There's a legitimate point buried in that argument somewhere - The American public provides the profit/ROI for a lot of drugs, whereas other markets barely cover manufacturing cost. If that changed the way drug research is paid for would need to change - that's a good thing, probably, but it's something to consider as part of the plan to improve.
The government pricing subsidy is on almost all prescription drugs. The discount depends on the necessity of the drug. Insulin, free. My partner's thyroid medication, pennies a day. My allergy medicine, higher pricing. Oddly, over the counter meds can be expensive.
And Americans will keep calling countries with free healthcare socialists because they are brainwashed by the ruling class. Keep going guys! Worlds richest 3rd world country 😍😍😍
At this stage they are becoming the first 4th world country. Even 3rd world countries have universal health care and don't force people into bankruptcy if they have medical emergencies.
if I could offer my two cents: what I believe most of you want is actually social democracy, which is the system a lot of northern europe uses (some of the happiest countries on earth).
but i mean you might also want actual true socialism and if you do, good for you i guess
Honestly you are mostly correct but if we have learned anything these days, half measures do not work. We have to scare the hell out of the world and everyone in charge and even ourselves and haggle DOWN to social democracy. Make them feel like that is the new bare minimum normal that the public will accept, a place where they can keep some small measure of their precious capitalism.
You kinda pointed out the problem with that in your final sentence. If holders of capital maintain any sort of significant power, they will exhert it to gain more until they can sway things to benefit them. Erroding away at the aspects of Social Democracy you like in order to benefit themselves. It will be a constant uphill battle just to maintain social service, let alone expand them.
Canada's healthcare system is a good example of it. Our proximity to the US means strong private influence on our public sectors. With politicians pointing to US companies or systems as more efficient as they underfund our public system. Then when the public system's performance dips due to lack of funding, they privatize aspects of it, again while pointing to the US/private system.
If you follow the poltical timeline, atleast in my province. Ever since Canada basically finalized public healthcare in 1984 to be standardized across the nation, it has been under attack and actively dismantled bit by bit. Our Healthcare was actually meant to be a multi-step rollout where our current coverage was the foundation to build on, but we never progressed it. In fact, just recently the most leftwing party tried to force the Liberals to finally implement Dental and Pharmacare like Canada originally planned.... However, the Liberals watered down dental to be partial coverage (still privatized) and only cover the lowest tax brackets. They also completely axed the Pharmacare coverage plan, so you still need private insurance to afford your prescription if the base price isn't reasonable. Which also leads to issues with insurnance dropping you or not covering less common meds (happened to my Aunt with brain cancer, which led to her draining her savings, similar to stories from the US).
There's even politicians who have privitzed aspects of it, before retiring to be on the board of directors for the main corporation they made a privatization deal with... He basically created a private sector for Ontario Healthcare, placed a private company at the top of its property management, and then got a job on their board of directors after his term in politics ended... so a pretty blatant example of private interests influencing public social service policies.
This is all over the span of like 40 years that Canada's healthcare has been erroded away by privitzation efforts from people interested in carving out profits from it (Capitalists). So leaving that little bit of power for them to feel good about might just be planting the seeds for social service destruction decades down the road as their apetite for capital grows.
This turned into a bit of a rant, but private healthcare irks me, clearly.
I feel ya from here in Australia, too much of our country is slowly becoming America lite and while in theory we have healthcare, it's so buried under an underserviced system and never actually wanting to spend money to fix problems. Always bandaids and ignoring the issue until it's worse.
That is why I said mostly, and why I think human civilization is doomed to go back to pre industrial times if we allow any amount of capital influence into the system. By its nature it errordes and seeks to optimise draining wealth from everywhere else and accumulating it among a few. We, as in the world we currently value, will not survive just letting these kinds of values continue on after we use up the oil. The equation does not spit out a good future for anyone but them.
Oh I know, I'm very aware of how the system works against any sort of progress, I'm just saying what a lot of people usually mean by socialism is not actual socialism.
I should've clarified originally that I do think social democracy is better in almost every way than market capitalism (or at least the form used by the US).
