By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
richardhutnik on 03 August 2011
Edit Thread
Kasz216 said:
Mr Khan said:
 

How can they? Pretty sure international trade laws on Intellectual Property protect drugs, such that the screwey "one chemical compound, one company's possession," setup works worldwide, unless they're being reproduced illegally


Yeah, ironically, everyone is missing the very obvious point of... all it takes is there being one place where you can sell medicine, or machines or whatever at a better price.

The reason why such comparisons are worthless is EXACTLY because it's an international market.

 

Drug companies can sell a product in the US from 500, and the same one in europe for 250, and the same one in africa for like.... 5 bucks... because the actual cost of production is low.  So profits are still made in Europe and in Africa.

While america shoulders the brunt of the costs to cover R&D.

Ironically both more and less regulation i bet would lower drug prices.  The issue though is, will more regulation lead the US to have medical research funding analgous to Europe.

If so... the whole world's healthcare will drop.  (Or rather increase more slowly.)

In a country like England there is little incentive to upgrade technologies that work "Well enough."    The government isn't going to buy a bunch of new expensive MRI technology just because it detects something .4% better then the previous MRI machines.

In a country like the US, high end hosptials will, and so will other hospitals as the prices get cheaper and they rush to compete vs each other.

After the prices get low enough, then countries like England will buy in.  They may even get rates lowered ahead of time, if the company is confident the US will meet their R&D goals.

Without the US, who is going to take a big risk to imrpove technology that works ok?  There is a reason why the US accounts for over 80% of the world's medical research.  Think how much better EVERYONE'S healthcare would be, if Europe spent an even amount of money on biotechnology research. (The EU being about the same size.)

The advantages of the US healthcare system are hard to see, because they apply to the world as a whole.

So, in short, America is supposed to have a system that increasingly prices more people out of its services, which causes life expectancy to decline for the lack of preventive care, so that somehow the rest of the world gets better medication?  And then, the response to "something must be done" is "but you have emergency rooms!" as if some state law mandating a business can't turn anyone way makes up for a lack of preventive care.