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A very famous radio (mainstream) economic expert spent decades attacking social systems, saying they are unefficient for the cost.
Then, it happened to HIM. Very serious serial heart attacks and of course emergency team came very quickly.
After a few months, he was fit again and had the honesty to say publicly (on air and other medias) that he had been wrong all those years and that this system had literally saved his life and didn't drown him in debt.
Easy to be hardcore, until it happens to you or your loves ones.
Just for thought... Loving our neighbours is probably the idiom that would sum this story up.
I hope nothing nothing ever happened to you oryour family, you might change your mind.
When most other countries have some kind of Universal Healthcare, pay 1/2 of what Americans do, and in most cases have better results and outcomes... only the Far Far Far Right-wingers would want it to go even further into free market.
They care more about their pocket books, then their fellow Americans. And they claim they are Patriots, while their neighbors die in agony or goes personal bankrupted because of high medical costs.
The system needs blowing up but going full socialist here is probably only going to make things worse. Unless they put real controls on what the government is going to pay for, who gets what, etc....going single payer will bankrupt us.
The law in most countries does not relate to a right to healthcare but a right to life.
This is a right to be treated in an emergency and not to be turned away from a hospital, in terms of free healthcare that is manly a political issue rather than a human right. However some people would like to see it become a basic human right.
In terms of the right to life the case Senturk and Senturk v Turkey was an important case which was heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
"In that case, a number of Turkish hospitals refused to admit for treatment a heavily-pregnant mother, who thereafter died travelling in search for emergency treatment. The court summarised: “the authorities of a Contracting State put an individual’s life at risk through the denial of health care they have undertaken to make available to the population in general” and found a breach".
Not providing someone with emergency or life saving treatment based on cost is a breach of human rights in Europe and many other parts of the world.
And everyone loves to beat up on the pharmaceutical companies - hell it's just about a national pastime -- but the high cost of drugs allows those same companies to put major dollars into R&D on new drugs. Today we can keep cancer patients alive for much longer than in the past because of these miracle drugs. Same thing with other diseases as well. My dad is 80 years old. 20 years ago, a man with his health conditions would be dead, or at best, incapacitated. Yet because of these new medicines, he still has a reasonable quality of life.
And everyone loves to beat up on the pharmaceutical companies - hell it's just about a national pastime -- but the high cost of drugs allows those same companies to put major dollars into R&D on new drugs. Today we can keep cancer patients alive for much longer than in the past because of these miracle drugs. Same thing with other diseases as well. My dad is 80 years old. 20 years ago, a man with his health conditions would be dead, or at best, incapacitated. Yet because of these new medicines, he still has a reasonable quality of life.
Big pharma often doesn't do any research they merely buy research from smaller pharma companies and then market drugs. They also extend patents through changing formulas slightly under what is known in the industry as evergreening and they debrand drugs which have become generic and then relaunch them under a new name, as this gets around pricing regulations, so they can massively increase prices.
US drug companies spend more on marketing than research, and it often costs more for the same drug in the US than other parts of the world.
The current scandal involving the high prices being demanded for Orkambi a new Cystic Fibrosis treatment have caused outrage in many countries across the world.
There is currently a UK Parliamentary Public Inquiry after US Drug Company Vertex, turned down an offer from the NHS of £500 million ($655 milion) in relation to access for the drug for five years, and over £1 Billion ($1.3 Billion) over ten years, in order that the drug can be offered to the 40% of the 10,400 people with cystic fibrosis in the UK who have the same genetic fault.
This is the first time such as inquiry has been instigated, and it will make reccomendations in relation to the way forward in terms of negotiations.
Some member of the British Parliament have already stated that they would be prepared for Vetex to be stripped of the patent, and a generic version of the drug manufactured under what is known as Crown use.
Others have threatened to release the price Vetex wanted for the drug, it's beieved that company allegedly wants $272,000 per patients per year in the US. Vertex have on going political and legal problems in the US, UK, Canada, France, Netherlands and a number of other countries due to their drug pricing.
It should be noted that Vertex never carried out any research in relation to Orkambi, they merely bought the drug patent in 2015 for $3.3 Billion from the US Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, although the deal looks like having a negative effect on CF sufferers across the globe.
The purpose of government was written in the original founding document for this nation, the Declaration of Independence. It says:
Quote:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
That's it. The purpose of government is to secure our rights. The purpose of government is NOT to provide us with free stuff or take our money and use it to subsidize our healthcare costs.
For starters, capitalism is NOT the reason healthcare costs so much. The government interfering with the free market, imposing laws and regulations promoting protectionism and limiting competition, etc. is WHY healthcare costs as much as it does in the US. That means IF you are serious about lowering costs associated with healthcare, start by demanding the government remove 90+% of all laws and regulations on healthcare and on medications. Then and only then will you get to see the power of the free market work in healthcare. As it is currently, our healthcare system is NOT a free market system.
Now, let's address the fallacy that healthcare is a right. In order to do this, we must examine what rights are and how they are established. A natural right (the ONLY kind of right) is one that a person has with or without anyone else or any government and it does not encroach upon the rights or property of another. Examples of this is a right to breath air. It's NOT a right to breath clean air because if you are next to a volcano explosion, the dirty and contaminated may be the only air that is available. The right life, to own one's own body, mind and what they can produce (labor) with their body and mind, to think, speak or do whatever they want, as long as those words or actions don't encroach upon the rights of another. Therefore one does not have the right to threaten, hit or otherwise harm another. The right to drink water flowing down a creek or river as long as you're not encroaching upon the property of another. That doesn't mean one has a right to drink clean water unless they take the steps to clean it themselves. The right to pursue one's own self interests, again, as long as doing so does not encroach upon the rights or property of another.
