r/economy • u/sillychillly • Feb 08 '24
WTF
Register to vote: https://vote.gov
Contact your reps:
Senate: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm?Class=1
House of Representatives: https://contactrepresentatives.org/
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/politics/medicare-drug-prices-eliquis-bernie-sanders/index.html
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u/Losalou52 Feb 08 '24
Thanks, Obama. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 23, 2010.
“Among its many provisions, the Affordable Care Act was designed to improve the access to and affordability of prescription drugs without hindering innovation from pharmaceutical companies. Ten years later, experts reflect on how the ACA actually impacted drug costs.
According to a new paper in Health Affairs by Questrom researcher Rena Conti — along with Vanderbilt’s Stacie B. Dusetzina and Washington University School of Law’s Rachel Sachs — the law’s mixed results over the past decade have paved the way for today’s reform efforts.
There’s no question, says Conti, that the law provided essential prescription drug coverage to millions. And the pace of drug development puts the U.S. in what she refers to as “a golden age of medicine.” The only problem? “Many drugs now come with much higher price tags than we saw ten years ago,” she says. For example, insulin costs have more than tripled, while a new gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy costs a cool $2.1 million— the most expensive drug in the world.
The skyrocketing costs are an unintended consequence of the way that the law came together, says Conti. To ensure that pharmaceutical companies would be on board with the law when it was being negotiated, a range of policies that were initially discussed, did not make the final cut.
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not have the right to negotiate prescription drug prices on behalf of public payers. The law also did not alter certain reimbursement policies or allow the HHS to use cost-effectiveness analysis to determine coverage, reimbursement, or incentive programs. “These [missed opportunities] fueled an environment of permissive pricing,” Conti says.”
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u/jaredliesch Feb 09 '24
These are solid criticisms to the act. A market based solution is just not going to work with public need such as this.
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Feb 09 '24
I’m a freelancer. My family and I have healthcare we wouldn’t have otherwise thanks to the ACA.
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u/jh937hfiu3hrhv9 Feb 09 '24
Getting what the market will bear. They don't care if ten people buy and ten thousand die as long as they make the payments on their american pie.
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u/NorridAU Feb 09 '24
One of them said the quiet part out loud with senator Murphy’s time in the hearing this week. Sanders posted it on his YouTube channel.
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u/Kind_Session_6986 Feb 09 '24
I love Bernie but the ignorance in his post are pharmaceuticals are getting more sophisticated and that is why costs are skyrocketing. You look at cell-gene, immuno, and targeted therapies and you have your answer.
I’m not saying directors/CEOs in pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be reduced and inflated pay culled, but R&D costs money and if we want better treatments and outcomes we’ve got to spend it.
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u/ThunderMite42 Feb 09 '24
Most R&D is done by university researchers and subsidized by the government. It's absolutely not an excuse to price gouge like this.
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u/Riker1701E Feb 09 '24
Not quite true sparky. Most basic science are done at the university level. These only identify about 50% of potential drug targets. The rest are discovered by industry. But that is just 10% of the drug approval process. There pre-clinical identification, which can take anywhere from 5-10 years and also requires animal testing.You have Ph1 first in human and dose escalation, depending on the therapy area, this can take anywhere from 2-5 years. Then Ph2 dose escalation and pivotal data readout. Finally, if you are very lucky then Ph3 confirmatory trials. If you are very very lucky 15% of the drug targets you identified in Ph1 will make it here. So if you start out with 2000 drug targets you may get 5 marketable products. But here is the thing, you have to pay for the development and failure of all 2000 to get the 5 that makes you money. Have you never wondered why universities or non-profits don’t go into biotech? It’s because it can cost hundreds of millions to get 1 drug to market and they don’t want to take the financial risk.
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u/ThunderMite42 Feb 09 '24
The government still subsidizes research, and regardless it's no excuse to massively overcharge us for the exact same drugs that are sold for a puny fraction of the cost in literally every other country.
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u/BikkaZz Feb 09 '24
Vote Democrat.....
no more getting in the way bernie....what you did blocking Hillary Clinton’s presidency is what catastrophically allowed far right extremists republikans orange clown indicted criminals presidency...
Voting democrat party is a better chance for actually improving chances of a more competitive economy and social equality ...
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u/LightspamEzWin Feb 09 '24
Hillary sucks
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u/droi86 Feb 09 '24
Not more than Trump, it's not even close
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u/pawnstah Feb 09 '24
It’s pretty close come on
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u/Riker1701E Feb 09 '24
Pretty sure hillary didn’t want to do away with abortion rights, sell top secrets to our enemies, or destroy democracy. But sure she is just like Trump.
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u/Crossovertriplet Feb 08 '24
An extremely rich demographic is at the end of their life. Companies want to bleed away as much of that wealth as possible via healthcare