"“I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS,” he said. “I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”
An American newspaper subsequently used Prof Hawking as an example of the deficiencies of the NHS. “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,” it claimed. "
Can anyone advise which US newspaper achieved this really quite epic level of fail?
It’s not as if Obama is proposing anything remotely resembling the NHS - so not only are the comparisons gross misrepresentations, but they are entirely bogus.
Drug companies don’t overcharge in the US to subsidise the rest of the world. What has happened is that the rest of the world has legislation or market forces that forces the prices down there. Just because the US government is bought and sold (oh sorry, campaign contributions) by pharma which allows them to gouge the US market, it isn’t the rest of the world’s fault.
In one of the other threads regarding healthcare on here I noticed someone saying that one of the great things about the US system is that as the consumer you have the control to say things like “have you done this test?” and “don’t do that cheap test, do this one instead”.
I responded in that thread about how utterly alien that concept was to me as, frankly, I’m not so arrogant as to think I know better than the doctor about things like what test to do.
Wow, that really is a cock-up isn’t it? The man himself is on record as saying how brilliantly he’s been treated and they state the opposite? Is there even any need for an opposistion party when it’s so easy to rubbish their claims? (Am I right in thinking this is a Republican party spokesperson?)
What I have never been able to grasp is why ‘socialism’ seems to be so demonised in America? What is wrong with having access to health care etc. for everyone? What is wrong with the rich subsidizing that? I can think of far worse things that tax money is spent on to get annoyed about - it’s essentially like saying that you’d rather your money was wasted on expenses for local councils than given to charity. Are people that obsessed with money in the U.S that giving a small amount away to the poor and needy is viewed with such contempt? I really believe the way a populace treats it’s poor and downtrodden is a good example of the overall ‘health’ of the nation - it seems like the kind of thing a toddler would do when faced with the option of having to share their sweeties out: ‘But they’re all mine, I want them, waaaa, waaaa’.
I know it’s not all Americans but the ones that have this view kind of seem like douchbags to me.
I’m very amused by how so many right wingers think UHC is the first step to becoming the next USSR. Because we know how all those others countries with UHC ended up like the USSR, don’t we?
It’s a way of wraping what is essentially a practical matter in the national flag, as if there is still an Iron Curtain and the nation would be going to the ‘other side’. There is no other side, just sick people needing health care, but the American public have been encouraged to view the issue in non-rational, emotive terms as if the Cold War didn’t end 20 years ago.
It’s bizarre to the rest of the world, but the flag waving always works in that culture. They even sing the national anthem and clutch their chest at town hall meeting discussing the issue . . .
The great irony is, of course, systems like the NHS were voted into being by the greatest patriots of all e.g. both the civilian population and returning military personal returning from WW2 at the 1946 election.
Exactly! Imagine how annoyed you’d be as a Dr after the years of medical school, the years of 96hr weeks on the emergency ward etc. to be then quizzed by some advert addled simpleton telling you how to do your job? It annoys me when people tell me how to run my projects and they’re kind of allowed to!
(just to clarify I don’t when it’s constructive criticism from members of the project board, my boss etc. but random staff members who get involved on ‘what’s best’ even though they have no idea of the constraints imposed leading me to have to re-explain information that was put in the public domain to try to avoid this situation)
I go to a Dr because I know jack squat about medicine - if you believe you know best why bother even going? Why would you believe an advert selling you a product over a medical proffesional who has made it his/her lifes work to help heal the sick? Yeah, advertisers have your best interests at heart - the massive profits are just a happy by-product of that!
Which is why I agree with the late, great Bill Hicks on the matter of patriotism - it’s generally just a bullshit way of whipping up the voters into a frenzy because to disagree with the point would make you ‘Un-American’ whereas I always thought that blindly following a leader purely because they wave a flag at you and shouting down any rational discussion would be the really ‘Un-American’ approach because of, you know, free speech and all that.
After the huge mistake was pointed out to them, the IBD amended the article and added: “Editor’s Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.”
“Implied.” snerk Now the article (here) focuses strictly on the government’s plans to kill granny. Still bizarre.
No, I wouldn’t happy about it at all. Why should Canada give a shit?
Maybe part of the reason that Canada gets cheap drugs is that the US pays more. Let’s assume this is true. Why is the US morally obligated to continue this? jsgoddess apparently thinks we are. Why?
