“This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep.”
The Biden Administration pleasantly stunned health care reform advocates Tuesday by including short-acting insulin in its list of 10 drugs for which Medicare will negotiate lower prices, power vested in the White House by the Inflation Reduction Act.
The IRA was passed in the face of one of the heftiest barrages of lobbying in congressional history, with the pharmaceutical industry spending more than $700 million over 2021 and 2022 — several times more than the second- and third-ranking industries — much of it aimed at stopping the legislation, watering it down, or undermining its implementation.
They need to find a way to negotiate the price down for everyone, not just retirees. Kids need insulin.
And after that, epi pens.
Here’s some good news about that with California making its own insulins:
The state-label insulins will cost no more than $30 per 10 milliliter vial, and no more than $55 for a box of five pre-filled pen cartridges — for both insured and uninsured patients. The medicines will be available nationwide, the governor’s office said.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1164572757/california-contract-cheap-insulin-calrx
That is really great news. Thanks!
I wish the process would be repeated by the federal government, for every similar drug that could be produced with their patent’s expiration.
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I’ve always wondered why those that might need an epinephrine shot don’t keep a vial and needle on hand. A vial of epinephrine goes for about $35. No judgement, just genuinely curious.
You ever try to draw from a syringe while you’re hypotensive, gasping for breath, and panicking as you’re about to pass out? That’s the primary innovation of the epi-pen. Remove cap, stab through clothes, press button.
Granted, syringe and vial would be better than not having epinephrine though.
You can prefill the needle and keep it in a pencil case. Syringes work fine through clothes, although not ideal.
I’m an insulin dependent (T1) diabetic. I keep a glucagon kit on hand in case of an emergency. It’s a syringe and vial that needs to be mixed. The idea is that if you’re unconscious, someone that is close can administer. If I were severely hypoglycemic I’d have problems, but my partner wouldn’t. I could pull it off if it were prefilled, but you can’t prefill glucagon.
Edit: I totally get it and agree though. Life saving medicine shouldn’t have any barriers.
You have to be careful about what tissue you put the epinephrine in. If you don’t hit the right tissue, it can not function or cause you to go into tachycardia. When your brain is also potentially not working super great due to low blood pressure (the shock part of anaphylactic shock), it’s best to have a point and click interface.
Where are all of the “think of the children” folk? Not important now that they’re born.
“If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re preschool, you’re fucked.” – George Carlin
Except even that isn’t true, because those “choose life” assholes don’t give two fucks about poor women without insurance being unable to afford pre-natal care. If your fetus dies from something preventable, fuck you lady.
Don’t worry, they’re too busy actively using children as pawns to fuck over the Internet, labor laws and trans people.
Children also make good target practice for guns in schools.
DARK BRANDON HAS ARRIVED
The problem is the government can’t set the price of goods in a private contract between two non-government entities, which is what would need to happen. The various bills you see in states setting co-pay caps is about as close as we can get, and that only happens because the government CAN regulate insurance companies and the policies they offer. While that might, eventually, put pressure on the insurance companies to demand lower prices from the manufacturers, it’s a long way disconnected from the price paid by the patient.
And regulating copays doesn’t help people without insurance at all.
That’s why this is such an important step. When prescription coverage was added to Medicare, the ability of the government to negotiate drug prices was specifically striped from the bill. The Inflation Reduction Act added it back, finally. And it’s a huge win. Medicare and Medicaid are enormous programs, and when they throw their weight around, they can affect the markets they’re in dramatically. It’s why the drug companies are already filing suit.
But the real solution isn’t trying to force private insurance companies to play ball, or make drug manufacturers sell at a low price, it’s to leverage that giant market pressure and expand Medicare eligibility to everyone. And if you’re worried about funding? Don’t be. Unlike social security, Medicare’s tax has no maximum wage.
