Drugs For Critically Ill In Short Supply; Some Hospitals Consider Rationing

Cost of maintaining compliance has skyrocketed in the last 5-6 years. I work medical devices and have watched as margins have shrunk while the police state has ramped. There is safety and then there is ‘safety’. The two aren’t always the same.

If the govt won’t pay beyond a certain amount (remember there were changes ~4 years ago on reimbursements even before obamacare) and imposes additional costs through regulations then the margins decrease - for pharma it doesn’t take much for the risk/benefit equation to turn so that one bad batch bankrupts the entire company. Devices has been hit as well but the margins are different so it’s not quite as bad as pharma where the risks are also much higher.

As with a lot of small businesses they are making the decision to get out with what they have and shut it down rather than risk losing everything or running in the red.

Atlas is shrugging hard folks.

I think you've hit on the culprit. It's not just the meds for the critically ill. I'm a Dermatologist and I've seen more old, cheap topicals become unavailable for months or be frankly discontinued the past couple years than I can recall in the past 25 years. Products that, even if poorly made, would never do enough harm to attract a shyster's attention. Upping the regulatory costs, while holding down prices via de jure (Medicare and Medicaid) and de facto (government enabled insurance monopolies) price controls, are shrinking the supply of wanted, or even essential, medical products in ways a free market would never allow. I'm with Rush, this is intentional on the part of at least some of the left. Obama wants the "Great Depressing."

This point is worth pushing on those Congress critters capable of understanding it. We don't want some RINO reflexively attacking the drug companies. IIRC, the Tea Party elected a few physicians last fall who may be capable of carrying this ball. They need to understand the drug companies are the victims as much as their no longer served customers. They need to point out that while not being able to get insurance is a problem, not being able to get a needed medicine, at any price, regardless of one's insurance status, is a much bigger problem. And that the solution isn't more government, but less government.

... Now, there are always some medications on “national backorder” that requires us to alter how we practice.

Does anyone remember the shortage of flu vaccine a few years ago, too?

Possibly the shortage of IV electrolytes, like the shortage of vaccines, is caused by government mandated reimbursements.

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