US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2750

On January 16 2016 11:25 cLutZ wrote:

The exact numbers are unclear, but I would concede that for the next 5 years, this is the likely scenario (plus wait times because one of the only reasons the system is not flooded is because of high co-pays and low medicaid reimbursment rates). IMO, however, meting out care at our current levels, given the regulations on the professionals (and how much education they require) would not lower overall healthcare spending as a % of GDP by much. If you look at Medicare, it spends more than EU countries spend for caring for their 65+ populations. While the mantra is "Medicare for all" the reality, if you look at costs, is "Medicaid for all."



No, not at all. I think it would provide a cost savings on the overall % of GDP spent on healthcare because the government would impose cost controls, just as Canada, Australia, and all EU countries already do. I actually do not think this will result in a better allocation of resources (I don't know what the optimal % of GDP healthcare spending should be), I simply know it will be lower because of the price controls. I also believe that this will substantially impede medical progress, not only in America, but worldwide. Its been argued, but its fair to say that the US market is the reason pharmaceutical drugs are developed (even if its by a German company). Also, nearly all EU countries have a reciprocity-style system where if the FDA approves a drug/device, they submit it to less testing, the US does not, basically another worldwide cost the US bears.

This is just an opinion, but I'd say that healthcare has already been set back 5-10 years as a result of the nearly worldwide adoption of the EU-Socialized healthcare model, and if America had joined them in the 60s that number would be 20 years. Its a tradeoff between equality, and quality, not merely today, longterm. It is a classic seen vs. unseen problem, and I find it very strange that this is not intuitive to you.

On January 16 2016 11:59 Nyxisto wrote:
I guess his point is rather that the US is subsidizing the EU through research but I don't really know why it makes sense from an American perspective to keep doing that at the expense of their own citizens, and I'm not even sure if the US leading position in research is at all connected to the expensive healthcare system.

An 85-year-old Houston lawyer filed suit Thursday asking a federal court in Texas to rule on whether Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) is eligible to be President. It appears to be the first lawsuit challenging the Canadian-born Cruz's eligibility on the grounds that he does not meet the Constitution's "natural born citizen" requirement. But if Cruz-opponents were looking for the ideal test case to trip up his candidacy, this may not be it.

Newton B. Schwartz, Sr., who is leaning toward supporting Bernie Sanders for president, filed the lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment in the U.S. District Court in Southern District of Texas, as reported by Bloomberg News.

The lawsuit cites recent analysis by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe -- as well as concerns raised by C-SPAN callers and by Donald Trump -- that Cruz is not natural born. The rambling 28-page complaint brings all sorts of seemingly unrelated issues, including the Texas abortion case the Supreme Court will hear in March, the case it recently heard on public unions' fee structures and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's call for a Constitutional Convention.

"No previous case has been presented or decided on this issue by the U.S. Supreme Court, including because in fact none arose, as here to being a case or controversy ripe for decisions as here is presented," the complaint said. "The entire nation cannot afford such constitutionally confusion and uncertainties overhangings the electorate process."

The complaint argues that Cruz's issue is very different than the "birther" theories about President Barack Obama's birth, and that past presidential candidates like George Romney -- who was born in Mexico -- were also ineligible to be president or vice president.

On January 16 2016 11:25 cLutZ wrote:

The exact numbers are unclear, but I would concede that for the next 5 years, this is the likely scenario (plus wait times because one of the only reasons the system is not flooded is because of high co-pays and low medicaid reimbursment rates). IMO, however, meting out care at our current levels, given the regulations on the professionals (and how much education they require) would not lower overall healthcare spending as a % of GDP by much. If you look at Medicare, it spends more than EU countries spend for caring for their 65+ populations. While the mantra is "Medicare for all" the reality, if you look at costs, is "Medicaid for all."



No, not at all. I think it would provide a cost savings on the overall % of GDP spent on healthcare because the government would impose cost controls, just as Canada, Australia, and all EU countries already do. I actually do not think this will result in a better allocation of resources (I don't know what the optimal % of GDP healthcare spending should be), I simply know it will be lower because of the price controls. I also believe that this will substantially impede medical progress, not only in America, but worldwide. Its been argued, but its fair to say that the US market is the reason pharmaceutical drugs are developed (even if its by a German company). Also, nearly all EU countries have a reciprocity-style system where if the FDA approves a drug/device, they submit it to less testing, the US does not, basically another worldwide cost the US bears.

This is just an opinion, but I'd say that healthcare has already been set back 5-10 years as a result of the nearly worldwide adoption of the EU-Socialized healthcare model, and if America had joined them in the 60s that number would be 20 years. Its a tradeoff between equality, and quality, not merely today, longterm. It is a classic seen vs. unseen problem, and I find it very strange that this is not intuitive to you.

On January 16 2016 12:28 IgnE wrote:


You are basically valorizing Big Pharma beyond any relation to reality. No new blockbuster drugs that are widely used for common maladies without serious side effects have come out in the 21st century really. The whole pipeline has dried up and companies have started competing over IP fiefdoms rather than actually serving the public. The entire way we do medical/pharmaceutical/human science these days is fucked up and disconnected from knowledge systems that have served humanity immensely well through the millennia. We should be pouring research attention into studies about anything that improves health, including widely available substances, plants, herbs, etc., not just patentable drugs that are completely novel and have never interacted with human bodies before. This would require a complete paradigm shift towards optimal health rather than the addiction-model of treating diseases. We should be having research universities doing a different kind of science, instead of the inane incrementalist approaches they've been using, which are the natural evolution of competition among an increasingly unemployed graduate population looking for grant money that only goes to "proven" research tracks.