Yup. Everything i hear about health care cost is leverage. I’m glad to see this.
government can’t set the price of goods in a private contract between two non-government entities
What about IRS? I mean they should report taxes. So if they refuse money they report they are getting paid, then it is low-hanging tax fraud. Probably. At least in Europe it would be.
Laws aren’t real. The government isn’t real. Money isn’t real.
You’re not listing good reasons. Just trite bullshit.
Laws are absolutely real, and this is a testable theory. Go break a law and put in no effort to hide what you’ve done. See what happens.
What you mean to say is that we can change laws, and that’s true. To do that, you’d need to elect more representatives, nationally, who agree with you - because the government is also very real.
You live in the real world, whether you like it or not.
What did @[email protected] specifically say that’s not factually true?
Uh… What?
There was fringe on the flag!
The pharmaceutical industry spent $700 million lobbying against this? What a bunch of assholes.
And they’ve already filed lawsuits:
The suits make similar and overlapping claims that Medicare negotiations are unconstitutional.
The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.
The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price.
They also contend that the talks violate the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to engage in the process.
Just ridiculous.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/10-drugs-to-face-medicare-price-negotiations-see-the-list.html
A great way to tell that a business is making way too much money is when they can afford to hire monkey cages full of lawyers to fling every terrible legal argument they can think of at you in the hope that one of them somehow sticks.
It is more cynical than that. They want to out spend the resources available to fight them, not win a legal case.
I don’t think they’re going to outspend the federal government though.
It’s not a cruise missile, there are limits.
Especially when they already own half the Senate.
They don’t need to. They need to outspend the specific attorney’s dept. Plus, many are counting on a change in administration before any consequences of merit.
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One thing that bothers me about the law. This kinda thing. There should be some sorta limit on how many arguments you can present. Multiple bad arguments does not equal a solid one.
And yet in every other country where they have to bargain against a centralized healthcare system, they are able to provide a decent price.
The US needs to take decisive action against these sociopaths.
Preferably with guillotines.
Import of French negotiation technology.
The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.
It will be interesting to watch this shake out, because this decision could have a lot of knock-off effects when it comes to further price negotiations by the government across a wide array of sectors.
“Below market rate”
If only looking at the USA where pharmaceutical companies are free to do as they please, but probably still higher than in any other rich countries in the world.
Yeah I think that’s going to end up being a pivotal distinction here, as these are companies with global reach and thus “market rate” will be a difficult concept to defend.
Exclusivity contracts would be one thing, but suggesting this is an egregious step by the US government is going to be a difficult case to prove imo.
Their proof will be with “vacations” etc for the judges sitting the trial.
Charge what they please. They are heavily regulated in what they can do. Which is why stuff like the J&J arsenic event is a once a decade thing vs a constant thing.
They likely are subsidized by the federal government anyway. As far as I’m concerned, any time the government gives money to a corporation, they’re no longer a private company until they pay it back.
Market rates aren’t reasonable compensation.
Just reading this it looks like they had this in their back pocket for a while lol
Oh yeah, lawyers start preparing these lawsuits as soon as an announcement is made (in this case the legislation being announced). They just don’t file them until absolutely necessary.
At this point the first amendment is just their catchall for any time they want to stop the government doing something, isnt it? Selling drugs isnt speech, making cakes or websites isn’t speech, you fucking monsters don’t have to like it and you don’t have to pretend to like it, you just have to stop destroying people for money.
The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price.
Sure Jan. 🙄
But doesn’t medicare already negotiate prescription drug prices? Or am I thinking of something else?
" Wealthy residents raise $60,000 to stop homeless shelter being built in San Francisco", was a headline last week.
It’s not just an 'industry" thing. It’s a "people"thing
When your reaction to poor, sick human beings getting the medicine they need without losing everything else in their lives is disappointment, you’re a bad person.
Fuck market capitalism and the sociopaths it creates.
Edit: and of course they’re actively suing from their steel towers for the right to continue to gouge sick, poor people deeper into poverty. What a humane economic system, amirite?
