Final-Fan said:
Snoopy said:
3. With the government subsidizing or paying someone's health care completely with Medicaid, companies have no incentive to lower prices for anything health care related. Again, look at my College example, it is very similar. Companies can charge a lot more and they know they will get the money because the government will just pay it and bill us.
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I'm gonna have to step in on this one. I'm almost physically restraining myself from a couple other points, too. Hiku, let me know if I'm stepping on your toes.
The drug price inflation isn't mainly because Medicaid is paying for it; in many cases it's because there's only one manufacturer of a particular drug or solution. When the choice is "pay up or literally die" most people are going to pay up unless they are unable to. The solution, I suppose, would be for big government to get its fingers out of patent protection on those drugs and treatments. Then the magic of the free market could drive prices down. Is that what you're advocating?
Even if the above wasn't true, private insurance is about twice as common as government insurance according to this. Your "government-induced lack of incentive" claim needs further justification in light of this, especially because if private insurance was able to keep the drug prices down people would switch to it, solving the problem for you and them.
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They will have to lower the price if people can't afford it. It is much more profitable to make it cheaper and have someone use the drugs over the long haul than to let them die right away and not make money for the next 20-30 years. Also, the pills are cheap to make and can be made by any country. Resulting in "black markets" or people buying drugs from a foreign country. India and China are already doing this. The U.S. patents for these drugs pretty much tells everyone how the drug is made and U.S patents only apply to the U.S. This is partly why drugs are cheaper in some cases in other countries because some countries will just make it and sell it themselves. So these companies whether or not they want to have to keep it at a cheap price or people will look elsewhere.
We have the Daddy federal government to blame for expensive drugs because they will pay these companies and keep handing them money.
