed that of Microsoft Corporation and is second only to that of General Electric. In 2000, the top nine drug companies in the United States had over $155bn in revenue. The top executives in these companies were paid between $3m and $17m plus stock options valued between $11m and $73m. Drug companies have the cake, and they are eating it too. Put simply, we want a piece of that cake.

If you are not a member of this elite club, you may want to skip to table 3, where we list our bargain basement services. Once we have paid off our mortgages, we will consider pro bono work. Meanwhile, if you would like our help, please make sure to send us your credit card number and bank balance.

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[JayTee]

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Bush vetoed a "children's health bill" today. this bill utilizes the classic political trick of naming a bill in some innocuous way that sounds wonderful for all, like the "clean air and water" act which provided access to timber for logging companies.

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I've often been told that Americans have no sense of irony, but I never believed it before.


Did you read any of the links Nate? How do you justify this?
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It's the money, dummy

This prospectus is addressed primarily to drug companies, with good reason. One of them now has 10 products with more than $1bn in sales each, and some 165 million people worldwide take its medicines. Its market capitalisation recently passed that of Microsoft Corporation and is second only to that of General Electric. In 2000, the top nine drug companies in the United States had over $155bn in revenue. The top executives in these companies were paid between $3m and $17m plus stock options valued between $11m and $73m. Drug companies have the cake, and they are eating it too. Put simply, we want a piece of that cake.

If you are not a member of this elite club, you may want to skip to table 3, where we list our bargain basement services. Once we have paid off our mortgages, we will consider pro bono work. Meanwhile, if you would like our help, please make sure to send us your credit card number and bank balance.

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I think I'll join you for a dunk in the crazy tank. The mere act of governments discussing regulating drug prices kills people.