Big Pill: Dazzling new argument 2 nationalize it

[oscar111]

Big Pill has a money reason NOT to seek total cures, only to seek mild pills that keep a disease going with milder symptoms.

REASON: a cure pill, would end the profits.

But a mild pill that lessens symptoms while keeping the disease going, means years of future profits rolling in.

Some say they have detected such behavior by Big Pill.

This is a dazzling new reason to nationalize Big Pill. Governments have reason to seek total cures, not longer profit trails. The reason, is that governments of the people, by the people, for the people, ---- want total cures - obviously.

I have never seen this argument before, so apologies if some of you cognoscenti think it has been around. It has not been prominent, for sure.

PS Lets all say Big Pill, not Pharma. The casual voter doesn't instantly know what you are talking about when you say Pharma. Eschew obfuscation. ie, ... Be clear. Limbaugh is clear, and he is winning big time.

[applegrove]

1. Yup. The market does not deliver properly on pharmaceuticals.

So they have monopolies on their new pills. But the monopoly time should depend on how useful the pill is. So they stop with inventing aspirin all over again.

[oscar111]

2. apple, pls lengthen your line of thought

it seems all true, but it is so dense with parts left out, i find it hard to follow the logic .

not disagreeing, just need some parts filled in -- for me and esp for newbies to this area of economics.

many thanks, and kudos for your other posts which i also admire

[applegrove]

4. okay - I'll try. Could there be a futures market in pharmaceutical

monopolies? I don't know if that would work. But sometimes you need a hospital super=bug researched...and you have a monopoly of 10 years on it but the bug changes and new ones come out a year after you have done the research and come out with the new anti-biotic.

Could the monopoly of 'sister' drugs be made smaller for pharmaceuticals. (If you **** around enough with unimportant drugs then you loose your monopoly years).

Could the monopoly on something really ignored but important be longer (I mean as long as it is today - but dependant on need and the investment that must be made)?

Could pharmaceuticals that are studying one thing and have the futures monopoly on it then initiate another monopoly if the drug morphs into something else and say an arthritis pill becomes a breakthrough anti-biotic?

Cause there really, really are drugs out there that are amazing and change lives. PTSD is not such a big deal anymore.

Of course, if there is no government ability to control the price of drugs with buying groups..why would you give a break to pharmaceuticals? If they are just going to not play by the opposite rules that Walmart does and not allow health care plans, groups of insurees, government to use economies of scale & or power to get a great deal on pharmaceutical prices by buying in bulk - why wouldn't we keep going with government funding for those areas that are ignored. I mean - it wouldn't be just Medicare in the US, or the UN that gets good rates. It would be pensioners, etc.

The generic market would step in really quickly for less needed drugs. But stay longer (not too long) for the desperately needed ones.

And government study and research could be a part of this too. Why should government do all the study and not get something back. Then they could fund the items that are still being ignored - just like they do.

If you don't hear from me tomorrow - I have been killed!:rofl:

[applegrove]

6. Addendum.

Others are discussing the issue too. Others with much for expertise than me.

The thing is that new drugs really do help people. Same with stem cells. They will transform the world. So we need the research. Just how to make it fill not the 'market' which is skewed for health care...but how to make it worth big pharma's while to invest in super-bugs antibiotics when the bugs change so quick (so their market would be only a few years in that case) or for diseases like malaria that evolve and affect the poor. Or to stop inventing Viagra and aspirin.


Much more out there on this topic than I know.

But in the private medical model there are all sorts of bugaboos. Like preventive care (and money invested in that) can really save someone from chronic illness in the end. But what Pharma is going to push for preventive universal health care. It saves people money - but doesn't help the Pharmaceuticals increase market share.


And also the issue of a thing like Walmart - getting so big it can demand suppliers cut prices..just like a monopoly in universal health care would (the bigger you are the more you can effect & dominate the market). So why not universal health care? Where the government has the monopoly and demands certain salaries and cost reductions? That is how the system works in Canada. And though not totally private or totally perfect, universal health care actually keeps prices lower so it is more efficient (as well as being more equitable).

Kool-aid drinkers are wrong. The market does not deliver some things more efficiently than a government monopoly does. But the problem is how to fix the market so it does. Cause all they do is copy each other. And it helps - but not as many as that research money could.


There must be an article out there on this! Anyone?

[AndyTiedye]

3. More grants to Universities to do Research...

...would be the way to get the job done, if the big pill companies aren't doing it.

To nationalize the pharmaceutical companies would be difficult and
very expensive. They are multinational corporations. We cannot
nationalize what is outside our jurisdiction. Our Constitution also
requires that fair market value be paid when the government seizes
private property. The combined market cap of the pharmaceutical
industry is somewhere in the trillions.