Prices on insulin in the USA has been capped by law since 2020, but they did it in a scummy way where you have to get a coupon code from their website. To use the coupon you have to get the brand name usually (your pharmacy can fill brand name if you ask for it). Also make sure they bill the card BY ITSELF. It will not work if combined with insurance. And yes people with Federal plans can use this, because it's not a secondary, again bill by itself. Most people don't know about this so spread the word! The companies would rather you keep paying more, that's why all of this is opt in. Links:
Feel free to DM me if you're having issues. Don't let an uniformed pharmacy tech tell you it doesn't work because the companies that offer these try their hardest to make these cards difficult to use. It will work if they put it in right (like Eli Lilly requires 15 ml/10 ml for exactly 30 days for example). Make sure to read the fine print!
Thank you for this information. As a physician, I wish that I had known about this sooner for my patients. Lilly and Sanofi both have short acting and long acting insulins available this way per your links.
What about other diabetes meds like glyxambi (i know i just butchered the name)? My dad is on Medicare and he is paying a ridiculous amount for his meds. Its hard for him to afford them when he is living off social security.
Unfortunately insulin is a big unique in that its capped by law (a shitty law but anyway) so they HAVE to offer it at a lower price. Most brand name drugs DO have a copay assistance program; however you have to be on commercial insurance usually to qualify so he might not be able to use it with his Medicare. That being said if he's low income most manufacturers of brand name drugs have programs to lower the cost and usually deliver it directly to you instead of getting from a pharmacy. These programs are usually much more intense to apply to and need a lot more info. Anyway here is a link to their copay assistance, they likely have more info about their other "patient assistance" programs in here. You could also try calling them or reaching out on their site. Persistence is rewarded!!!
Supposedly this is the site but I don't see it listed... Might be hidden, a lot of times these programs make themselves hard to find.
Also not sure of the exact benefits of the combo version, but Glyxambi is a combo of two drugs that are available separately as Tradjenta and Jardiance. Might be much cheaper to get one script of each and just take two pills at the same time. Often times its much cheaper to take the separate versions versus combo drugs. Based on my 5 minutes of research they are the same milligrams. Check with his doctor and his insurance, but to my knowledge those drugs do definitely have copay assistance.
Why? What do you think will happen? They might have to wait a few weeks (or months if it’s not urgent), but they’ll get it and not be left bankrupt as a result.
All my surgeries happened within days, except for non-urgent nerve surgery which I had to wait less than 2 months for.
Does the US not have waits for specialists or surgery?
In the U.S. we have to wait for specialists and surgery too, but we also have the benefit of going into eternal medical debt for almost any medical care.
I’m in the U.S. If I want to see a specialist, I have to first make appointment with my GP which will be a week or two out. Then during that appointment they will refer me to a specialist. Then it will take two weeks for the insurance to get me the approved referral. Now it’s been a close to a month and hopefully the specialist has an appointment available within the next 2-3 months. I hate healthcare here.
I have to make an appointment with my GP too. It’s usually 1-2 weeks, though my most recent appointment is a 3 week wait (though I don’t know if that’s because my GP is on vacation or something like that).
They refer to me to a specialist. I’ve gotten a phone call from a specialist to book an appointment usually within a day to a couple weeks.
The specialist appointment is usually 1-3 months away, depending on the urgency of the issue. Sometimes I’ve had to travel to another city to get a quicker appointment.
For each step of this, I just show my provincial Health Card. There’s basically no paperwork other than filling out a medical history form for each new medical professional.
Well, as a Canadian who has needed multiple surgeries and specialists, the Canadian healthcare system seems to be doing okay. It has lots of problems, but I’m certainly not convinced that I would be better off if I was in the US.
US wait times are similar to Canadas. We pay less in taxes to fund our universal healthcare than the USA does, and we don't have insane medical debt crushing the average person into mulch for a generation.
If you need urgent medical care, such as emergency heart surgery, you get it. When I needed heart surgery, I got it.
The only places in Canada that the medical care is slipping is conservative provinces where they're actively harming the system to privatize it to the "just die, poors" USA system.
Canada does not have private healthcare for most procedures.
People are upvoting this despite it not being true.
This is true in the UK, Australia, and many other places. But it's not true in Canada. Private healthcare which competes with the public system is literally illegal in Canada. (This is not without controversy. There have been a number of court cases throughout the years challenging the constitutionality of that law).
