So why do we get mad at oil companies for increasing prices but medical costs are just fine

[dkf]

And the Government (and taxes!) should support and pay for any increase without uttering a peep?

You notice nobody seems to get mad at the price of a procedure or a drug or a test? What's up with that?

Instead we get mad at the government or our insurance company for not absorbing it all.

[AlabamaLibrul]

1. I don't know people who think the way you're suggesting. Yeah, drug prices are too damn high n/t

[pnwmom]

6. Anyone who's complaining about Obama's proposed cuts to Medicare

is saying this indirectly. Because all his cuts do is try to rein in Medicare increases, while maintaining health care for retirees.

[Electric Monk]

2. Nobody gets mad at the price of a procedure or a drug or a test?

Really?

False start.

[dkf]

5. I remember a couple of posts but that is about it.

You seen any today? This week?

[joshcryer]

3. Perhaps it's because oil companies are already subsidized to death?

While the field of medical care is not, at least not to the extent of the oil corps anyhow.

[dkf]

8. Drugs developed by Uncle Sam, PhD, play an outsized role in medicine

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/10/news/la-heb-drug-development-taxpayers-20110210

February 10, 2011|By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times

Historically, government-funded scientists conducted basic research and private companies used that information to create pharmaceutical products. For instance, NIH researcher Julius Axelrod won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 for his fundamental discoveries about neurotransmitters; later, companies like Eli Lilly & Co., Pfizer and SmithKline Beecham built on that work to develop the class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors, including Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil.

But public-sector research institutions (or PSRIs, for short) became more active players in drug development following the biotech revolution of the mid-1970s. Government-funded researchers used recombinant DNA technology and monoclonal antibodies to discover and invent biologic and small-molecule drugs. Patents proliferated, but few of these candidate drugs were licensed to the private sector. Then, in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act and other federal legislation changed the rules on technology licensing, making it more appealing for drug companies.

Altogether, they gave 75 PSRIs credit for inventing 153 new drugs that won FDA approval from 1970 to 2009. The NIH was responsible for 22 of the drugs on that list, and the University of California system came in second with 11. Rounding out the top five PSRIs were Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York with eight, Emory University in Atlanta with seven, and Yale University in New Haven, Conn., with six. Virtually half of the new drugs were developed for treating cancer or infectious disease.

And these weren’t just run-of-the-mill drugs – they were important ones. For instance, 46% of the drugs developed by PSRIs got priority reviews from the FDA (an indication that they offered a substantial improvement over existing treatments), compared with 20% of the drugs from the private sector.

In addition, the researchers wrote, “Virtually all the important, innovative vaccines that have been introduced during the past 25 years have been created by PSRIs.”

Public research institutions were also particularly good at identifying new uses for existing drugs. From 1990 to 2007, the FDA approved only 10 such requests; nine of them originated in PSRIs, according to the study.

Overall, the team concluded, “PSRIs tend to discover drugs that are expected to have a disproportionately important clinical effect.”

That’s your tax dollars at work.

[ejpoeta]

16. yet some company got a patent and got to soak us for them anyway and

the taxpayers got not benefit like getting paid back for all that investment did they? maybe i am wrong but i doubt it.

[dkf]

10. Academic researchers set to play much greater role in pharmaceutical development.

With drug pipelines running dry and a slew of blockbuster medicines about to lose patent protection, the voices arguing that the traditional drug-development process is too expensive and inefficient to survive are getting louder.

Employing thousands of in-house scientists to develop drug candidates from scratch has turned into a billion-dollar gamble that simply isn't delivering enough profitable products to market. Bernard Munos, founder of the InnoThink pharmaceutical policy research group in Indianapolis, Indiana, is not alone in believing that the next three years "will probably see an implosion of the old model" of drug discovery.

So what comes next? Cutbacks, certainly: witness Pfizer's dramatic announcement early last month that it will soon close its research site at Sandwich, UK, and slice roughly US$1.5 billion from its proposed 2012 research and development spend (see Nature 470, 154; 2011). But beyond that, perhaps, a rethink of the old divisions of labour is needed.

The model would rely heavily on academic scientists supported by a global initiative costing about $325 million a year, with half coming from the pharmaceutical industry and half from public and charitable sources. Successful drug candidates would be made available for the initiative's commercial sponsors to buy and bring to market.

Industry already believes that this is a fine solution for programmes in areas without major commercial interest, such as neglected diseases, says Stephen Friend, an organizer of the meeting and president of non-profit research organization Sage Bionetworks, based in Seattle, Washington. The key difference in the Toronto proposal is that it may also be a "viable way to improve return on investment in commercially important areas", he says.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/471017a.html

[dkf]

11. The government provides 36% of funding for medical research.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science

Most research funding comes from two major sources, corporations (through research and development departments) and government (primarily carried out through universities and specialised government agencies). Some small amounts of scientific research are carried out (or funded) by charitable foundations, especially in relation to developing cures for diseases such as cancer, malaria and AIDS.

In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government, although in poorer countries such as Portugal and Mexico the industry contribution is significantly less. The US government spends more than other countries on military R&D, although the proportion has fallen from around 30% in the 1980s to under 20%<1>. Government funding for medical research amounts to approximately 36% in the U.S. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).