It would be cheaper for the government to go into competition with
them, than to do eminent-domain on the industry.

Big Pill has a money reason NOT to seek total cures, only to seek mild pills that keep a disease going with milder symptoms.

How would they keep some not-so-big pill company or some university
lab from inventing a cure?

Some say they have detected such behavior by Big Pill.

Many have become skeptical of what "some people say".

Are there patents that they have bought up and refused to market?
Such things would be a matter of public record, and would strengthen
your case considerably.

[HuckleB]

7. Good post.

Still, a great deal of pharmaceutical research (possibly a majority, in fact) is already done this way, so I'm not certain that more grants would change pharma behavior, in regard to costs and patents. Systemic changes in regard to how pharmas use such research, and pay for such research (I don't believe they even pay back the costs of successful research, at this time) seem necessary, IMHO.

[oscar111]

8. Nationalizing is solution, not bandaids to current price gougers

Hi,
here is my polite reply.

we nationalized trains, so it is not too expensive. I fail to see big costs during nationalization. One simply changes the name of the owner and puts a new director over the old one.

Transnationals: one could ban sales of their products here. Then ignore patents, and have nationalized plants produce what we need.

OR: force the Transnat's to spin off all domestic US plants, and nationalize those only. Across all the Transnat's, such plants might produce all pills.

Let profts from nationalized plants slowly pay for the eminent domain money-give-away, over a fifty to twohundred years time span. Corporations never die. LOL. It came back to bite them LOL.

Actually, we only owe the Transnat's enough for a pension. "pension them off" was the old phrase for such.

Other solutions doubtless exist.
How have Europeans nationalized Trans's? Just copy their practical ideas. Case closed. Point rests.

BTW, ...Letting proven price-gougers stay in partial control of things here in th US, is asking for big trouble. Remember, the hi pill prices have killed thousands who could not afford them. Like asking an ex-con out after fifty years of prison, a felon who did check forgery, to run the Federal Reserve.... and hoping for the best.
Or asking a chummy CEO to run the SEC.

As to others finding total cures -- good point. But what others can do, does not relate to Big Pill failing to find total cures. BP will still have a money reason to fail, regardless of what others do offstage.

"some say" LOL i agree, be skeptical. OK, my source was an NPR interview, and because i couldnt recall the name of the interviewee, i left it more vague.

NPR site would have the interview transcripts for a fee, if anyone has the determination to seek the evidence of the interviewee. Sadly, i cannot recall the source of all hundreds of news items i hear. But it is fair to ask about sources.

OTHER REASONS TO NATIONALIZE:
18 % profits after the supposed "pouring huge dollars into research".
If so hard to get dollars for research, how is it that they have six times the profit margin of the average Fortune 5OO company? After all Big Pill researech dollars are spent.

Source: former edtor of NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.. Dr. ..is it Snow? think so.

Price gouging makes elders go without medicine, which kills thousands. So natonalize. Dont shilly shally around. Globally, millions die from AIDS, because Big Pill will not/can not provide low cost or free pills.
Bandaid solutions with the same guys in charge, are just asking for inaction and foot dragging... ie, trouble.

[chalky]

5. Another angle: John Abramson's book "Overdosed America"

"John Abramson, M.D., an award-winning family doctor on the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, reveals, in the same clear language that he used with his patients, how the corporate takeover of clinical research and medical practice is compromising Americans' health."

Quote from a review of Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, written by Dr. John Abramson.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/cgi-bin/apf4/amazon_products_feed.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&ItemId=0060568526


A quote of his from an interview he had with Aaron Brown (after Pfizer had to pulls Celebrex ads):
"...people are starting to get the idea that the real crisis in American medicine is that even the most disciplined, dedicated doctors, can no longer get accurate information. Because the drug companies have so much influence over what we believe the best medical care is."

http://www.yourlawyer.com/practice/news.htm?story_id=9098&topic=Vioxx

And although "Big Pill" (as you call them) needs to be checked, I think a HUGE component of the healthcare crisis seems to be flying below the radar--that other legalized mafia know as "The Insurance Industry".

[oscar111]

9. four corners of healthcre, to nationalize

Must nationalize ALL four corners or the one left private will jack prices sky hi,... like Big Pill has done.

1. drs
2 hospitals/nursg hlms
3 insurance
4 Big Pill

" insurance is a great idea. The only problem with it is all the people who work in that field"

LOL quote from some book

[burythehatchet]

10. the vast majority of ailments and sicknesses can be treated

by practitioners of acupuncture, homeopathy, massage, etc. Medicine is the biggest fraud and hoax outside of oil. With what the US spends on medicine, we could wipe out disease in no time if economic interests were neutralized.