I don’t know either. You’re the one making the claim that FDA regulation hurts as many people as it helps. But your backup for it is a single anecdote. As long as we’re clear on that…
FDA approval is a baseline, a minimum. If anyone wanted guarantees above FDA approval and their own doctor’s prescription, I don’t believe there’s anything in law that would prevent such a system from arising. I also don’t see how abolishing the FDA would make such a system more likely to arise.
This is just faith. We used to not have an FDA. How well did our competing rating systems work then?
I disagree. By creating a marketplace in which a drug must be proven effective and safe, and then protects such drugs against competitors that haven’t been rigorously tested, FDA regulation
incents the development of safe, effective drugs that are proven to save lives
sometimes prevents people from taking drugs that could hurt or kill them (or their offspring)
in doing these things, leads to health care which is reliable and effective
“Deaths owing to drug lag have been numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Wardell (1978a) estimated that practolol, a drug in the beta-blocking family, could save ten thousand lives a year if allowed in the United States. Although the FDA allowed a first beta-blocker, propranolol, in 1968, three years after that drug had been available in Europe, it waited until 1978 to allow the use of propranolol for the treatment of hypertension and angina pectoris, its most important indications. Despite clinical evidence as early as 1974, only in 1981 did the FDA allow a second beta-blocker, timolo, for prevention of a second heart attack. The agency’s withholding of beta-blockers was alone responsible for probably tens of thousands of deaths (on this general issue see Gieringer 1985; Kazman 1990).”
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Gieringer (1985) used data on drug disasters in countries with less-stringent drug regulations than the United States to create a ballpark estimate of the number of lives saved by the extra scrutiny induced by FDA requirements. He then computed a similar ballpark figure for the number of lives lost owing to drug delay:
[T]he benefits of FDA regulation relative to that in foreign countries could reasonably be put at some 5,000 casualties per decade or 10,000 per decade for worst-case scenarios. In comparison, it has been argued above that the cost of FDA delay can be estimated at anywhere from 21,000 to 120,000 lives per decade. . . . .Given the uncertainties of the data, these results must be interpreted with caution, although it seems clear that the costs of regulation are substantial when compared to benefits. (196)"
But one important item is curiously being left out of your points WillMagic: the FDA’s financial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry and the latest reforms that were tailor made to benefit the big private pharmaceutical industry:
Um, yeah. I’m not a fan of either the American system or the European system.
But one important item is curiously being left out of your points WillMagic: the FDA’s financial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry and the latest reforms that were tailor made to benefit the big private pharmaceutical industry:
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Shocking isn’t it? How goverment officials running programs ostensibly for the “public good” instead look out for their own interests?
I hate the incestuous relationship between big business and big government just as much as you do. But yet you seem to think that the cure for this is…more government involvement in health care? Am I misstating your position?
The conservative Journal of the American Medical Association says that an independent board needs to be set up to monitor the safety of drugs already on the market. I take it that well, yes. But it is clear to me that it is expected that there will be input from private industry, just not as prevalent as it is happening right now.
Incidentally the best UHC systems I see out there are a combination of private and government health care providers, the lesson I take from there is that health care being a human issue can not be just a big business domain, but because some elements do follow supply and demand, it can not be a purely government solution either.
Even I have some issues with the Canadian government only health care, but recently private industry is getting a chance of appearing in there too.
I noticed before that many new or small business are not appearing or developing because workers do not want to risk losing benefits and small companies many times still pay more than big companies to insure their workers, big companies usually get a better deal because of the quantity of workers reduces the risk of a few of them having preexisting conditions (there is the negotiate a better deal “under the gun” again, and this time in the private industry!)
However this means that people who dream of starting business on their own get a rude awakening when they find their insurance premiums kill their dreams if there is a preexisting condition. And sometimes not even that, in one case reported in the local Arizona TV channel, a woman starting her own business was a few pounds overweight, she found her premiums skyrocketed and that is when compared to the ones she was paying when she was employed.
As **Voyager ** mentions, right now big industry in the USA is being affected by the USA not having UHC, it is silly to pretend that the lack of UHC is not a factor when global corporations decide or not to open shops in the USA (or to move out of the USA), even with the power of numbers to get a better deal, health care costs remain higher in the USA than in other countries. Seeing that also many members of the middle class that want to start their own business are being affected too means to me that there is indeed hope for change, just not from the current administration.
Which is weird, because as far as I know, only people with low incomes are covered by the public healthcare system in the Netherlands. Others have to pay for a private insurance. Could a dutch poster chime in?
I know that this has become the standard conservative argument. Do you have any cites to studies showing that “free” health care increases consumption above the level warranted. This is from consumers - doctors assigning tests for malpractice prevention is a different issue.