So what is NOT a right? Well, in case you didn't notice a recurrent theme, one does NOT have the right to encroach upon the rights or property of another. This means you do not have the right to own another, to subject them to slavery, because they too have natural rights. By the same token, you have no right to compel a person to hand over their property or to work for free, again with the slavery thing. I hope I've made my point clear enough as I shouldn't have to go through this in much more depth. We should all comprehend that we have no right to encroach upon the rights or property of another.
That said, if a person is alone out in the middle of a forest or in the middle of a desert and they get a fever, do they have a right to penicillin or to see a nurse or a doctor, who will have to work for free in order to provide them with healthcare? The obvious answer is of course not. So if they don't have that right being alone, how can it be a right? How can someone be compelled to assist you achieve your supposed right if in doing so you've encroached upon the right of another to not be your slave?
How about food? Does a person who didn't plant something which grows or already posses some other form of food have a right to food if that food must be taken from someone else, meaning it was their property? Again, the answer obviously is no. That means a person does NOT have a natural right to food. What about a house? If you didn't build it, cutting down the trees, cutting up the logs to make boards or even keep them in logs, assembling your house, does a person have a right to a house (shelter)? Again, the obvious answer is no, especially if another person had to work to build it for you.
So how do we get all these things that we, people of societies have? We do it by engaging in an activity, which others deem to be of enough value that they give us societal value credits (money which proves we have performed a labor or service that another values) and we voluntarily exchange those societal value credits for the things we need and want. IF the person who has the food or the house thinks the societal value credits (money) we posses is of sufficient value for them to exchange their food or housing for the societal value credits offered and a mutually agreeable voluntary exchange can be made, then a person gets food or shelter. If however the owner of the food or shelter thinks their property is worth more than the societal value credits you are offering for trade, they can decline the offer and you still have no food or shelter.
Some people who have a lot of societal value credits MAY give some of them to others in a form of charity, but only if they choose to. If someone tries to force them to give up their property, their societal value credits, which they own, that is known as robbery or theft.
In essence, I don't have to give ANY societal value credits (money) to another UNLESS I do it voluntarily. To compel me to do so without me gaining what I perceive as a voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange is theft. PERIOD.
Again, governments are instituted to protect the rights of an individual. These individuals who formed that government mutually decide when things are of sufficient value to everyone that the government should be used to take societal value credits and use them to do things like build roads and bridges. But governments were never intended to be used to force someone to hand over societal value credits to pay for a good or service which they must exchange societal value credits for or else they will do without that good or service.
Healthcare is a highly coveted service because those in the field spent many years training (labor) and paid someone a lot of societal value credits to teach (labor) them, therefore individuals are willing to voluntarily exchange a lot of societal value credits for healthcare. If a person does not have enough societal value credits to pay for the service, they do not have the right to force someone else to hand over their property, their societal value credits, in order that the person who didn't have enough can get the service offered by healthcare professionals. To claim a right to the societal value credits without voluntary exchange means someone must be a slave, having to work (labor) to earn societal value credits in order to supply the person demanding the healthcare service be paid for by another. But if you own your body, your mind and your physical abilities as well as the products of your body mind and physical abilities, and no one has a right to say they own you because to do so would encroach upon your rights, by what right can you make the demand that another must earn (labor) and hand over societal value credits in order to provide you with a service (labor of another)?
I realize that the way I've broken this down may seem sophomoric and maybe even childish but it appears this is the type of explanation some people require before they finally comprehend that they do NOT have a right to compel another person to labor for free (be a slave) in order to pay for a service they want.
But then again, that's just MY opinion, for what it's worth.
Big pharma often doesn't do any research they merely buy research from smaller pharma companies and then market drugs. They also extend patents through changing formulas slightly under what is known in the industry as evergreening and they debrand drugs which have become generic and then relaunch them under a new name, as this gets around pricing regulations, so they can massively increase prices.
US drug companies spend more on marketing than research, and it often costs more for the same drug in the US than other parts of the world.
The current scandal involving the high prices being demanded for Orkambi a new Cystic Fibrosis treatment have caused outrage in many countries across the world.
There is currently a UK Parliamentary Public Inquiry after US Drug Company Vertex, turned down an offer from the NHS of £500 million ($655 milion) in relation to access for the drug for five years, and over £1 Billion ($1.3 Billion) over ten years, in order that the drug can be offered to the 40% of the 10,400 people with cystic fibrosis in the UK who have the same genetic fault.
This is the first time such as inquiry has been instigated, and it will make reccomendations in relation to the way forward in terms of negotiations.
Some member of the British Parliament have already stated that they would be prepared for Vetex to be stripped of the patent, and a generic version of the drug manufactured under what is known as Crown use.
Others have threatened to release the price Vetex wanted for the drug, it's beieved that company allegedly wants $272,000 per patients per year in the US. Vertex have on going political and legal problems in the US, UK, Canada, France, Netherlands and a number of other countries due to their drug pricing.
It should be noted that Vertex never carried out any research in relation to Orkambi, they merely bought the drug patent in 2015 for $3.3 Billion from the US Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, although the deal looks like having a negative effect on CF sufferers across the globe.
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