Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Understood. A good start is to not let drug companies run as for profit, publicly traded companies where shareholder value comes first.
But will that type of change be good or bad? Will we still see the fast pace of new drugs and procedures and medical advances, if we jump in and flip the cart over?
But conservatives on here would sharply disagree with you. If someone has to sacrifice something to bring it about, such as medical care for a poor person, there is no way it can possibly be considered as a right. In other words, don't expect doctors and nurses to work for free.
Yeah, these discussions can sometimes get silly. I mean, if health care is a right, and I live up in a very sparsely populated and remote mountainous area, "where's my damn doctor, and where's my hospital, I have a right you know!!!"
I hit WSJ's paywall but what I could see, they weren't talking about a vaccine. Rather, they were talking about remdesivir which is a treatment for COVID. There's a big difference between that and a vaccine.
Those who are insured won't be paying the total out of pocket price for that drug. Even those who are uninsured but have Medicaid won't be paying that much out of pocket.
Those on Medicaid probably will not pay anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wapasha
Yes, but don't sit there and lecture me about it. The media hounded, maligned and criticized Trump, ad nauseum, for changing his narrative on the virus, when all he was doing was trying to keep up with the ever changing narrative coming for the so called experts everyone continually chided Trump to follow the advice of. Which was my point.
BTW for the people spreading rumors, the US federal government has already pre-purchased hundreds of millions of vaccine doses, so we won't be paying for them out of pocket.
I believe we are in agreement then. Fauci was giving advice based on what was known at the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lekrii
You're correct. And charging $3k for treatment for a a drug in the midst of a national health pandemic should be criminal.
Why is it price gauging when a person buys TP and overcharges when selling it, but it's acceptable if a health care company does it?
Because health care should be a right, not a privilege. Profit should not be a motive when we're talking about saving people's lives.
No one will be paying the full retail price. Some insurance companies are waiving the patient's cost sharing amount. The health insurance companies will negotiate their cost downward. The government is paying hospitals for uninsured care. Medicare will not be paying for the drug when used in the hospital. It pays a fixed amount, including drug costs, based on diagnosis. That diagnosis related amount has been given a boost because of the extra costs, such as prolonged ICU stays, from COVID-19.
Without a profit motive there will be no one available to save lives and no one producing the lifesaving drugs and treatments. Do you expect it all to be done for free? Do you work and not expect a salary? Should stockholders not expect a return on their investments?
But conservatives on here would sharply disagree with you. If someone has to sacrifice something to bring it about, such as medical care for a poor person, there is no way it can possibly be considered as a right. In other words, don't expect doctors and nurses to work for free.
Not for profit and working for free aren't the same thing.
Every right we have takes some effort. No one should be afraid of going in debt due to medical care. It's a right for everyone in a civilized society, not a luxury only for those with money.
No, did you not bother with seeing the video? He said he is optimistic about a vaccine coming.
Also, eradication has a specific definition in epidemiology. It would mean completely wiping the virus off the face of the earth, as was done with smallpox.
I take it you want all drug research to be funded by the taxpayers.
It is not as contagious, but it still has a high mortality rate. The pathogenicity of the virus has not attenuated.
If MERS became less deadly it would be more successful at spreading. The viruses that kill the most people kill themselves. If they mutate to be less deadly they keep the host alive to spread the virus more, just like the less lethal coronaviruses that spread around and only cause the common cold. Evolution of the virus and /or hosts getting immunity will eventually turn covid into another common cold virus.
Quote:
One popular theory, endorsed by some experts, is that viruses often start off harming their hosts, but evolve toward a more benign coexistence. After all, many of the viruses we know of that trigger severe problems in a new host species cause mild or no disease in the host they originally came from. And from the virus’s perspective, this theory asserts, hosts that are less sick are more likely to be moving around, meeting others and spreading the infection onward.
“I believe that viruses tend to become less pathogenic,” says Burtram Fielding, a coronavirologist at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. “The ultimate aim of a pathogen is to reproduce, to make more of itself. Any pathogen that kills the host too fast will not give itself enough time to reproduce.” If SARS-CoV-2 can spread faster and further by killing or severely harming fewer of the people it infects, we might expect that over time, it will become less harmful — or, as virologists term it, less virulent....
Flu pandemics, meanwhile, have tended to recede for another reason, one that offers more hope in our present moment: Enough of the population eventually becomes immune to slow the virus down.
If MERS became less deadly it would be more successful at spreading. The viruses that kill the most people kill themselves. If they mutate to be less deadly they keep the host alive to spread the virus more, just like the less lethal coronaviruses that spread around and only cause the common cold. Evolution of the virus and /or hosts getting immunity will eventually turn covid into another common cold virus.
Not every virus mutates to be less deadly though. There is no guarantee that SARS-CoV-2 will do so. It is spreading quite efficiently at its current level of lethality, so there is no evolutionary pressure to become less so.
It has found its sweet spot.
SARS underwent a mutation that made it less fit - able to spread - and the scientists really do not understand why the less fit mutation became dominant. It did not become less deadly.
The common cold isn't an ARSD and doesn't leave tuburculosis-like tubers rooting through the lungs of many survivors.
The common cold isn't communicable for 4+ days before symptoms begin to surface.
This isn't the common cold. This isn't the flu.
You should stay home without any contact for 12 months.
No home deliveries either.
And wear your mask 24/7, even while sleeping.
Do not let your dog outside, either.
We can't keep staying 6 feet away from people who don't live in our household forever. How will people date? No more weddings, birthday parties, or group gatherings of any sort? Life will eventually have to go on. Can you imagine telling a 10 year old in 2030 that there was a time when you could go into buildings without wearing a mask and it would be as alien to him as going into a store barefoot?
That's right. I tend to take the darker more realistic view on this based on what I'm seeing. What I see is masks and social distancing for at least the next 5 years. I'm not pulling this out of my rear. Laurie Garrett, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Coming Plague" says the virus will be tormenting us for at least 3 years. I think the asymptomatic people together with the fact the antibodies don't last more than 3 months necessitating year round seasonal boosters, and the degree this pandemic will grind the economy and the healthcare system into dust will keep America just this side of 3rd world status for a decade. Children's education will be disrupted for years. These are just some of the repercussions of this horrible plague. It gets much worse but there's not enough room here.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