I don’t see it myself. Sure lonely Aunt Mabel will go to the doctor all the time for company, but that is an exception. Doctors visits are disruptive and not a lot of fun. I know, having been in doctors’ offices every day last week, two days this week, and Og knows how often next week. An increase in use by people who can’t afford it now will happen (as in Taiwan according to the cite) but that is a good thing.
As opposed to a 24 hour stay or a 72 hour stay (like my wife had 25 years ago?) Do you think the trend to shorter stays will be reversed? I think there is such a trend - when my father was 45 he had a blood clot, and was in the hospital for weeks. At 90 he had another one, and was out in two days.
I agree that it is far more likely for the government to say yes too often rather than no. WillMagic must believe they get a cut of the savings.
The recent law prohibits the government from negotiating. I trust it would be unconstitutional for the government to force a drug company to sell a product at a certain price - but the government negotiates for a lot of things. There would certainly be political pressure to not rip off the drug companies.
Again, 31% of US health care costs are administrative. Do you think wasteful spending on treatment is anywhere near that? Health care accounts are much better for those who have money as opposed to those who don’t. They’d work for me, but not for the guy who would have to choose between putting money in a HCA or eating. I use a pretax spending account now, which works real well in my bracket. I really don’t think the rich need another tax break, and I’ve never understood how this would save money, except by keeping people who need care away from it.
-Have you evidences that “the government” forgoes expensive procedures in countries with an UHC system? In all such countries?
-If expensives procedures are available “for purchase” in a country without an UHC system, doesn’t that mean that most people will be denied them since they can’t afford them, anyway?
-What exactly is preventing you from “purchasing” such procedures in a country with a UHC system, even when they aren’t covered by the public system? There’s no difference between a procedure not covered by a public insurance scheme and a procedure not covered by a private insurance scheme. Nobody’s preventing you from having it done if you’re willing and able to shell the money, in either case.
And you somehow believe that you can’t pay an operation out of your pocket when there’s an UHC system in place? You’re under the belief that private insurances for expenses not covered by the UHC system don’t exist in such countries?
Your statements are just plain ludicrous. You obviously don’t have the slightest clue about how UHC systems work, or how medical care is organized in countries with an UHC system. You apparently aren’t even aware that UHC systems are widely different from one country to another. Which apparently doesn’t prevent you from making broad-ranging statements. So, besides your ideological beliefs about an issue you’re completely ignorant of, and your reasonned criticisms of things that don’t exist, on what are you basing your opinion?
I don’t know how the Canadian system works, not being Canadian, but I’m not surprised, that, as usual, an opponent to UCH systems is pointing at the UK and Canada, both infamous for they waiting lists. Isn’t it much more convenient when you can pick the worst example to support your argument?
Besides, even if healthcare is “rationned” in Canada, I still would rather have the Canadian system than the US one, where halthcare is equally rationned, but on the basis of how much money you’re making.
The health care system was completely overhauled in the Netherlands as of this year. There is no longer a distinction between the “low-income” (“Ziekenfonds”) and “high-income” systems. Link in English:
Not so. America has a free market in insurance, and you can insure yourself with a plan of your choosing. Again…nobody is denying anyone care in a free market. Each person makes the choice of how to insure him or herself, unlike in a UHC system in which you have no choice - you must take the government plan and nothing else. That’s the thing about government monopolies - they don’t like competition.
Um…it is illegal to offer private health care in Canada. Illegal. I-fucking-llegal. And I would guess that other countries with UHC while not banning private health care provision entirely would impose regulations on it to make it totally unfeasible.
Funny. Your other questions were reasonable. And then we have this ad hominem monstrosity. But that’s cool.
Well, exactly. Your positions in favor of letting anyone practice medicine (“Not to worry, you can sue them if they harm you!”) and letting any and all drugs be sold, untested, over the counter, are not those of a conservative, they’re those of an extremist.
As the man said, both the rich man and the poor man have the right to sleep under a bridge. The guy working minimum wage has the freedom to buy any insurance he wants. He also has the freedom to buy a Hummer. Just no money. Now, he doesn’t have the right to a car, but in a civilized nation he should have the right to see the doctor without driving himself into bankruptcy.
You were making statements about how the medical care system is organized in countries with an UHC system. Your statements are false. What can I say besides “you don’t know what you’re talking about”?
I noted, though, that in this last post you replaced your definitive statements by an “I would guess” (note that you’re still completely mistaken). Maybe next time you’ll actually try to know how it actually works instead of making guesses you pulled out of thin air, and then go on using those unexisting facts of your own making as arguments to support your stance.