Watching the anime called “The Great Cleric”. It’s pretty accurately describes this in a fantasy setting.
Both parties have let them do just that for 43 years. Of course they’re gonna sue. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if a lawsuit becomes an excuse for Democrats to throw out exceedingly beneficial legislation like this.
They don’t let them do it, both parties are fully in the tank for the owners.
Americans mistake are going after our politician middle managers in Washington. Our oppressors operate out of Wall Street. The RNC and the DNC don’t promote you to federal level races unless you’ve proven to be a good “fundraiser” aka bribe taker, making the only potentially not purchased Congress people spoilers that jumped the line and succeeded like AOC.
Our system, imho is fucked beyond any hope of repair.
Either Collapse or revolution is inevitable though Collapse is far more likely as we’re a cowardly people.
That’s exactly what’s going to happen. This is being done so that Biden has something to talk about during his campaign stops. Very typical politician behavior. And completely insincere.
I find you’re inclusion of your sources to be quite… Attractive.
Having single digit compromised/broken is (sadly) actually pretty impressive.
Where is Right to Repair?
I always expect the other shoe to drop whenever Democrats pretend to be progressive.
Won’t somebody think about the pharma shareholders!
Meanwhile, those same companies sell for a fraction of the price all around the world.
You’re not kidding. Somebody did a survey in 2018 of insulin prices around the world, and here are the top ten most expensive:
- United States — $98.70
- Chile — $21.48
- Mexico — $16.48
- Japan — $14.40
- Switzerland — $12.46
- Canada — $12.00
- Germany — $11.00
- Korea — $10.30
- Luxembourg — $10.15
- Italy — $10.03
The study revealed that the manufacturer price for any given type of insulin averaged five to ten times higher in the U.S. ($98.70 USD) than in all other OECD countries ($8.81 on average).
Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country
Holy shit, the drop from the US to Chile is insane.
Where’s the antitrust suit when you need it, and how long before the the three mentioned companies start merging?
In before the “quality product” argument gets brought up, like the US is the gold standard in medicine and no other country can produce it at an equivalent level. Every other country can produce it but it’s 5-10x the price in the US, it’s straight greed
I don’t know how this is a negotiation…big pharma overcharges the USA by a lot…we all know it. How is this not illegal? Why are they not held accountable for inflating prices for 1 group of people? Imagine if they did the to just a single race…black, white, Asian, whatever… Is t it the same thing?
I thought the issue was that it wasn’t legal for the gov to negotiate prices?
big pharma overcharges the USA by a lot
A single months supply vial of insulin cost less to manufacture than a child’s Happy Meal
It’s not illegal because it isn’t illegal to set a price that the market can bear.
They’re not increasing prices for just one group of people, which may or may not be illegal, but rather setting a price for a given product.
This is the crux of why this has been such a tough nut to crack.
A product which is only necessary for one group of people. A group who, through circumstances likely beyond their control, need that medication to maintain a healthy life. Thinking of life saving medication as a product to be sold is the problem.
I don’t disagree with your intent, but this is not the way laws work in the United States. I generally share your opinion that our current methodology is not the way laws should work, but that does not change the present reality.
You asked, “How is this not illegal” and I answered that question.
I’m not the one who asked that. I think “How is this not illegal” wasn’t intended to be taken as a literal request to explain our current legal situation in this country but more an exasperated rhetorical question to underline the jarring and obvious moral hypocrisy in our laws.
That makes sense. I often interpret people too literally, and to me the person seemed to be literally asking why this wasn’t illegal.
I understand the frustration, and to me, the current legal framework is the source of the frustration, which is why I thought the question was both literal and apt.
Insurance companies when you need to use their service (which you pay monthly for):
- sorry I’m your doctor now and I’m not going to pay for that test Insurance companies when they need to bribe law makers:
- money go brrrtr
They throw a few million in the right pockets and they make billions in return, best investment they ever made.
