wrote in message
" wrote:

This is one of the stupidist things the resident commie has posted
yet.

Our resident "stupidist" strikes again, and while trying to insult someone
who's simply explaining why a constant diet of red herrings and bad rhetoric
is bad for the mind. It boggles that same mind in this case because KD's
taken a seriously ANTI-communist stance, saying that all of us don't need to
subsidize the creation of new drugs that would have no benefit for them.

It's Trader's bizarre fear of all Big Bad Government regulation of business,
in this case the imaginary Big Bad Price Controls, which are non-existent in
your example. Deciding you won't buy a drug on behalf of your insured if
you don't get a good price is as simple a free market concept as you can
find. Somehow, we've gotten so used to having pre-written, non-negotiable
contracts shoved down our throats by cable companies, phone companies and
others every day that the thought of someone saying "wait, we don't like
your terms, let's come to new ones" shocks some people.

The drug companies aren't being forced at gunpoint to sell drugs cheaper
than it costs them to make them anymore than banks were forced to make so
many bad loans via CRA that it collapsed the economy. It's just part of the
"All Government is Bad" mythology some people As you pointed out, they
willingly give high discounts to Europe not out of altruism, but because
they are STILL MAKING MONEY! Just not as much as they are by gouging
American customers. (-: It sounds to me like some of KD's detractors don't
understand marginal costs and how Big Pharma can deeply discount its often
horribly inflated end-customer pricing and still make a buck. It's easy
when the highest price you charge is stratospheric. Coming down to sea
level still generates a profit for them, albeit a small one per unit sale.

Give Trader a chance and he can connect any set of unrelated dots by using
ink made from the dozens of decayed red herrings in his well-stocked and
very stinky fish tank. When that fails, he'll reach for the poison puffer
fish and call you a commie, a socialist, a fu&wit or whatever the "epithet
of the day" happens to be.

To beat a dead horse (apparently that's the only way you'll
understand)

I've never seen re-explanation in simpler terms ever provoke the "dawn of
comprehension" in a Trader discussion. He just made the same mistake with
"stupidist" and clearly doesn't learn from the past. I'd feel badly (sic)
for him, but part of the reason most people come to the web is to learn
something.

manufacturers put their product on sale from time to time
-- i.e., they sell it for a lower price than it normally is sold for
-- but in doing so they actually make more money

This is supported by the incredibly large and complex "free sample" network
of "detail men" from the big Pharma houses. They give away diabetes meters
free to sell test strips at a $1+ each. That's a totally outrageous cost
for something I once read costs well under 1 cent to produce.

Should Big Pharma make a one thousand percent profit on what is for many a
medical necessity? It doesn't sit well with me but it does confirm the "we
don't want cures, we want something customers have no choice about buying
for whatever outrageous price we can charge" policy of Big Pharma. Again,
it's so odd that even with multiple strip manufacturers, there isn't very
much price difference at all between strip makers. It's a gentlemen's
agreement between the makers of that product to keep the profits beyond
reasonable and into the stratospheric. Eventually the profit motive will
have to be removed from medical care because it's in so severe a conflict
with the goal of making people well.

"For the general welfare" gives Congress the power to simply take that
business away from all of the gougers and bring it under Medicare. It's
going to end up happening because it's the only way to keep health care
costs down. Eliminating the collusion between manufacturers and making the
creation of drugs a governmental function, not a private industry one, could
provide enormous health care cost savings. It will take a serious retooling
of people's thinking and will involve a ferocious battle against those who
would be losing all the "easy money" that can be made selling drugs, licit
and illicit.

What's even more interesting about the crocodile tears Big Pharma cries
about R&D costs is that much of the research that leads to blockbuster drugs
is done at NIH and paid for by everyone's tax dollars. I say if they keep
crying much longer, the Feds should restructure things so that NIH does ALL
the research. Then, Big Pharma would get a license to produce the drugs NIH
and others develop after competitive bidding against other manufacturers.
That would have the added benefit of putting the "blockbuster" mentality to
pasture where it belongs.

As the drug companies have proven by cutting back on essential medicines for
which the profit is too small, they have a conflict of interest. Curing and
treating disease should be the primary motive of drug development. The "for
profit" mode means that the preference is for high-priced "blockbuster"
drugs for long term care, not cures or lower-priced drugs that would bring
health care costs down for everyone. Our health care costs are skyrocketing
because it makes Big Pharma richer. Study after study shows that many of
the newer drugs cost 4 to 10 times as much as earlier versions, but never
deliver 4 to 10 times the therapeutic values.

--
Bobby G.