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You forgot to mention the fact that treatment had been withdrawn from their loved ones without their knowledge...
I dont know what your beef is
Originally posted by PapaEmeritus
reply to post by ridcully
I know there are other alternatives, Im just wondering if the government insurance is worth it compared to regular insurance. Basically in the US if you work for a good company you get good insurance. Insurance cost me $20 a month. It covers everything but cosmetic surgery. My dental $10 dollars a month and it covers everything, except if you get new teeth they only do a co pay on those. It's accepted almost everywhere, the places that dont accept it are dumps anyway. How many people choose NHS over private?
This was not the first recession or global downturn, things are bad but the system has not absolutely failed. People said the same thing in the 1930’s, it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.
That is not what the evidence of planned economies shows. If public ownership was so efficient why has every known planned economy seen huge economic shortages?
You haven’t actually answered any of the criticisms of nationalisation that I posted in reply to Evan. I said that if you nationalise pharmaceutical companies…
“you won’t eliminate costs, the capital still has to be paid for, scientists have to be paid, engineers have to be paid etc.
You then also have to find a way of replacing the investment that currently comes from private investors, you’re unlikely to get more from charity since if they could give more they probably would already. You could raise taxes but as I mentioned earlier private investment in pharmaceutical R&D was $39bn in the US alone, that’s a lot to raise in taxes if UK investment in anywhere near that figure.
What I said was medical research should be taken out of the hands of pharmaceutical co.’s. If the medical research deems a drug to be the answer then send it to a smaller big pharma industry for investigation and research. As long as drug companies conduct the research the only solution you will ever get is a drug.
A friend of mine gave up his research position with a pharmaceutical co. on ethical grounds. He tells me they are no longer set tasks to find a cure for x condition, rather, he told me, they work in labs with different compounds and chemicals and when they see a reaction they go to their line manager saying, ‘look if I do this with x and add y – z happens.’ And the companies ask ‘hmm..what can we use this for?’
The examples I gave were mistakes of medicine that have cost countless lives because the solutions were simple. They required that out of the box thinking and didn’t require a new drug with billions in research.
The examples I gave were mistakes of medicine that have cost countless lives because the solutions were simple. They required that out of the box thinking and didn’t require a new drug with billions in research.
They grossly undervalued our nationalised companies when they floated them – a lot of people made an awful lot of money out of privatised monopolies. Not a one private company will outlay the necessary investment on infrastructure. ...
I want MEDICAL research taken out of the hands of pharmaceuticals – but pls note my earlier point when I stated that if in the public domain there would be no requirement to expend billions in dividends. Private investors don’t invest in pharma out of the goodness of their hearts – they do it for money – lots of it.
And? You think public sector workers work for free or something?
Yes – and what were the profits? ...
Of course; pharmaceutical companies make drugs, that’s what pharmaceutical means, if pharmaceutical companies conduct research they’ll produce a drug.
If you say medical research should be taken out of the hands of pharmaceutical companies you are saying that they shouldn’t be able to develop new drugs.
How does stopping all private drug R&D help?
If you take medical R&D out of private hands all you do is cut off the supply of the drugs they develop. Unless you think everything they produce is useless I can’t see why that is a good thing.
You could nationalise these companies but as I said earlier you would have to replace private investment with higher taxes which would be very costly. Of course if government can find the money to fund a public pharmaceutical industry there is no reason why government couldn’t fund an increased parallel public R&D and thereby reap both the output of the private sector and a public sector that can afford to look at more commercially risky treatments.
That’s not because we have a private pharmaceutical industry. It is up to medical professionals and policy makers to determine what treatment is used; they create the demand that the pharmaceutical industry responds to.
If the way the private sector produces drugs is wasteful then competitors (private, public or charity) can take advantage of that with more targeted R&D, finding those simple solutions you talk about. There is nothing stopping the public sector from doing that; if you do your job inefficiently that does not stop others from doing it better does it.
That had nothing to do with what I asked. You said “of course medical research would cost less and be more efficient in the public sector”; if the public sector is inherently so more efficient why did every planned economy suffer economic shortages of goods?
If public ownership simply eliminated costs then economies based on public ownership should be much better than capitalist economies; but that’s not what has been observed.
There is no requirement for investors to invest out of the kindness of their heart so long as they invest; and they do.
If you ditch the profit incentive then those people will no longer invest and you have to make up that level of investment from somewhere and the only place that is going to come from is government or charity.
Yes – and what were the profits? ...
That’s irrelevant; private pharmaceuticals put $X into R&D, if you take
Originally posted by PapaEmeritus
reply to post by ridcully
I know there are other alternatives, Im just wondering if the government insurance is worth it compared to regular insurance. Basically in the US if you work for a good company you get good insurance. Insurance cost me $20 a month. It covers everything but cosmetic surgery. My dental $10 dollars a month and it covers everything, except if you get new teeth they only do a co pay on those. It's accepted almost everywhere, the places that dont accept it are dumps anyway. How many people choose NHS over private?
Originally posted by EvanB
reply to post by ridcully
Mate, regardless of your view of the source (which is something we share btw), I do go down the road of checking if this is bs or not before posting, and if it is you will get an appology from me everytime.. However in this case and those you cited, they are all true and have been on msm also..
As for the daily fail you are right, they do like stoking the fire however thats what these forums are for.. To debate the issues and test validity.. And this is the right place to do it too with all flavours of political leanings and not just the daily fails burn them all crowd
No – I did NOT say they stop making drugs – I said as long as they conduct medical research the ONLY solution will be a drug – because, as you stated, that’s what they do. They need a marketable product at the end of the day.
By citing my friend as but one example as I was attempting to demonstrate that private research & development has gone awry...chasing money & certainly NOT chasing cures. They largely produce palliative treatments NOT cures.
…
See above – we don’t want drugs – we want cures.
You see that $650 billion dollar annual 2007 profit for just 10 meds that you claim is ‘irrelevant’ to this argument – there’s your investment...
Precisely. See Prof. Healy on this subject. In summary he is apologising for medicine’s failure to protect us from the tyranny and propaganda spouted by big pharma …
What??? See Prof. Healy vid above
Britain didn’t have an entirely planned economy ...
Wake up – that bubble burst in 2008...
I think wires are getting crossed here; on page three you said that all medical research should be taken out of the hands of big pharma. I am saying that this would mean that they no longer produce new drugs and that this is bad. We may not agree on the latter but do we agree on the former?
I don’t know the truth of that but assuming it is true there is still a benefit in palliative treatment and the fact that palliative treatments exist does not stop the public or charity sectors from investing in cures. The activity of private pharmaceuticals is an additional benefit.
Sorry I thought you wanted to see prices come down to cost.
Secondly you’re proposing the creation of a monopoly with all the inefficiencies that they bring such as prices (you are proposing a profit making monopoly after all) far above those of a free market.
Yes pharmaceuticals do put a lot of effort into marketing but we’re not talking about a dumb consumer base, we’re talking about very intelligent, highly qualified people with access to the means to thoroughly test marketing claims all within a highly regulated market.
But I’m not talking about Britain I’m talking about the general relative efficiency of a public vs private industry. You said that “of course medical research would cost less and be more efficient in the public sector”;
But even if you were right that does not prove that public ownership is so obviously more efficient; the planned economies’ bubble burst far earlier.
By the way do you have a source for this $650bn profit for the top ten drugs? I’ve been looking around and the 2008 revenue of the largest 19 pharmaceutical companies in the world only came to around $500bn; $650bn seems unrealistic.