I have a short essay today in Medical Progress Today on an initiative on the California ballot forthcoming this November. It essentially is a full-employment act for the lawyers, masquerading as pharmaceutical "compassion" for the middle class. If passed, upheld, and implemented, it would destroy the pharmaceutical sector nationwide. It can be found at
http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/spotlight/spotlight.php.
Comments welcome.
I think that someday we will write about the end of new cures and the time when we lost the fight to develop antibiotics ahead of resistant bugs.
ReplyDeleteWHY THE HELL CAN'T THE LEFT UNDERSTAND INCENTIVES? WHY, WHY, WHY?
Sorry about that, it's like a facial tic. Can't stop it. Can only contain it.
We're going to have really cheap drugs and no one to make them. I take that back. Some Eastern European nation will wisely maintain free markets, including for drugs, and will keep the rest of us alive.
Some folks never heard the story of the Golden Goose, I reckon.
ReplyDeleteDr. Zycher, a question:
ReplyDeleteGiven that Big Pharma is, even after the "huge" research outlays of capital, the single most profitable industry in the United States, does that change your conclusion at all?
Or what about the fact that Big Pharma sells the same medicines overseas that it does here for substantially less?
Most health plans are now covering less and less medication. For example, a $250/month Blue Shield plan still requires an asthmatic with a sinus infection to pay $300 out of pocket for those latest drugs (such as Advair and Nasonex) that you tout, creating strain on the finances of individuals whose single-earner income nears the median family income in California. The person in my example earns nearly $60,000 a year but her employer, like so many other employers now, does not provide health insurance.
Don't these increasing strains on individual and family finances, such as rising health plan costs and rising pharmaceutical costs for example, cry out for some sort of policy intervention?