The Ideas Thread: Health Care (New) Ideas

[Shorty]

Finland and Japan, just as two examples, provide strong evidence to contradict this incredibly broad assertion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan

It would be just as untrue for RJ to say "One thing the US has proven conclusively over the past sixty years is that the private sector cannot efficiently provide health care". It is true that the US system does not, by any stretch of the imagination, efficiently provide health care, but it is a vast leap to extrapolate that to the conclusion that it is impossible for an efficient private health care system to exist, which is what you are doing in your claim about government-run healthcare.

The sentence in bold was actually loosely quoted from an article in The Telegraph describing the problems with the NHS. But you're right. I'll restate it as follows: One thing the NHS has proven conclusively in its sixty some years of existence is that the British government cannot efficiently provide health care.

And my main point remains the same. America should not put in place an NHS-like system here.

 

[Deacon923]

The sentence in bold was actually loosely quoted from an article in The Telegraph describing the problems with the NHS. But you're right. I'll restate it as follows: One thing the NHS has proven conclusively in its sixty some years of existence is that the British government cannot efficiently provide health care.

And my main point remains the same. America should not put in place an NHS-like system here.

That's better. and I agree with your main point.

 

[RJKarl]

923, for years, I've said due to our incredible infrastructure is the perfect place for the logical extension of single payer. Other countries are using it already. Everyone is covered, but those who want more coverage can buy it.

As I said earlier, if we get rid of the middlemen who provide little service and don't have to pay to cover those without insurance, these savings alone would approach 25% of costs.

Then we have to bring drug costs into reality. US consumers use the most and pay the most. Why should Canadians, Germans, etc., who use less RX, pay significantly lower prices for these remedies? This is crazy.

 

[bcobbdeacs]

RJ,
US uses most drugs because patients come in and expect to be given a drug to help whatever it is they think is wrong. If not, given they go to someone else who will give them something. Some of the Doc's are complicit also as they want to provide a cure when in many minor cases the body will heal itself without drugs.

 

[Deacon923]

RJ,
US uses most drugs because patients come in and expect to be given a drug to help whatever it is they think is wrong. If not, given they go to someone else who will give them something. Some of the Doc's are complicit also as they want to provide a cure when in many minor cases the body will heal itself without drugs.

You and RJ are identifying two different components of drug pricing. While US patients take more drugs than anyone else (overutilization), they also pay more, sometimes much, much more, for the same individual pill than citizens of other countries. Many people say that if we force the price of drugs more in line with other countries innovation will decline. There is probably some truth to that, but on the individual level it sucks that we each are paying much more than an Englishman, Canadian, Frenchman or other resident of equally wealthy countries. Essentially, US citizens are subsidizing the R&D departments of Big Pharma for the benefit of the rest of humankind.

Not sure how to solve that problem except to give Medicaid and Medicare bargaining authority over drugs. I am cynical about ever solving it because of the political power of Big Pharma.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

923, for years, I've said due to our incredible infrastructure is the perfect place for the logical extension of single payer. Other countries are using it already. Everyone is covered, but those who want more coverage can buy it.

As I said earlier, if we get rid of the middlemen who provide little service and don't have to pay to cover those without insurance, these savings alone would approach 25% of costs.

Then we have to bring drug costs into reality. US consumers use the most and pay the most. Why should Canadians, Germans, etc., who use less RX, pay significantly lower prices for these remedies? This is crazy.

That doesn't make any sense. If we (being the taxpayers) are paying for everyone's medical care under your single-payer scenario, then how are we not paying for "those without insurance"? We are not only paying for everyone's "insurance", but we are paying for all of their actual care.

 

[WFU71]

Not a new idea, but a new possibility:
http://www.mcknights.com/british-health-official-cure-for-dementia-could-come-by-2020/article/302533/

“Studies we're funding show that drugs which are already licensed for other conditions may also treat dementia. If these are successful, we could have them doubling as treatments for dementia within 10 years.”

 

[Kory]

Book Review: Two Critiques of America’s Ailing Health Care System | naked capitalism

Two new books chronicle the shortcomings of the nation’s health care system, if you can call it that.

www.nakedcapitalism.com

 

[Henry Chinaski]

You and RJ are identifying two different components of drug pricing. While US patients take more drugs than anyone else (overutilization), they also pay more, sometimes much, much more, for the same individual pill than citizens of other countries. Many people say that if we force the price of drugs more in line with other countries innovation will decline. There is probably some truth to that, but on the individual level it sucks that we each are paying much more than an Englishman, Canadian, Frenchman or other resident of equally wealthy countries. Essentially, US citizens are subsidizing the R&D departments of Big Pharma for the benefit of the rest of humankind.

Not sure how to solve that problem except to give Medicaid and Medicare bargaining authority over drugs. I am cynical about ever solving it because of the political power of Big Pharma.

This is a good post. (Disclaimer Big Pharma may be paying my mortgage). We seem to have settled into this devils bargain where we have a massive industry with loads of jobs that is subsidized by gouging the US health system. But that gouging is driving amazing innovation out there: statins, kinase inhibitors, TNF-blockers, GLP-1s now, dick pills (woot). These are life saving/changing products and the investment is there because of the massive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for pharma companies.

Definitely too many middlemen (hello PBMs!) and pricing could be less drunk for sure. Also they need to tighten patent laws - Humira should have gone generic years ago but AbbVie keeps using bullshit tricks to entend the patent life.