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Old 02-20-2018, 04:25 PM
 
Location: So Ca
26,635 posts, read 26,552,938 times
Reputation: 24652

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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliRestoration View Post
Let pharma companies sell their goods directly to the consumers, prescribed or not. Let them compete on the open market.
Prescribed OR NOT? I don't think so, Cali. However, we do not need health insurance companies making money off of our health - or lack of health.

And health insurance lobbyists are behind the lack of competition for drug prices.

 
Old 02-20-2018, 11:13 PM
 
531 posts, read 755,163 times
Reputation: 276
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
It might have good effects. It might not.

But here is what it will not do: it will not drive down the cost of healthcare.
Unless you know all the results of all the States' future experiments, you just made a claim that they will fail with the insight of your crystal balls.
 
Old 02-21-2018, 08:52 AM
 
Location: So Ca
26,635 posts, read 26,552,938 times
Reputation: 24652
Quote:
Originally Posted by k81689 View Post
Some residents and employers just want a better deal on insurance.
They may get a better "deal" with this proposal, but it looks as if we may be back to pre-ACA days with this type of health insurance.

Dems fume as Trump pushes low-cost, ObamaCare alternative health plans | Fox News
 
Old 02-21-2018, 09:21 AM
 
6,089 posts, read 4,953,404 times
Reputation: 5985
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA4Now View Post
Prescribed OR NOT? I don't think so, Cali. However, we do not need health insurance companies making money off of our health - or lack of health.

And health insurance lobbyists are behind the lack of competition for drug prices.
If they don't make money, they won't provide the insurance at all.

Same goes for companies who create medicine, medical technology, and other innovations that save lives.

You really want to take incentive away for them to innovate?

Last edited by CaliRestoration; 02-21-2018 at 09:41 AM..
 
Old 02-21-2018, 09:58 AM
 
Location: So Ca
26,635 posts, read 26,552,938 times
Reputation: 24652
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliRestoration View Post
If they don't make money, they won't provide the insurance at all.
Then they shouldn't. We don't need them, other than to drive up the costs of health care.

Medicine, like education, defense, infrastructure and immigration, has become one more problem that gets Band-Aids slapped on it by politicians who are not willing or knowledgeable enough to even attempt a meaningful overhaul. The ACA is a perfect example. The fact that it still relies on insurance companies is one area of failure.

To fix healthcare, let's get rid of insurance companies | TheHill

Quote:
You really want to take incentive away for them to innovate?
Come on. Since when have health insurance companies provided the incentive to innovate?

Insurance companies are distributors, and so, are anachronistic. They cure no one. They scrape off billions of dollars of profits that could be used to lower the cost of medicine. They survive through their lobbyists in Washington. (same link as above)
 
Old 02-21-2018, 10:02 AM
 
Location: On the water.
21,625 posts, read 16,148,729 times
Reputation: 19703
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliRestoration View Post
If they don't make money, they won't provide the insurance at all.

Same goes for companies who create medicine, medical technology, and other innovations that save lives.

You really want to take incentive away for them to innovate?
Here is a medical discoveries historical timeline for anyone interested to consider whether profit motive is required to innovate. There was little to no motive in any of the list prior to post WWII.

History of Medicine Timeline

And for all the dazzling advances of our modern era: most all those advances are to treat non-communicable diseases and conditions that in the largest percentage don't need to exist under healthy, responsible lifestyles if supported by a society well regulated by focus and commitment to public health *rather than on allowing consumerism to run without similar regard*.
 
Old 02-21-2018, 10:24 AM
 
6,089 posts, read 4,953,404 times
Reputation: 5985
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA4Now View Post
Come on. Since when have health insurance companies provided the incentive to innovate?
It's not just about "insurance companies". You're looking at one point in a long line that eventually leads to health care for an individual. Seriously, take some time to read a few books about the "business" of health care (and not Marxist propaganda, real literature that describes how a health care company works).

All companies innovate. Without innovation, a company withers, and is overcome by competitors until it dies.

Let me ask you a question. Do you actually know any individuals who invest heavily into the health care industry?

No?

Well, I do. I'm not close friends with all of them, but I do meet them from time to time throughout the year at various private capital funding conferences.

Do you know how much it costs to develop a drug in the United States? No? Okay let me give you an example that was told to me last year at SuperVenture in Germany. Just so you have some educational context to the point you're trying to make.

Look at the drug Soliris for instance. Soliris treats PNH (Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria). It's a blood disease that destroys the immune system, eventually leads to thrombosis, and left untreated eventually leads to death. The patient population is usually diagnosed in their 20s and 30s. Even with treatment, the median survival rate is 10 to 15 years. It's a terrible disease, absolutely terrible.

Patients who have PNH have to take Soliris to SURVIVE. A 12 month regimen of the drug cost $440,000 dollars (2016).

The company who developed the drug, Alexion invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop this drug in research hours, clinical trials, and finally getting marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This took nearly a decade.

The patient population per annum is estimated at 150-300 people in the United States.

So tell me CA4now, how do you propose a company like Alexion gets back their hundreds of millions of dollars invested to create a drug that saves the lives of only 150-300 people per year?

According to you, you think there should be no profit motive. Okay, so using your solution, Alexion would have never have taken upon the task of creating a drug that only saves 150-300 people per year and those people would most certainly die. We would get drugs for NO ONE.

Without a profit motive, insurance companies wouldn't provide coverage to people who needed Soliris. So even if there was a drug developed, patients would have to pay $440,000 for a year's supply of the drug because, you by taking away profit motive to insurance companies, took away motive for them to provide insurance that could help a patient actually afford a year's supply of Soliris. People would die because they couldn't afford $440,000 upfront cost to buy the drug.

Is that what you really want?

That's why you should really do research on the industries and markets you're making comments about because you MIGHT not know all the factors that go into the price of product or service and who it ultimately effects.

Your solution would lead to more death, plain and simple because companies would not create or innovate under a non-profit model.
 
Old 02-21-2018, 10:24 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,805,731 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA4Now View Post
We don't need health insurance companies as our middlemen, driving up those costs.
I know of one doctor who runs an urgent care clinic who does not accept any insurance whatsoever. Cash only (no credit cards or checks). It does help to keep his costs down.

He does provide a bill with an explanation of services to the patient, and if the patient wants to try to deal with his insurance company that's fine. But he will not do any paperwork for the insurance company.
 
Old 02-21-2018, 10:26 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,805,731 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA4Now View Post
And health insurance lobbyists are behind the lack of competition for drug prices.
That's just silly. Prescription drugs are a COST to the health insurance industry, and they would like the cost to go down.
 
Old 02-21-2018, 10:33 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,805,731 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by k81689 View Post
Unless you know all the results of all the States' future experiments, you just made a claim that they will fail with the insight of your crystal balls.
It is not a crystal ball. It is economics.

We consume, on average and across the country, somewhat over $10,000 per person per year in health care goods and services (nothing to do with insurance).

THEREFORE, as surely as night follows day, healthcare insurance MUST cost somewhat over $10,000 per person per year on average, plus administrative costs, plus profit.'

If we can materially reduce the cost of health care, we can materially reduce the price of insurance for healthcare.

If we can materially reduce administrative expenses both at health care providers and at insurance companies, we can reduce the price for insurance for healthcare.

The system we had before Obamacare clearly didn't do anything to focus on the costs of health care or insurance administration.

Obamacare didn't do much of anything to reduce the costs of health care or insurance administration.

No proposal to replace Obamacare has any provision to reduce the costs of health care or insurance administration.
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