Drug Executive: It's a moral requirement to charge patients the highest price

[Divinity]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/...story.html

Is it bad that I want to see someone smash this guy's face in with a metal baseball bat, and then the hospital deny his insurance, and charge him $1,000,000,000 for treatment?  And then when he complains say it's a moral requirement they charge him the highest possible price.

I fucking hate people so much sometimes.

[Silver]

But how's he to make any money if he doesn't charge the highest price?

[Chad32]

This is what happens when people are allowed to run a monopoly. Competition is needed to drive prices down, because this happens when there's no competition.

[Angrboda]

I don't know that it's a moral imperative, but it is a business imperative to maximize profits for the benefit of stockholders and that is a moral and legal imperative. I understand we don't want profit to drive the decisions of pharmaceutical companies, but there don't immediately appear particularly good alternatives that I know of. Consumers can put some pressure on manufacturers, but since they have a captive market, that's ineffective. It could be mandated by law and regulated, but that might chill the motivation for spending the money to research and develop new drugs, and that's a lot. There doesn't seem to be an obvious solution, or, at the least, I haven't heard of one.

[Divinity]

Imagine if Jonas Salk felt that way about the Polio Vaccine.

[Angrboda]

Imagine if Jonas Salk felt that way about the Polio Vaccine.

And how exactly would that help?

"The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented." ~ Wikipedia

Do you know how much R&D seven billion dollars can fund? How many new and improved medications could be developed?

[Amarok]

But.. but.. healthcare is a commodity... 
(right wing idioticy )

And no competition does not drive down prices
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/su...-down.html

[Angrboda]

Vaccines Are Profitable, So What?

Not only do pediatricians and doctors often lose money on vaccine administration, it wasn't too long ago that the vaccine industry was struggling with slim profit margins and shortages. The Economist wrote that "for decades vaccines were a neglected corner of the drugs business, with old technology, little investment and abysmal profit margins. Many firms sold their vaccine divisions to concentrate on more profitable drugs."

In fact, vaccines were so unprofitable that some companies stopped making them altogether. In 1967, there were 26 vaccine manufactures. That number dropped to 17 by 1980. Ten years ago, the financial incentives to produce vaccines were so weak that there was growing concern that pharmaceutical companies were abandoning the vaccine business for selling more-profitable daily drug treatments. Compared with drugs that require daily doses, vaccines are only administered once a year or a lifetime. The pharmaceutical company Wyeth (which has since been acquired by Pfizer) reported that they stopped making the flu vaccine because the margins were so low.

[Anomalocaris]

Imagine if Jonas Salk felt that way about the Polio Vaccine.

And how exactly would that help?

"The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented." ~ Wikipedia

Do you know how much R&D seven billion dollars can fund?  How many new and improved medications could be developed?

How much is the financial damage to society resulting from reduction in the numbers of people vaccinated?

To optimize the value of the medical establishment, the advantage of greater investment in medical R&D must be balanced against:

1. the aggregate effect of reduction in accessibility of the fruits of past R&D.

2. the creation of harmful perverse incentives for selectively focusing on those R&D that promises to maximize the revenue to the pharmaceutical industry rather than to minimize the aggregate cost to society of ill health.

[Angrboda]

And how exactly would that help?

"The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented." ~ Wikipedia

Do you know how much R&D seven billion dollars can fund?  How many new and improved medications could be developed?

How much is the financial damage to society resulting from reduction in the numbers of people vaccinated?

To optimize the value of the medical establishment, the advantage of greater investment in medical R&D must be balanced against:

1. the aggregate effect of reduction in accessibility of the fruits of past R&D.

2. the creation of harmful perverse incentives for selectively focusing on those R&D that promises to maximize the revenue to the pharmaceutical industry rather than to minimize the aggregate cost to society of ill health.

Okay. And how do we get there? I don't think asking pharmaceutical companies to just give away their labors like Salk did is any kind of answer. As noted in my last post, lack of profit can equally as well dry up access.