[dkf]

13. How much of the health care dollar is publicly financed?

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#research

Over sixty percent (60.5 percent) of health spending in the U.S. is funded by government. Official figures for 2005 peg government’s share of total health expenditure at 45.4 percent, but this excludes two items:

1. Tax subsidies for private insurance, which cost the federal treasury $188.6 billion in 2004. These predominantly benefit wealthy taxpayers.

2. Government purchases of private health insurance for public employees such as police officers and teachers. Government paid private insurers $120.2 billion for such coverage in 2005: 24.7 percent of the total spending by U.S. employers for private insurance.

So, government’s true share amounted to 9.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2005, 60.5 percent of total health spending, or $4,048 per capita (out of total expenditure of $6,697).

[joshcryer]

14. Wow, health care gets 5x fossil fuel subsidies. That's crazy. Why aren't we socialized?

[DJ13]

4. Employer provided insurance masks the real cost of HC for many

[Cerridwen]

7. I dunno. What's your take on it? n/t

[dkf]

9. I thinks it's assbackwards as they say...

Higher gas prices advance us towards where we need to go. I don't see how crazy medical costs do anything except lead us towards bankruptcy.

[ErikJ]

12. I agree- 20% a Year!

SOMETHING is wrong. I think it has to do with a few things.

1. Privitization of hospitals
2. Non-profit hospitals going for-profit.
3. Medicare abuse and fraud, allowing hospitals getting used to charge 1000% on everything because Medicare will pay for it no questions asked.
4. The AMA severely restricting the number of doctors to keep competition low and prices high.
5. Very low taxes on the rich motivating 90% of doctors to go into very high paying specializations and not enough in primary care.
6. More high expense technical procedures and equipment driving up the cost and capitalization of health care.
6. Liability insurance getting more expensive every year. I know a doctor who was paying $80,000 a year...... in the 1980's!
7. Non-profit health insurance companies going public for-profit, jacking up the premiums for more and more profit.
8. Consolidation and monopolization of all health market sectors, hospitals, doctors, health insurance companies allowing for less
competitive market higher pricing.
9. Rampant corporate cronyism within and across health care market sectors including government.

[cali]

15. ridiculous. people get angry about the rising costs of healthcare all the time

[sendero]

17. I've been complaining..

... about our "name your price" health care system for ages. Primary care doctors get squeezed and every other provider, pharma, device makers, surgeons and specialists simply name their price and the price is ridiculous.

That is why the only long term answer to our health care mess is single payer, but the system will have to crash and burn (it will) before people will wise up.

[eilen]

18. Last week we had 100 less patients in the hospital

than usual. Very low census.

I don't know it that had anything to do with a front page newspaper article showing the numbers for hospital acquired infections, and other mishaps of our local hospitals.

[HopeHoops]

19. Fine my HAIRY ASS! I'm mad as hell about it! I have to use mail order for drugs now - AND...

...it is going to cost me more for the drugs that way! FUCK THAT! But they won't approve ANY amount if I have the prescriptions filled in person - full cost of the pills would be my burden and some of them are expensive. FUCK INSURANCE COMPANIES!

Yeah, and on top of that, our monthly hit went up, deductible went up, out-of-pocket went WAY up, and all of the percentages of coverage got worse. FUCK INSURANCE COMPANIES!

[Javaman]

20. since oil prices effect everything in our oil based society...

as oil goes up, so will medical and drug costs.

so getting mad at whom ever regarding the oil prices is the same as getting mad about med & drug prices.

However, were as getting mad about the cost of oil is the cause, getting mad about med prices going up due to the price of oil increasing is just a symptom.

Granted, I'm only talking about the effect of oil prices as it effects every facet of our life.

I'm not talking about the outright theft being perpetrated upon the American public by greedy health care corporate bastards.

That's an entirely different issue.

Cheers! :)

[shimmergal]

21. We do get mad, but--

what can you do?

I keep saying we need a Cramdown of medical charges even more than of mortgages, but so far that hasn't caught on. And the only way it will is enough government control over the process to enforce it.

Being able to charge people paying their own money 10 times or more the amount they (providers) settle for from insurance companies is just ridiculous. If the orthopedist can make money at $200 for setting a broken arm {recent event for one granddaughter], what gives them the right to charge $2000 for the same procedure (several-year-ago event for another granddaughter; unfortunately her parents didn't have insurance at the time.) Arghhh!

I seem to remember a court decision in New York against a nightclub that was charging men more than women for drinks. The rationale being, since there was govt. involvement in liquor laws etc., they had to treat all customers equally. WHY DOESN'T/SHOULDN'T THE SAME PRINCIPLE APPLY TO HEALTH INDUSTRY CHARGES? {I know the answer but I don't like it!}

And/or, the only other, possible attack angle is for some foreign emtity to offer a secure savings/investment vehicle which they make "judgement proff" against any charges for U.S. medical care, even if it comes thru a credit card company etc. That would offer some protection to help avoid "medical bankruptcy. (Not perfect, though, and I don't expect this to happen either.)