You know who the real enemy in all of this is…
Anyone is making a fraction of a cent off of squeezing the literal life out of American citizens by keeping their money invested in “big pharma”. I am more than sure there are walking hypocrites out there that have had a loved one die while making money off their death.
If you care about this issue, tell everyone you know to de-invest in these companies.
Fuck them and their sociopathic ways.
I am going to throw this out there. I worked on waste processing systems for pharm companies for about 4 years, no it wasn’t every day, it was like one out of three projects.
Those pieces of garbage waste money harder and faster than any other industry or government I have ever dealt with. And that includes the US military, the gangster government of Saudi Arabia, and just plainly badly run factories. This is just one story
I designed some software for a system that reduced one chemical that was hard to dispose of into two easy to dispose of ones. No big deal. Sent it out and wrapped up in few days. Come in one morning to see this email exchange, heavily paraphrased
“Please inform (my name) that he is to fly into site for a Monday meeting to discuss the problems”
“He designed the software this is a chemistry problem”
“We want everyone on the project there”
“Again he is the software guy this is a chemistry problem”
“We want everyone on the project there”
“Why can’t he just sit in a conference call? He has other projects”
“We want everyone on the project there”
They flew me out, put me in a hotel, got me a rental car, paid for 4 meals, all so I could sit in for that 30 minute meeting and contribute nothing. There was well over 20 people in that room. I chatted with a few. This is welder, this is the concrete guy, this was an electrician, this was the tech that ran an Ethernet cord, this was the boiler guy. All of us sitting there while the chemical engineer just repeat back what he said in the email that they have to clean the tanks again.
Btw my employer charged 2 grand a day for me on site and 2 grand for travelling on top of expenses. I had sushi for dinner that night and stayed in a 3 star hotel, eating your grandma’s insulin money. You try to imagine what kinda money we are talking about. Over 20 highly skilled techs and engineers having to travel there. Go hire an electrician for a day and see what you get charged.
I want to tell this story to every bootlicker pharm shill in this country. This kinda shit is where the money is going. Not into R&D it is going so one manager could say they did their due diligence.
This sounds so real. I can imagine something similar happening.
Buy me a few beers some day. Tell you some more
-
The time an upper manager suggested we consider an ancient serial protocol to solve a trivial comm problem and a quarter of a million was spent for something never used and now it is still out there wasting electricity.
-
The time we used a HMI (like an iPad but for machines) that was 10x fold more expensive than what we needed because they wanted consistent parts but no else was using it and the part was no longer manufactured. The standard was not standard.
-
The time I was ordered to prove a pump worked but the water lines hadn’t been run so we sat there listening to it grind itself into early death just to get a box checked.
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Full wash down capabilities on electronics for an area with only dry paper waste.
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And my personal favorite the time I had (again 2,000 dollars a day) to drive six hours to tell them that the broken level sensor that was clearly broken in the picture they sent me was clearly broken. I applied the full power of my many years of experience and engineering degree to determine that if a sensor looks like someone repeatedly hit it with a hammer it may not work.
Dear Lauren! It sounds worse than Russia! It sounds worse than everything I knew!
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If you want to bash Big Pharma, go ahead, just hope you’re not COVID vaxxed and boosted if so.
right, because the microchip self destructs if you say too many negative things about the pharmaceutical industry
I wish mine did something that cool. All mine does tell me how flash is no longer supported and that there is more to adobe than reader. Also this time I was in Europe it demanded I accept cookies in 15 languages.
It must be getting close to a US election year. Suddenly, a Democratic president feigns to give a shit about the people who voted for him. Albeit grudgingly, of course, and knowing whatever he suggests now will be so watered down by the time it’s executed it will be like nothing happened at all.
You’re right, but also it’s better than nothing. If it were a republican in office they’d be doing the opposite and taking things away for the same reason, so I’ll take it.
Which should tell people about our leadership, but it doesn’t.
