Health Care Policy

[Beavah]

When finally OK'ed, they have a shortened period in which to re-coup their costs.

 

Yah, but that's their choice, eh? They could choose not to file the patent until later in the process. Da fact that they choose to file so early is an effort to grab the monopoly protection early. It's a strategic gamble on their part. They shouldn't whine about it.

 

Furthermore, drugs not uncommonly fail during clinical trials which leaves the company with enormous costs for each product actually brought to market.

 

Yah, that's what happens with companies that innovate, eh? Apple might bring out the iPhone and it can be a smash, Apple might spend as much time and effort on AppleTV and it can be a dud. Wasted money, uppin' the cost. Pursue enough dead-ends as a company and yeh go bust. Have a corporate culture which encourages and selects for innovation yeh become rich. That's the way it's supposed to work.

 

So if the total accumulated costs for the next product brought to market is X then those costs will typically be re-couped over the years on patent - Y or X/Y. Obviously, the cost to the consumer will be less if Y is larger rather than smaller.

 

Yah, I think yeh need some revisions to your math there, eh? Obviously the company's profit will be higher if Y is larger, but dat's not the same thing as the cost to the consumer bein' lower. Da reason the profit is higher is that the government's grant of monopoly protection is costing the consumer more for more years. All monopolies always hurt the consumer, includin' government-guaranteed monopolies through patents (or copyrights). We agree to those monopolies only when they serve da very narrow purpose of encouragin' more innovation and ensuring the technology becomes generic relatively quickly.

 

As if in confirmation of my theory, I see Roche is now startin' a hostile takeover of Genentech today.

 

Beavah

 

[frankj]

This is from a George Will column last week (the next two paragraphs):

 

"The stimulus legislation would create a council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. This is about medicine but not about healing the economy. The CER would identify (this is language from the draft report on the legislation) medical "items, procedures, and interventions" that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They "will no longer be prescribed" by federal health programs.

 

The next secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, has advocated a "Federal Health Board" similar to the CER, whose recommendations "would have teeth": Congress could restrict the tax exclusion for private health insurance to "insurance that complies with the Board's recommendation." The CER, which would dramatically advance government control and rationing of health care, should be thoroughly debated, not stealthily created in the name of "stimulus." "

 

An example of how the current stimulus package includes all sorts of Trojan Horses. I don't want the tax cheat, Tom Daschle and cronies deciding what is effective and what is not, because ultimately, they'll make those decisions based on pressure from lobbyists. Yes, I know BHO has promised something about how his admin will be free from lobbyists, but it a way of life in Washington and these people don't change their stripes that readily.