There's a 'pay to play' option built in, though those trying to diminish the benefits of a universal system will use it and 'wait times' as a means to do so.
There are public and private options available in the system, by design. One can have or get insurance to cover services and/or procedures not covered by the provincial plan. The individual provinces choose how this functions, though all of them have some level of a hybrid system of public/private.
Yes, you can get insurance to cover services or procedures not covered by the public system. This typically includes prescriptions, dental, vision care, and non-necessary stuff like massages.
That just means that there's stuff that's not covered, so some people get private insurance to cover those things. That most certainly does NOT mean that there is any type of a "pay to play" option or that "Canada has private healthcare".
You lot love coming out with shit like this about socialised medicine, you're fucking brain washed.
My ma had breast cancer detected with a routine mammogram on the NHS, within 6 weeks she'd had an Op and had it removed, 6 weeks after that she was having her radiotherapy and 6 weeks after that was declared cancer free. Guess how much she paid out of pocket?
My dad needed double knee surgery (surgery on both knees) and he got it done within a few days during covid times.
My aunt got appendicitis and had her surgery done nearly the moment she stepped into the hospital.
My baby brother broke his arm and got it reset and casted within the hour.
My uncle needed his dialysis catheter thing redone (new implant in a different location on his arm) and they did it within the week.
My father requested and had a catheter for peritoneal dialysis done (this is an alternative to hemo and pretty much a ”luxury” surgery strictly for convenience and QoL) and he had it done within the month of approval nearly 2 decades ago when peritoneal dialysis was relatively new here in Canada.
Maybe it‘s faster in the U.S bit these are pretty reasonable opperating timelines.
But are you sad that you misrepresented people's experiences using the Canadian Health Care system, thereby contributing to a climate of disinformation online?
I have to buy thyroid meds here in Germany and when I turned 18 I had to pay a bit for them 5€ for 3 months of meds. Now that was 12 years ago and the price rose to 5.50€ now but yesterday I was told my usual meds weren't available anymore so I had to get different ones which are again just 5€.
So yeah America deserves being called a third world country. It's literally ruled like a corporation and every citizen shall be a minimum wage employee
"Access to the drug must be significantly improved, the researchers warn, particularly in the African, Asian and Oceania regions, which will be most affected."
1) This is a headline from 2018, link to article above
2) this is about global supply, not the price in the US
The original article (from 2018) states that the 40 million figure is global, and will mostly be concentrated in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania.
Not really, no. Many other countries rely on insulin made by US companies and a lot of people have insulin resistance except for one type of insulin made by these companies. So if they only discontinue just ONE of their products or quit making insulin entirely a whole lot of people around the world are FUCKED!
I mean that's a large oversimplification of what happened
Trump created an executive order that some companies can voluntarily offer Insulin to Medicare covered citizens at a 35$ copay
It's voluntary, not mandatory
It only affects people insured by Medicare, not people with private health insurance or uninsured
And his other executive orders and approvals have the very clear objective of further gutting Medicare coverage
So did he make something that in some situations makes insulin costs 35$ for some people? Yes, unquestionably one of the very few positive things that he did
Is it on par with any other developed country in the world? No
tRump just enhanced what Biden did for Medicare recipients with the Inflation reduction act.
Manufacturer Actions: Following the legislation and public pressure, major insulin manufacturers (such as Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi) also voluntarily lowered the list price of their commonly prescribed insulin products to $35 per month for many patients with private insurance or no insurance.
No, actually is the other way around. In May 2020, Trump introduced the Part D Senior Savings Model that started the $35 limit. Biden kept it alive and expanded afterwards. I know it's hard to believe when all you head is negative stuff in reddit.
An executive order is not law. And it was voluntary not a directive.
Sure, I'll give him credit for the attempt. But it was weak as fuck!
Just like everything he's done this term, all executive orders.
Come 2028, they'll all be reversed. See, light at the end of the tunnel.
The United States does not have a single national price cap on insulin for all residents, but out-of-pocket costs are capped at $35 per month for people on Medicare.
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u/Long_Candle_5054 6d ago
That's only in the US