I understand that you don’t want to pay more money for drugs with no benefit to you. Neither do I. Here’s a plan that, if it works, will stop the subsidy. If high drug prices in the US aren’t a subsidy for Canada, then it won’t hurt anything. If they are, then Canada will no longer enjoy lower drug prices at US expense.
Yes, we do have advertisements for drugs that are available only by prescription. Typically, there will be images of an attractive, fit, late-middle-aged couple smiling and strolling across some meadow or windswept beach while a voiceover describes the amazing benefits of the drug. The voice lowers to a soft monotone and lists the potential side effects, sometimes including death. Then there’s a tag line at the end, something like “ask your doctor if Gleemonex is right for you.”
Um, American’s pay more for their meds because they have a ‘for profit’ model for health care. Because they are too scared of the word socialism to think straight.
They have ‘socialized’ education, fire services, police services and yet can’t see what a capitalists wet dream it is for health care to be ‘for profit’.
Americans deserve the system they have as long as they allow their nation to be ruled by the, always effective, politics of fear. Used to prioritize profit above caring for their own sick and dying.
There are a lot of players in this debate. Powerful and moneyed players who are much more interested in frightening people and muddying the waters than helping sick people access care.
Personally, I think most Americans are intelligent enough to think their way through this issue themselves, weighing the advantages and disadvantages successfully. But I doubt that will happen as they are overpoweringly, coweringly afraid of anything ‘socialist’.
I believe, in the end, that will rule. In a country with socialized fire, ambulance, police, and education, no less. It is to laugh.
“Also, their profits are enormously high. Until last year, [they were] the number one industry in the U.S. in terms of profits. In 2002, the top 10 American [pharmaceutical] companies in the Fortune 500 made 17 percent of their sales in profits, whereas they spent only 14 percent on R&D. The median for the other Fortune 500 companies was between 3 percent of sales.”
The basis for making money in the pharma industry is the ownership and marketing of intellectual property in drugs. This involves ownership of limited monopolies (patent rights) to sell drugs in a particular country, and the marketing of those drugs to the general public and physicians. Of the two forms of marketing, marketing to the general public is by far the most costly (TV ads, glossy magazines, etc.).
Governments grant patent monopolies to encourage innovation. Owning a monopoly provides good basis for charging monopoly prices. In order to avoid abuses, governments set certain terms on these monopolies, too. There is no such thing as a truly “free market” in drugs, as a patent is by definition a restriction on the market.
In return for granting patent monopolies, governments set terms. In Canada, these terms include an elaborate mechanism for setting maximum prices - The Patent Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB). In addition, given that many Canadians (not all - over 65 or on assistance) are publicly insured for drug costs, public plans (having immense bargaining power) bargain for price reductions in return for placing drugs (patented or not) on their “Formularies”. Private plans in the US do the same, but lack the same amount of bargaining power.
In spite of all of this, drug sellers still make big profits in Canada, even though the Canadian prices tend to be a lot lower. How can this be?
Well, one reason is that marketing costs are considerably lower in Canada. As previously stated, in Canada there is basically no direct to patient marketing of prescription-only (“Schedule F”) drugs. Marketing to doctors tends to be controlled as well through semi-governmental organizations like the Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board (PAAB) and voluntary industry associations like Rx&D. Thus, while drugs cost less to the public, overall costs of marketing are lower as well.
It would be interesting to compare how much US firms spend on “promotion” vs. how much they spend on “R&D” of new drugs (excluding the amounts spend on so-called “me too” drugs designed to extend or “evergreen” patents, which should righfully be added to the “promotional” spending).
It seems odd to me, to say the least, and counterintuitive, that a bunch of gov’t regulations and restrictions leads somehow to a more efficient outcome. I rather suspect that the reason is the existence of the patent system, which already distorts the “free market” something fierce.
The drug companys and those who support them tend to say that the higher prices in the US are necessary to support R&D of new drugs. I do not myself think this is the case: more an example of a system seriously out of wack, where the monopoly power is unchecked and unbalanced. If the US adopted the Canadian system, I rather suspect that prices in the US would fall and R&D would not suffer. Alternatively, the US should adopt a genuine free market and get rid of patent protections.