[Veggie Todd]

[NormsRevenge]

Don’t blow an artery, DU!

There are more effective and cheaper new drugs on the way.

[RoosterRedux]

If liberals don't like the price charged by Gilead for Sovaldi, let them develop their own. It is a tribute to the free market that biotech companies are able to develop such miracle cures. Communist countries sure don't.

I own Gilead shares indirectly and one of the reasons I invest in biotech is that I am willing to take the huge risk required for them to develop such drugs. And I expect Gilead to charge what the market will bear.

Among the risks that Gilead is taking is that another biotech firm may come along with another miracle cure before Gilead recovers its cost on Sovaldi.

[TigersEye]

They're just mad because they have a mental disorder and there is no drug or surgery that will treat it.

Articles that explain how modern liberals suffer from a mental disorder.

• Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals "Think"
• Idiot Compassion
• The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind
• Krauthammer "Democratic Realism" (Must read and bookmark!)
• Swedish Moonbats Suppress Knowledge of Communist Genocide
• Is Liberalism Political Madness?
• ARE LIBERALS CLINICALLY INSANE?
  Liberals clinically mad, concludes top psychiatrist
• Liberalism and the two roads to nihilism
• Liberalism is a Psychology
• A Theory of War by Other Means
  Political Thought as Evolutionary Psychology
  (a book written by FReeper AnonymousConservative)
• Why Liberals Think What They Do Victor Davis Hanson

[MrB]

DUmmies - how many drugs do you think would be developed if the pharmaceutical companies were forced to take a loss on them?

I know, I know - the gov’t should develop them, right?

And you think these type of drugs would be developed with no profit motive? Yeah. Sure.

[glennaro]

It’s just that ol’ DU “gibsmedat” mentality!

[onedoug]

Leftism made worse through homosexualism.

Not that they’d ever do anything to prevent it, but these ‘liberals’ had better hope islamists never get the chance to vent their full wrath on them.

[mason-dixon]

You have pointed out the KEY POINT -- the people of the United States are a generous people. I get so upset about the liberal nonsense about "we are using more than our share of world resources." If the US and its free market/capitalist economic system didn't exist, the world would still have a small elite and the rest scratching a mere existence (per Hobbes).

When people in the U.S. pay $84,000 for the drug, they are helping to pay for the very high cost of the research and development that went into inventing it. By comparison, when people in Egypt pay only $900, they are only paying for the cost of manufacturing it.

America has provided so many benefits to a world that doesn't appreciate it.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

You would think that the DU would be jumping with joy with the opportunity to have American Citizens subsidize the Egyptian’s.

[Theoria]

'When people in the U.S. pay $84,000 for the drug, they are helping to pay for the very high cost of the research and development that went into inventing it. By comparison, when people in Egypt pay only $900, they are only paying for the cost of manufacturing it.'

That's not exactly true. Part of the price reflects that it is illegal to import such a drug from Egypt.

While Egypt probably has laws on their books that tells the company, if you wanna have business here, you will provide a low price.

Every business has intellectual property rights and claims, yet they someone how find a way to sell in markets and make a profit. Don't use such a odd claim that innovation and advancement can only be advanced by restricting trade and market forces.

Part of the ever increasing prices in health care reflects the anti competing barriers in pharmaceuticals and health services. Enforcing Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman Acts would be a nice start.

[Secret Agent Man]

not only does it not require/cost a liver transplant, it also doesn’t require /cost the person to be on anti-tissue rejection drugs forever after.

[KarlInOhio]

The same Dummies would be outraged if the drug company decided to charge the same in every country (even ignoring the threats of IP theft many countries engage in to shift the cost to US patients) and sold the drug for $83,000 here and in Egypt, Canada, Brazil and a dozen countries ending in -stan. They would be stomping both left feet at how the imperialist US is depriving starving third world urchins of this drug.

[Hugin]

Well, I predict a lot of people will fly to some other country (not necessarily Egypt) and stay there 12 weeks for treatment for a lot less than 84,000.

[rollo tomasi]

DUmmies refuse to see the forest from the trees in terms of the root causes with the cost of this particular drug. At least a toddler's tantrum subsides;DUmmies on the other hand...

[Hot Tabasco]

FWIW, there are many "Big Pharma" haters on this site so lets wait till they drop in and see what they've got to say...........LOL!

My argument has always been, if you've just experienced a massive heart attack, is your first question to the emergency room attendents going to be "How much is this going to cost me?" and your second question "Can I get a second opinion?".......

[factoryrat]

“Liberals” are the most nihilistic, self-destructive, and self-loathing individuals I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with. Liberalism IS TRULY a mental disorder, and you cannot convince me otherwise.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping

[Moonman62]

Rumsfeld used to be CEO of Gilead, so that could explain some of their hatred. I remember when Gilead acquired the company that invented the drug (they paid a fortune). Their stock actually declined for awhile.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This drug is so important to the US, as well as the world, that subsidizing it with the idea of radically reducing the number of Hepatitis C carriers is not unreasonable. In the US it is pronounced among immigrants, with as many as 10 million infected. In turn, any blood transfer, as well as congenital transfer will work its way into our general population.

The most infected nation in the world is Egypt, a side effect of a humanitarian vaccination effort against a waterborne parasite that had tormented them since the time of the Pharoahs. In any event, some 10% of their population is infected with Hepatitis C.

In any event, if the price of a 12 week regimen could be reduced to a thousand dollars, it would go a long way to protecting our population from a nasty and often lethal disease.

[Usagi_yo]

There are some drugs who’s patents have been extended multiple times.

Then there is the money that tends to gravitate towards politicians. Good reason why patents are extended, and also why the drugs are expensive.

Government subsidization of research is thin and many $$ are wasted on the inane.

Lets add in some lawyers and class action lawsuits that are inevitable when the drug companies get sued. It’s easy to see that a critical drug such as this one for Hep C, if it does not work or goes sideways, big money lawsuits spring up.

Bottom line is: There is alot the Federal Government can do to help reduce the cost of Non-reoccurring engineering and research expenses without infringing on our capitalistic society.

Alas, we have a big burgeoning federal bureaucracy where “government help” only means additional costs.