The biggest elephant in the room that nobody talks about is the development of the new drugs, procedures and machines that are center of the exploding costs of medicine. No doctor tells you "take two aspirin and call me in the morning" or some ambulance chasing lawyer will have them in court when one of those patients actually has the heart attack that they are all claiming.

So, you have to prescribe a litany of tests, conducted by specialists, on very expensive machines, then reviewed by more experts, then treated by a pill that costs $0.05 to make but $25 to buy. We all get that part and it makes for good headlines. And the Canadians, the French, the South Americans, etc. pay a small percentage of the price that Americans pay for the same medicine or machines. But why?

The American taxpayer, by and large, pays for the vast majority of research and development into new drugs and treatments. Grants and stipends to universities and GSA departments do billions of dollars of research into the discovery and development of the drugs. They often pay for the trials and tests on animal and human subjects. The pharma companies that "own" the patents on the drugs rarely invest any of their own money outside of the manufacturing, distribution and (most importantly) advertising of the drugs and machines. I mean, only 9 out of 10 of the largest pharma companies spend more on marketing than R&D and not just a bit more, but typically twice as much. And Americans are even more shocked (shocked! I tell you!) to learn that only the US and New Zealand allow any sort of direct to consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals or procedures.

So, you want to eliminate 2/3 of the cost of nearly every drug or procedure overnight? Just turn off the marketing firehose. (Plus, magazines would get about 2/3rds thinner, saving a lot of trees...) But without those massive profits, how can Big Pharma (and the advertising stream that depends on them) fund all those political campaigns?

On the other hand, 60% of new drugs are developed in the USA, so other countries that cry shame about how pills cost only pennies in their country and dollars here are forgetting that they are beneficiaries of a system that they pay nothing for. The US Taxpayer empties his wallet every payday to fund the research that makes the drugs they throw in our face. Really, we should be getting them for free and The Peoples Republic of Nowhereistan should have to pay the real fully loaded cost for them, in specie or kind.

Moving on to product placement:

This year on General Hospital, central character Anna Devane is stricken with a rare and life-threatening type of blood cancer. Gasp! OK, this may not be shocking; dramatic, unlikely, and always tragic events are the norm on soap operas. But this one is a little different.

Prior to the tear-jerking diagnosis, the ABC daytime drama--the longest running soap opera in the US--made a deal with a pharmaceutical company to come up with her fate. And the company, Incyte Corporation, just so happens to make the only targeted therapy for fictional Anna's very real form of cancer. . . .

And in the diagnoses episode, Anna, played by Finola Hughes, and her fictional doctors subtly promote Incyte's drug, ruxolitinib, by not-so-subtly criticizing other methods of managing the disease--despite a lack of data to back up those criticisms.

Whistle-Blower Tells of Health Insurers Bilking Medicare

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/busi … icare.html

I need two drugs to treat middle age problems I have. When I didn't have insurance, they costed $350 per month at my local pharmacy. I now pay $90 every 3 months to get them from Canada. My copay would be $90 per month at an American pharmacy with my current insurance.

The subject of non-recreational pharmaceuticals came up amongst my age group at a kids birthday party recently. I was shocked (shocked!) to find out that I was the only one in the group of 7 adults over the age of 40 that was not currently taking any drug on a regular basis. (Except generic Claritin 2 months of the year and a occasional Friday doobie). The fat ones are all on statin blockers and blood pressure pills, the skinny ones are all on mood management cocktails, and half of them take Prilosec so they can eat fatty foods, etc. Nearly none of the drugs mentioned were for "acute" issues, most of them were ongoing prescriptions for symptom management. So the machine works, it has as much market penetration as the mobile phone industry and has convinced people that it is just as required to be a functioning member of society, no matter the cost.

Baywolfe wrote:

Luke and Laura will be spinning in their graves, as soon as I track them down and kill them.

L&L! What memories.  Future wife and I, in the dorm room, watching it all unfold on a 13" B&W. 

Also, hand in hand, strolling the commons when news echoed Reagan had been shot.

Damn.  It just hit me...

She's away for a couple weeks to spread some ashes (thankfully not mine)...and here I sit (with a vodka tonic) waxing nostalgic.

JetRx wrote:

L&L! What a flashback.  Future wife and I, in the dorm room, watching it all unfold on a 13" B&W.  Damn.  It just hit me...

Baywolfe wrote:

Luke and Laura will be spinning in their graves, as soon as I track them down and kill them.

My wife was bitten by a copperhead late last week.  Her leg got quite swollen, so I took her to the hospital.  After admitting her, they administered 4 rounds of antivenom (Crofab).  Each vial costs $20,000.  I would like to know what it costs to produce.  (Fortunately, it should be covered by insurance.)

It looks like prices vary widely, but from what I can tell, hospitals pay something in the $2,000 - 3,000 range per vial, but charge quite a bit more.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new … 180956564/

List of prices per vial:

https://www.wellrx.com/prescriptions?drugname=CROFAB

I would like to know why hospital pharmacies charge so much for drugs administered there.

I just read this yesterday,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/maga … treet.html

Its about a short seller who is going after drug middle man Express Scripts. He says ES is keeping most of the rebates that patients are due from drug sales.

It's sort of weird, to me, that they portray him as a bounty hunter, like he's a pirate hero of these modern days.  The article makes me think of him as a foul mouthed opportunist.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/13/investi … index.html

Checking Alibaba...

choad wrote:

Fled wrote:

My wife was bitten by a copperhead late last week.  Her leg got quite swollen, so I took her to the hospital.  After admitting her, they administered 4 rounds of antivenom (Crofab).  Each vial costs $20,000.  I would like to know what it costs to produce.  (Fortunately, it should be covered by insurance.)

Have you and your better half compared puncture wounds and copayments?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a- … story.html

https://cruelery.com/sidepic/g.larson.snakes.01.jpg

It's what we get for living in a swamp.  Mine did not swell up as much and was all better in about 3 weeks or so.  Total damage for wife's stay of a little over 24 hours in Hotel Hospital -- $183,000.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs