So lets see if I get this straight. I am comparing health of people in various countries using actual data. You are countering that by coming up with a stupid example that compares car races with health. The onus is not on me to show why it is valid to compare healthcare results with other western democracies, it’s on you to show that your facile racing analogy has anything to do with healthcare.
Speed of the cars = health of the population.
Number of doors = efficacy of healthcare system.
Engine power = other factors that contribute to the health of the population.
You are arguing that the US should make its healthcare system more like that of other countries (ie, that we should remove two doors from our four door car). But you are ignoring other factors that contribute to the health of a population (like you are ignoring other factors that contribute to the speed of a car).
The broader point is that you can’t use statistics about the overall health of a population to argue about the merits of their relative healthcare systems because there are many other factos that go into those stats than wether the country has a good healthcare system or not.
It’s more like 30. Try it some time.
But that’s not really the point. The price disparity itself is proof of a problem in the market. There’s a reason you don’t have to price check for milk.
It’s complicated. One factor is that most people aren’t paying the full price. Another factor is that the market for most individual drugs is relatively small. A third factor is that people think of medical goods differently for some reason – like you just hold your nose and pay the cost because that’s what the doctor ordered. A fourth factor is that it actually isn’t that easy to price check the price of drugs. Seriously, try it some time.
Notice, I said nothing about government regulations, so you can leave that strawman aside. My sole contention was that **Shodan **was wrong, and that this is a type of market failure. Not every market failure can or should be corrected by the government. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is a failure of the market.
Perhaps the problem is that some conservatives see the phrase “market failure” as some kind of attack on Capitalism. It isn’t. It’s a recognition that markets in the real world aren’t always well-functioning, which all but the Randroids can understand.
It isn’t price gouging, of course. It is a business profiting from ignorance (or laziness, if you prefer), instead of profiting from all of the virtuous activity the market normally rewards.
I understood the analogy, but it’s lame. I am quite sure that if the US had lower healthcare costs and better health than the rest of the world you and other conservatives would be using that as an example of what a great healthcare system we have.
:rolleyes: Guess that’s all you’ve got? If I believed in something as fervently as you believe in UHC, I’d have better arguments for my position than you do.
If you think it might help convince your mother in law, you might try an experiment. Try looking for the same items at CVS and Target (I’m picking Target because I did this there). On an item with the exact same brand, CVS was consistently higher by a very high percentage on most (all) of the items I (personally) bought. For instance, 1 item I bought was $10 at CVS and $7 at Target for the exact same thing.
CVS tries to give you a lot of coupons and discounts to entice you into the store, but even after the coupons and discounts on the things I buy, the every day price at Target matches the price at CVS with the coupons and discounts. I think their business model is based on making up for those coupons and discounts.
If you can convince your mother in law that CVS charges more for things she sees are exactly the same, she might be more willing to believe CVS would charge more for the exact same generic drug. And hopefully, they are the exact same generic drug and you’re sure of that.
Ok, but what about my case. I had UHC insurance and my plan cost me $20 for 12.5mg of a drug for a 3 month supply. My husband had UHC insurance and his plan cost him $2 for 25 mg for a 3 month supply for the same drug. I looked online for walmart’s (no insurance) cost for the 12.5mg cost for 3 months, it was $10 dollars. I rationally expected that when I went on my husband’s insurance plan that my cost would be lower than my previous cost. It wasn’t, it was over twice as much. Who would expect that??? Would you have called? Especially since the insurance demands that a 3 month scrip be done directly Dr to insurance company?
Fool me once…
You only got it for $1,500 less? It was being sold for 1/5 the price at a different dealership. I guess you just gave up too soon. You needed to ask for the Caprice XLT rather than the LXT, but they are functionally identical.
But there was even a better deal than that: you could have purchased two cars for the same price as one, and then when the first one had too many miles on it you’d have the spare. Did the dealership tell you that? Sometimes they don’t.
You are lucky in one respect however, if you had told them you were going to use the car for commuting rather than shopping it would have cost more.
CVS didn’t create anything. The lack of certainty stems directly from a lack of understanding on the part of your mother, about how generic drugs work. That’s understanding that can be imparted to her by a medical professional, be it her doctor or a pharmacist, so you have the choice to either help her get the knowledge she needs or stop complaining.
It’s actually important that you help her get this knowledge because eventually CVS is likely to change its supplier for this drug, and then like the difference between the CVS and Costco versions now, the shape and color of the pills will change, and then what? Will your mother refuse to take the medication at all? That’s clearly not a reasonable situation.
She needs to be educated. She will clearly not ask for this education herself. You can rail at CVS for something they didn’t do, or you can help your mother understand something that’s really quite important. Which do you prefer? Whining or action?
You are basically saying no comparisons are possible because you think that confounding factors play a much larger role in our health outcomes than our health care system and you use a retarded analogy to try and prove your point, Pffft.
They are made by different manufacturers but the drug is off patent and is manufactured by at least 10 different drug manufacturers. The pills from CVS are blue diamonds (I think) and the onesfrom Costco are pink ovals. They might be manufactured differently or they might have different buffers but generic drugs have to be approved by the FDA too and they test for efficacy.
I hear you about CVS prices and several other drugs are only 50% to 100% higher at CVS but this particular drug (losartan) presents a 700% price difference.
Yeah, if you’ve read this thread, you would know that we’ve told her that generics are pretty much the same. This was told to her by doctors and pharmacists in her family. So what do you suggest now?
I am ranting at CVS because they are charging 7 times what Costco charges, why is that not a legitimate topic for pitting, why is that “whining”?
Are you aware that the OECD only has 34 memberships OF ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, which numbers around 204?
Have her doctor explain it to her. Family is rarely viewed as an authority on these matters. The doctor who wrote the prescription is the one who should make it understood.
That’s not the part that’s whining, it’s the blaming them for the lack of understanding that’s ridiculous.
Yeah, her doctor told her the same thing. How is blaming CVS for taking advantage of an old lady’s ignorance and fears =whing?
Oh yeah, I forgot about Bumfuckistan. Are their costs higher than ours?
How much do you wanna bet that the research for those articles was paid for by the makers of the brand name medications?
Nothing, because there are supported by what good doctors observe with their own patients. There is a non-zero amount of patients who react to a change in medication, despite the same active ingredient, with symptoms, because of differences in filler or something else. This occurs not only when switching from Brand A to generic A, but also from generic A to generic B. This is why it’s not pharma companies sponsoring that; rather, it started with health insurances forcing doctors to prescribe the cheaper generics over the brand names, doctors observing effects in their patients from the switch and wanting confirmed data instead of anecdotes.
The problem is two-fold: neither the doctor nor the patient know beforehand if switching from “medication with recipe A” to “medication with recipe B” will cause side-effects or not; and what side-effects might occur. Maybe in 100 years when DNA-typing is common and we have a better understanding of the body chemistry, we will be able to predict it, but currently not.
So we have two different scenarios:
the doctor is still trying to find the best combination and switching through different meds. At that point, trying generic B instead of brand A is a good time.
the doctor has found a good combination that works for the patient. From the doctors point, switching from brand A to generic B or from generic B to generic C has no advantage, only risk of unexpected side effects, so he is unlikly to recommend it.
BTW, problems can also occur if company brand A suddenly switches their recipe for medication A, usually without telling anybody. Suddenly the doctor is puzzled why the well-adjusted patient is getting worse and has to figure out where the change happened.
Sure there are differences in drug efficacy because one companys uses because different buffers change the rate at which drugs are released into the system, it might reduce the bioavailability of the drug to some people, etc. But its a crap shoot. The Costco $28 generic might be MORE effective than the CVS $200 generic. And in the vast majority of cases, there is no difference at all.