Your whole post is saturated with assumptions that Big Pharma will both continue to do a lot of good (i.e. through prescribing anti-depressants, ED pills, and painkillers) and that it's the only way to improve health outcomes. Most of Big Pharma's client base are addicted to a pill-machine that has co-evolved and mutually feeds off of a workforce that is afflicted with a whole series of nervous-system symptoms that the employed masses must attend to, including:

• vulnerability: the steady experience of flexibility without any form of protection
  
• hyperactivity: the imperative to accommodate constant availability
  
• simultaneity: the ability to handle at the same time the different tempi and velocities of multiple activies
  
• recombination: the crossings between various networks, social spaces, and available resources
  
• post-sexuality: the other as dildo
  
• fluid intimacies: the bodily production of indeterminate gender relations
  
• restlessness: being exposed to and trying to cope with the overabundance of communication, cooperation and interactivity
  
• unsettledness: the continuous experience of mobility across different spaces and time lines
  
• affective exhaustion: emotional exploitation, or emotion as an important element for the control of employability and multiple dependencies
  
• cunning: able to be deceitful, persistent, opportunistic, a trickster
  

(taken from work by Vassilis Tsianos and Dimitris Papadopoulos)

Add on top of these modern maladies the interactions between Big Agriculture/Food with Big Pharma and it's not surprising that health in the modern world is defined simply as the ability to work, not the ability to thrive. This is bullshit, and it's very strange to me that this is not intuitive to you.

Its been argued, but its fair to say that the US market is the reason pharmaceutical drugs are developed (even if its by a German company).

Also, nearly all EU countries have a reciprocity-style system where if the FDA approves a drug/device, they submit it to less testing, the US does not, basically another worldwide cost the US bears.

But like cars, I believe we're at the edge of a big discovery. For cars we've got electric and hybrids coming in (though sadly not hover cars). Progress has been slow and is still slow, but we're going to fucking do it.

On January 16 2016 11:59 Nyxisto wrote:
I guess his point is rather that the US is subsidizing the EU through research but I don't really know why it makes sense from an American perspective to keep doing that at the expense of their own citizens, and I'm not even sure if the US leading position in research is at all connected to the expensive healthcare system.

On January 16 2016 12:11 Toadesstern wrote:

he's not arguing that the US research is leading because of the US market, he's arguing that every research, including the european ones are where they are because of the US market.

On January 16 2016 12:50 Nyxisto wrote:
If I remember correctly the US has significantly more mri scan's, surgeries, medication prescriptions and so on than any other developed nation often without any advantage in outcome so I'd agree that the for-profit model is creating the wrong incentives here.

On January 16 2016 14:09 m4ini wrote:


It's because you can make the most money in a system that you can abuse. You simply can make money as big pharma in the US. A lot more than you could in europe. Martin Shkreli being the best proof as to why pharma companies want a big piece of the US market.

You can exploit the fuck out of peoples health.



I'd like some form of source for that, because i know for a fact that quite a considerable amount of free "medication" and supplements in the us (approved by FDA) is either restricted in europe, or flat out banned.

edit:



I do understand what you were trying to say, although that analogy is a bad one. Electric cars existed even before the first combustion engine, the first hybrid engine came out 1901 by Ferdinand Porsche.

Actually, it might be a good one. Because i do believe as well, that we can improve on existing drugs (the same way we can improve the concept "car"). Get rid of side effects, make them work faster, that kind of stuff. But in the end, all that already existed hundreds of years ago.

On January 16 2016 14:23 TheTenthDoc wrote:
The most hated person in the world would be an individual who discovered a one-shot cure for high blood pressure and then priced it based on how much money it would save an individual/their insurance over the course of their life time.

But, if people insist on making healthcare a market (and accepting that this implicitly means rich people deserve to live longer than poor people), that's really the only rational thing for that person to do, so you can't get upset about how they're doing it.

(By the way, there's no HIV vaccines-are you talking about treatment that prevents transmission with antiviral agents? And none of the Ebola treatments were actually all that useful compared to just treating people with fluids/etc. from the research I did on rotation back then, so it's hard to say that was a success, pretty much just throwing untested things at people and crossing our fingers)

But sure, that is another reason the American system doesnt work great: the FDA is highly subject to regulatory capture.

Also on subsidies/reciprocity. US Subsidizes EU Reciprocity being proposed by FDA Bill for reciprocity

So to recap, although we actually take fewer drugs than people in other countries

On January 16 2016 14:23 TheTenthDoc wrote:
The most hated person in the world would be an individual who discovered a one-shot cure for high blood pressure and then priced it based on how much money it would save an individual/their insurance over the course of their life time.

But, if people insist on making healthcare a market (and accepting that this implicitly means rich people deserve to live longer than poor people), that's really the only rational thing for that person to do, so you can't get upset about how they're doing it.

(By the way, there's no HIV vaccines-are you talking about treatment with antiviral agents to prevent transmission ? And none of the Ebola treatments were actually all that useful compared to just treating people with fluids/etc. from the research I did on rotation back then, so it's hard to say that was a success, pretty much just throwing untested things at people and crossing our fingers)

But overall big pharma is not really being all that evil. They're just doing exactly what they should be doing in a market-based healthcare economy, complete with questionable advertising and buying up and gutting small competitors.

On January 16 2016 14:55 IgnE wrote:
Guess what the market share on the hep and HIV drugs ticklish and clutz are talking about? Those aren't blockbuster drugs. They don't make Big Pharma money. And my argument here is that there are other ways to fund that research than through companies that are competing for profits. Most of your guys' legitimate points only graze the larger point I was making about the industry. Like if you are going to make arguments about the big stride that Pharma is taking at least connect them back to the point about economic viability.

By the way, this wasn't a blame big pharma for everything. This was a clutz is wrong about healthcare outcomes being dependent on a vibrant US corporate pharma climate.