If the end result is the same theres no need to go through the song and dance. They will do all this carrot/stick politicking until the primaries then drop all discussion of progressive talk. Rince and repeat every 2 years.
The result is most definitely not the same.
The result is exactly the same. Same immigration policies, same foreign policies, same domestic policies. In any case the wealthy will always come out on top, and the labor class gets fucked. The only thing different is its now the red team screaming how bad things are, and dems have gone to brunch assuming our problems are being taken care of.
“I’m elevenfingerfrk and I look gift horses in the mouth”
How is that even applicable to this situation? It’s not as if he’s going to actually make this happen. There’s not even an actual gift horse to look in the mouth. It’s just political theater.
I almost would rather he just callously tell us pharma profits and campaign donations are more important to him and his stock portfolio than our health care needs. But that’s the kind of honesty we got from the last guy… and nobody in their right mind wants him back despite his, uh, version of “honesty” 🤮
I’ve never understood that expression. The gift horse was hiding Greek soldiers that sacked the city. If someone had looked inside, Troy might not have fallen.
I don’t think the original expression had anything to do with the Trojan horse.
I believe the original relates to the fact that one of the ways you check the health and condition of a horse is to check its teeth. But if someone is giving you a horse as a gift, it’s rude to check the teeth as it implies you think they’ve sold you a lemon.
So it just means ‘be grateful for what you’re given’. So I think the Troy parallel is just a coincidence.
I could be talking absolute rubbish though.
That’s the meaning. The earliest example is
“from St. Jerome’s “The Letter to the Ephesians” (written in Latin) in AD 400: “Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.” (This translates as “Never inspect the teeth of a given horse.”) https://www.grammar-monster.com/sayings_proverbs/dont_look_a_gift_horse_in_the_mouth.htm#:~:text=This idiom is over 1500,determined by examining its teeth.
The German version is “Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul”. Often followed by, “Einem geschenkten Barsch schaut man nicht unter die Kiemen.”
There’s more than one horse.
The true horse was inside of us all along
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
I cannot caps this enough.
ABOUT. GODDAMN. TIME.
ABOUT. GODDAMN. TIME.
Yes.
Removed by mod
Overdue
The body count is as high as the tightrope on insulin price gouginf
Good!!! Stop the pharmacist companies
Yup, until you need them to keep you alive. Then you’ll shut your mouth, come back here and keep running it.
Thanks for highlighting the problem
Dumb idea, I know nothing about this all. What about alternatively opening up across-the-border purchases, allowing people to legally buy from other countries at a fraction of current US prices. Drug companies can still set their US, uncontrolled prices at whatever they want, & no one has to buy it from them. It’d be like, a Free Market at work. I know this is oversimplified & there’s a lot of complications I’m not aware of, but, just a thought. Also, speaking of unconstitutional, isn’t group collusion to manipulate the market a violation of Sherman Anti-Trust law? Just saying.
How do you make sure the drugs purchased overseas are safe? FDA has pretty tight control over the industry in the US to maintain that here.
For sure a valid question. My presumption is that the same drugs legally produced & sold under that country’s regulations would have a reasonable factor of safety. Good enough for their own people anyway. I think also if I’m faced with the decision, no insulin because I can’t afford it, or drugs only approved to Country X standards, I’m already in a risky situation. For sure some people are already doing this & having to do so illegally.
This is, quite frankly, a very poor assumption depending on where you are getting your drugs from. For example, Dr. Reddy in India is the equivalent of buying a “Channel” knock off purse from China. It looks like the real thing, it might even somewhat function like the real thing. But it some serious flaws.
European drugs, alternatively, are often literally the exact same drug for cheaper because the EMA is much stricter about pricing. But there are also laws that prevent exporting it from EU countries just as there are laws preventing importing into the US. Because international trade is not open.
Source: I work in Pharma.
this is going to kill stock prices. sell! sell! sell!
Who cares
