Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Top Recipients
While I agree with this, I don’t see what the real alternative is.
I think the government is (far) too involved in our healthcare. Way too much. We should have a much, much cheaper system which treats people for things affordably.
But Pharmaceuticals are a bit different. I’m not sure what the solution is. Tougher call, this.
IMO.
So the Dems own the Pharm industry and control the FDA....
So gee, why are drugs so damned expensive????
I wonder...
Pharma is paying protection money. There are three big problems with Pharma. First the FDA drives up the costs big time and requires a drug to be better than the ones before. Why? It may be better for some people and it would generate more competition. Second is that the U.S. customers subsidize the world’s drugs. We pay a big price and other countries get a discount. In the industrialized world this is because the governments set the price. In the rest of the world Pharma is getting what price they can, but it is not much. Third is the regulations that dramatically drive up the price and some companies to move off shore.
Now just a cotton pickin minit here, Berny. Let’s be fair. Nobody owns Congress. Its members are sort like whores, available to anyone for the right price, and willing to do anything.
The Number-One Mind-Control Program At US Colleges
Here is a staggering statistic from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): “More than 25 percent of college students have been diagnosed or treated by a professional for a mental health condition within the past year.”
Let that sink in. 25 percent....
...It’s a short step from being diagnosed with a mental disorder to adopting the role of being super-sensitive to “triggers.” You could call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If I have a mental disorder, then I’m a victim, and then what people say and do around me is going disturb me…and I’ll prove it.”
The dangerous and destabilizing effects of psychiatric drugs confirm this attitude. The drugs DO, in fact, produce an exaggerated and distorted sensitivity to a person’s environment.
You want to know where a certain amount of violent aggressive behavior on campuses comes from? You just found it. The psychiatric drugs. In particular, antidepressants and speed-type medications for ADHD.
You want to know why so many college students can’t focus on their studies? You just found one reason. The brain effects of the drugs.
read more http://www.activistpost.com/2017/02/number-one-mind-control-program-us-colleges.html
The Islamocrat party is totally owned by a relatively few corporate donors.
Useful idiots make up the rest.
It seems anytime you go to the doctor, even for just a routine check up, all they are trying to do is find something they need to give you a prescription for.
I don’t trust the any doctor or health care system in this country at all. It’s one big drug cartel. The want to pump us full of their drugs so the big pharma can make their money and the doctors can get their kick backs.
The Pharma industry in the USA is full of corruption, starting with the price fixing games they play. If Trump is serious about “draining the swamp” then he’d start tweeting away daily on the need for Congress to start enforcing the laws on this corrupt industry. How about some “America First” on the prices & transparency that Americans pay for pharma drugs, surgery, etc. services? The federal government spent 37% of its expenditures this past fiscal year on health care. It’s level of spending on health care has been rising approx 9% per annum for a few decades now. If this spending keeps rising like this then (a) the “Keep America Great” slogan for 2020 will be the laughingstock of the world, (b) we will crash over the Fiscal Cliff well before Jan 2025. This issue is going to destroy the United States government in the next few years with mathematical certainty if we don’t fix it.
So what to do?
1. Take this issue seriously. This should be by far the #1 topic on freerepublic.com. It sure will be when its forced on us to be the #1 issue. But it would be better for us to be proactive and not wait a few more years until we’re given no choice, and by then it may be too late.
2. Urge Trump, Ryan, and McConnell to make this issue their #1 priority to “drain the swamp” on the corrupt monopolistic price-gouging untransparent practices of the medical-hospital-pharma-insurance industry.
3. CMS needs to stop reimbursements for any providers who do price-gouging or monopolistic practices.
4. The DOJ should be seeking treble damages on the monopolists and price-gougers.
The problem with pharma is that we have a managed market in which the US consumer is playing the sucker.
The government provides patents to pharmaceutical companies. The patent is a legal monopoly, usually lasting 20 years. Economic theory indicates that a monopolist will set a higher price than would be the case in a more competitive market structure.
What happens if someone “cheats” and copies and produces a patented drug? The government will conduct a raid, seize assets, arrest people, and probably kill anyone who makes any effort to resist. It’s really the government that is responsible for high drug prices.
I remember when Democrats were on the war path and threatened the “evil” drug companies with price controls. Remember, it is the government that is responsible for the high drug prices. Politicians shouldn’t blame the companies; they should blame themselves. Maybe legislators should change the laws on drug patents.
First though, let’s appreciate that the patent system was done on purpose. The rationale is to provide companies (including drug companies) with an incentive to pay for research and development.
Monopoly profits may also pay for hand-holding at the FDA, reassuring the press, and payola to politicians. If an FDA approved drug kills your mother, the press will be reassured that this is a rare case and further research is being done to make this wonder drug even safer. And besides, didn’t your mother read the warning label?
Instead of granting a 20 year monopoly, the government could grant a 10 year monopoly. Or the government could manage a deal where a generic producer pays a pharmaceutical developer for the immediate right to co-produce a drug (a duopoly rather than a monopoly) for 20 years. The main thing to realize is the patent system, good or bad, is a creation of government.
Patent drugs receive competition from supplements. Some people believe in the supplement route and some do not. But in the marketplace there is competition and I think it is on the rise. Naturally drug companies don’t like this.
Supplement companies periodically get in a tizzy over proposed legislation. The Durbin bill, The Reid bill are examples. These bills require supplement makers to do all the R&D etc. as the pharmaceutical companies. That sounds fair, but it isn’t. Drug companies get patents and monopoly profits. That does not apply to supplements. You can not patent mother nature. The supplement makers fret that these proposed bills, if they were to become law, would put them out of business.
Reid and Durbin are big time Democrats. The Democrats have gone from being the scourge of the drug companies to being their best friends. What happened? I’ve always suspected that question could be answered in one word: payola.
This thread is great if only that it, for some reason unknown, brought many old school FReepers out of the woodwork.
I’m glad you’re all alive! Cringing Negativism, shout out!