EPTDrug Cost A Likely Death Sentence - Page 5
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Phayze
Canada2029 Posts
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Kaitlin
United States2958 Posts
On June 22 2011 18:45 Phayze wrote: These pharmaceutical companies are robbing people blind. Charging people 500k a year just for them to survive is disgusting. It should be illegal just for these companies to exist. I guess this is the problem with capitalism. It's sad because few cases like this get media awareness, and although this man may eventually spawn enough media attention that he is able to receive the medical care he needs others wont. The treatment has already been researched, money has already been spent, this is just highway robbery. Brilliant post. Thanks for coming. Here's the thing, we have all these do-gooders in the world, wanting everything to be free. It's health care, it should be for everyone. Yet not one of these people did the research to find this particular treatment. The only one that took the initiative was one of those evil pharmaceutical companies that should be illegal to exist, apparently. It was capitalism that found the cure for this, and after the years for the patent have passed, it will be readily available to everyone. Had this evil company not done the research, there would still be no drug after such time. Yep. Evil capitalism. It sucks for the OP's friend. But in the grand scheme of things, capitalism and the companies willing to take the risk to invest in the R&D necessary to find these solutions are the reason a cure was found. | ||
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Arnstein
Norway3381 Posts
We all do, we pay taxes. I'm glad some of my money can go to helping this guy, sounds like hell having this disease. It's also good to know that if I ever get something like this myself, at least I don't have to worry about the money part of it. | ||
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Khenra
Netherlands885 Posts
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
On June 22 2011 19:42 Khenra wrote: Charging half a million dollars a year for some pills is just plain ridiculous. The whole pharmaceutical system is fucked up. They can charge however much they want, people will pay any price not to die. If there is any industry that needs to be heavily regulated by the government, it's this one. I love the irony in your post. The pharmaceutical business is extremely heavily regulated, that's why the drugs cost so much. The FDA puts these extreme requirements on the pharmaceutical company in regards to quality control, testing, side effects, blah blah blah, so that when the drug does go out to the public, it is well tested and controlled to adhere to the regulations of the FDA. So, the FDA forces these regulations on the pharmaceutical companies in order to pass a drug, so that when that drug finally passes they have to charge a ridiculous price in order to recoup all the costs associated with R&D of this drug. All these posts of "OMG EVIL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES ARE KILLING THIS MAN" are just replying solely on emotion. Of course it costs money to develop these cures, so don't they deserve to get paid? And my favorite one was the post about how after they spend the time and money to develop this cure and test it, the pharmaceutical company should go out of business and it should be illegal for them to exist. That one was a real gem. | ||
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furymonkey
New Zealand1587 Posts
On June 22 2011 19:42 Khenra wrote: Charging half a million dollars a year for some pills is just plain ridiculous. The whole pharmaceutical system is fucked up. They can charge however much they want, people will pay any price not to die. If there is any industry that needs to be heavily regulated by the government, it's this one. The reason for your so called fucked up pharmaceutrical system is because the industry is heavily regulated. And it's not that is a bad things, it actually helps keep bad/harmful drugs away from us, would you want a cold medcine that makes your balls drops right off? :p | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5299 Posts
it only takes like 2-3 people, volunteers and ... time? | ||
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Arnstein
Norway3381 Posts
On June 22 2011 19:08 Kaitlin wrote: Brilliant post. Thanks for coming. Here's the thing, we have all these do-gooders in the world, wanting everything to be free. It's health care, it should be for everyone. Yet not one of these people did the research to find this particular treatment. The only one that took the initiative was one of those evil pharmaceutical companies that should be illegal to exist, apparently. It was capitalism that found the cure for this, and after the years for the patent have passed, it will be readily available to everyone. Had this evil company not done the research, there would still be no drug after such time. Yep. Evil capitalism. It sucks for the OP's friend. But in the grand scheme of things, capitalism and the companies willing to take the risk to invest in the R&D necessary to find these solutions are the reason a cure was found. Trying to find a cure for something just to make ridiculous amounts of money on sick people IS evil, even though it still helps the sick people, to a certain degree(if they can afford it...). This is at least +24 renegade in Mass Effect  I know many researchers, both medical and technical (engineers), and they basically all agree that working in state-driven research facilities is A LOT better than in private companies, even though they get less paid. A friend of mine worked in a research facility in the US a year, and did research for something lung-related, and the facility got an offer from a tobacco company, that would give them a lot of money, if they could either try to hide the risks of smoking, or just say that smoking isn't bad at all. They didn't accept, since they were quite rich, but there are many poor facilities out there that depends on this kind of shit to be able to survive. After I heard this I haven't trusted american research(except from the universities/facilities that I know are rich enough to say no to these kind of things). | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On June 22 2011 12:14 Arnstein wrote: Move to Norway. You actually aren't allowed to pay more than 300 dollars each year for any kind of treatment, after the first 300 dollars it's free. I highly doubt this treatment is covered in Norway, or anywhere for that matter. As in many countries with health insurance there is cap on what you pay per year, but that does not mean everything is covered. Actually a lot of treatments are not covered. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On June 22 2011 12:26 T.O.P. wrote: Of course they won't cover pre existing conditions. The whole point of insurance is to buy it before he gets sick. I would guess that not all plans cover this condition, and those that do would be rather expensive. So if they do not have good employer-provided insurance and since they do not know that he will have the condition (if they knew it would be preexisting condition) they would probably get a plan with insufficient coverage. And even if not, most reasonably priced plans have caps, so he would be fucked anyway considering the price tag. The only way for him to be better off would be to be rich or in a country with public healthcare that actually covers this treatment. But those are all ifs. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On June 22 2011 20:27 xM(Z wrote: how the fuck could developing/reaserching and getting this (and only this) thing approved cost billion of dollars? it only takes like 2-3 people, volunteers and ... time? definitely not, it takes a lot of people | ||
