ladelfina
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
- Messages
- 2,713
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/13/AR2007021301149.html
just a couple highlights:
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp
On the "poor drug co." front.. I'll share one or two of the tricks pharma uses here to ensure profits:
1.) when you get your free or low-co-pay prescription here, it's dosed out in packages decided by the mfr. So if a doc prescribes 2 pills a day for 6 days, you still get a blister pack of, say, 30 pills. The pharmacists don't seem to handle loose pills. The gov't. subsidizes the drug companies in that it pays for the wasted medicine.
2.) There's a price stamped on each package. I believe the prices are the result of gov't. negotiations. Whether the price stamped is what the gov't. pays I don't know. If you are not signed up with the national health svc. you'd pay the price on the package; same for non-prescription drugs like aspirin and cough syrup. There's no price competition among pharmacies for these products and there are no generics at this point, though some are on the horizon, much to Bayer's chagrin. If you want aspirin right now, you get Bayer; all aspirin is Bayer, and the price is fixed.
I just wanted to be fair and point out that there's waste and bureaucracy in both systems.. both need to be combatted. I think the details are kind of interesting, but in the end I don't want to lose sight of the main issue, which is one of philosophy: one system treats health care as a luxury consumer item; the other as a basic, shared human need.
just a couple highlights:
While Americans spend fewer days in the hospital than people elsewhere, that efficiency is more than offset by a higher average cost per day -- $1,666, four times the industrial-country average. ... The hospitals will whine about all their free care for the uninsured. McKinsey concludes that is a relatively minor factor in an industry that has managed to rack up hefty operating profits in recent years, even at supposedly nonprofit hospitals.
Despite all that annoying drug advertising on TV, Americans pop fewer pills than people elsewhere. But, according to McKinsey, we still manage to spend $57 billion a year more for drugs than other developed countries. Some of that is because the newest and most expensive drugs are typically available here 18 months before most other places. But the much bigger reason, McKinsey found, is that drug companies are able to charge, on average, 60 to 70 percent more for branded prescription drugs.
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/rp/healthcare/accounting_cost_healthcare.asp
On the "poor drug co." front.. I'll share one or two of the tricks pharma uses here to ensure profits:
1.) when you get your free or low-co-pay prescription here, it's dosed out in packages decided by the mfr. So if a doc prescribes 2 pills a day for 6 days, you still get a blister pack of, say, 30 pills. The pharmacists don't seem to handle loose pills. The gov't. subsidizes the drug companies in that it pays for the wasted medicine.
2.) There's a price stamped on each package. I believe the prices are the result of gov't. negotiations. Whether the price stamped is what the gov't. pays I don't know. If you are not signed up with the national health svc. you'd pay the price on the package; same for non-prescription drugs like aspirin and cough syrup. There's no price competition among pharmacies for these products and there are no generics at this point, though some are on the horizon, much to Bayer's chagrin. If you want aspirin right now, you get Bayer; all aspirin is Bayer, and the price is fixed.
I just wanted to be fair and point out that there's waste and bureaucracy in both systems.. both need to be combatted. I think the details are kind of interesting, but in the end I don't want to lose sight of the main issue, which is one of philosophy: one system treats health care as a luxury consumer item; the other as a basic, shared human need.