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pyrogenetix
China5098 Posts
it really sucks to be him. | ||
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WindCalibur
Canada938 Posts
On June 22 2011 20:27 xM(Z wrote: how the fuck could developing/reaserching and getting this (and only this) thing approved cost billion of dollars? it only takes like 2-3 people, volunteers and ... time? A lot more than that unfortunately. The amount of money put into research probably costs millions if not billions. | ||
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Arnstein
Norway3381 Posts
On June 22 2011 20:47 mcc wrote: I highly doubt this treatment is covered in Norway, or anywhere for that matter. As in many countries with health insurance there is cap on what you pay per year, but that does not mean everything is covered. Actually a lot of treatments are not covered. It is. | ||
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Sablar
Sweden880 Posts
In healthcare lives do have a price as this article proves and as is praxis in every country. It's nessecary simply because there is no such thing as unlimited funds for health. I don't think the problem lies in the fact there exists a potential cure for the problem thanks to the pharmaceutical company that developed it and wouldn't have if not for monetary gain, but the problem lies with the healthcare system. Anyway, on a large scale I think cuts need to be made in order to ensure that the most people survive for the budget allowed, but on a personal level it really sucks to be on the loosing end of it all. I would probably resort to something illegal either to get money or to steal the medicine directly. | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
On June 22 2011 20:47 mcc wrote: I highly doubt this treatment is covered in Norway, or anywhere for that matter. As in many countries with health insurance there is cap on what you pay per year, but that does not mean everything is covered. Actually a lot of treatments are not covered. This is true and the original poster is misinformed. If the drug costs are unreasonably high, it can break a hospital's or county's entire healthcare budget. Usually in these cases it's up to the country's national board of health and welfare to make the ultimate decision on whether a certain unreasonably expensive drug should be subsidized or not. In this decision they have to weigh in the likely occurrence and prevalence of the disease throughout the population. If it's a rare disease that only 1, 2 or 3 people are likely to get in Norway, it'll be more likely to be approved. Sweden has the same system as Norway, and still there have been cases where people were denied expensive drug treatments (especially if there are much much cheaper alternative treatments that unfortunately are less effective -- but still somewhat effective). They don't approve a rare and expensive treatment for 1 person if there are 100-200 other people with the same disease. They'd potentially break the healthcare budget if they did. | ||
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Sablar
Sweden880 Posts
Sure about that? Sweden has a very similar system and you can't pay more than around that amount per year even for very expensive medication, and I think the medicine in question would be covered, but there are still exceptions. | ||
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anatem
Romania1369 Posts
On June 22 2011 11:35 Kamais_Ookin wrote: What's the point of a cure if pretty much 99% of the people can't afford it? I understand profits and stuff but come on now... PNH is rare, with an annual rate of 1-2 cases per million. [my note: that's maybe 6k/year out of 7 billion people on the planet, and that if the rate is calculated worldwide, with how many of those being statistically in Canada this is a sad story no doubt, but there's how many thousands of people dying of incurable diseases all over the world every year ? of rare ones ? and how many more thousands dying of common ones ? or tens of thousands ? this article does nothing more than vilify drug companies in view of weaker minds, on a case that's perfectly understandable. this is a very inadequate and perverse ad misericordiam approach to the argument of drug companies being greedy assholes, which is the implication. and if there's an actual point being hinted at, it's this: the government needs to fund these drugs. really ? the government needs to fund the research then as well perhaps, since paying for a cure is paying for RD. and perhaps you'll be the one paying for a disease that affects 20-30 people a year in your entire half of a continent. while we're at it, why not let the government pay for even rarer diseases, the type of 1 in 100 million per year, it's the same principle. and then there's this whole people dying of 1 in 100 diseases in the world for want of medicine that's readily available to other parts of the world, omg, so many different, often contrasting principles, brain hurts! it's cool to make an article that brings a million implications without actually making a point that can be debated or adopting either an emotional or argumentative stance, since you can skip bringing any research, evidence, or argument to the table, and you can just sit back and watch people get emotional. sensationalist writing, a piece of crap article by any moderate journalistic standards feeding off the complexity of healthcare related issues and the grossly fallacious but intense argumentation thse subjects entail. perspective, a rare commodity these days. | ||
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seiferoth10
3362 Posts
On June 22 2011 20:27 xM(Z wrote: how the fuck could developing/reaserching and getting this (and only this) thing approved cost billion of dollars? it only takes like 2-3 people, volunteers and ... time? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630351/ There ya go buddy. Only a paltry $802 million to bring a drug to market in 2003. That's chump change. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
Are you sure, cannot really find anything to confirm or deny it, just that it is marketed in most of Europe, but possibly. Maybe you have some link to Norwegian set of covered treatments ? | ||
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