The USA should nationalize the health care industry and all the pharmaceutical companies. Illness should not be a source of profit.
Novo Nordisk is a Danish company. Read that again: it is European.
No need to pirate, just kick in gear the Great White express.
https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1cn8dy8/what...
Look at how many times NHS is referenced and how it is viewed by those utilizing the system. In my opinion, socialized medicine tends to fail as the overall demand for healthcare will usually exceed the available supply in most societies.
I'm sure there are counterexamples to be provided; however, I think the benefits of a capitalist healthcare system are underappreciated.
That’s what “demand” represents in this equation. Not people who want faster cars or different colored Stanley cups, but access to life saving drugs and treatment. I’m not saying para-socialized systems are better (it’s capitalism with a wig) but the “benefits” of capitalism are nowhere near equally shared and in fact highly concentrated at the top. The benefits are in fact over-appreciated by those who have them and they will do anything to keep the dirt people away from their stash.
I don’t have a solution, but my point is praising mass death for the squalid masses is tacky and I personally wouldn’t do it on public forums.
*edited for spelling error
And where do you see me praising mass death?
Further edit: I would go far enough to say you lack any understanding of our current healthcare system besides meaningless feelings on how it should be in a utopian society. Resources are not limitless. There is a continual shortage of healthcare providers which there are no good solutions for currently. If you don't want to address this reality, there is really nothing to address at all.
What benefits? The benefit of mortgaging your home to pay for cancer treatment? The benefit of having your access to healthcare directly tied to your employment (especially considering that many wage workers are kept from working more than 35 hours a week lest they become eligible for employee sponsored health plans)? The benefit of having folks like Martin Shkreli corner the market on generic drugs and raise the prices, not because manufacturing costs have risen but because they are seeking windfall profits?
Seriously, what benefits? We have this silly notion that capitalism provides us with choice, and that this choice is a desirable good in itself. Choice is overrated. Health care is a commodity. You walk into any doctor with a broken arm, diabetes, COVID, pneumonia, depression, or any one of hundreds of other maladies, and the treatment for those will be the same regardless of the physician or the hospital or the clinic.
Those same people you say can't afford healthcare are the ones that are heavily subsidized by others through ACA, free community health plans, or Medicaid.
Healthcare is not a commodity despite your claim. It requires labor.
It seems most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance in the USA as opposed to the UK (see links below). In fact, the satisfaction from employer provided healthcare was much higher pre-ACA than it is currently. The middle class got shafted with increased premiums and deductibles to help subsidize those with low income. This has led to lower healthcare utilization rates in the middle class. The rich don't care since it's a marginal cost relative to their income/wealth. And, the biggest spenders (elderly) don't care since they are mostly on Medicare.
Most of the countries that report high satisfaction with their socialized medicine are both rich and have a low population count.
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https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/poll-finding/kff-surve... Most insured adults (81%) give their health insurance an overall rating of “excellent” or “good,” though ratings vary based on health status.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/public-satisfacti... Overall public satisfaction with how the NHS runs now stands at 24%
Exactly.
Let's take this further. Nobody should be making money off other people's suffering.
So.
Let's also zero out doctor's and nurse's salaries.
Hospital administrator's salaries.
This would also apply to all charities that try to alleviate any suffering. No administrator should make any money off other people's suffering.
The only profitable enterprise should be showing ads!
These same people are the ones who formulated a chemical that works, proved that it works, proved that it is safe. That same chemical improves the health of the population saving billions in costs and quality adjusted life years. So just describing it as just a manufacturing cost is disingenuous.
And you know this, but you think you're being clever. It's not clever.
Why would you suggest more government to a government created problem? Usually because people don't realize the government as the root cause in the first place. Get the government out, let people actually pay for their own health care, so they actually 'care' what they're paying. Use insurance for the exceptions cases. And social programs for the people who really can't afford it.
Capitalism actually works if you let it.
Right. This is why drugs like BPC-157, mentioned above, go for $25/month. There's a lot of competition on the gray market, and often the only way for vendors to differentiate themselves from the pack is on pricing, so drugs rarely if ever sell for more than double their manufacturing cost.
In the world of legitimate patented pharmaceuticals, the manufacturing cost is not even a consideration. It is often -- as it is here -- less than a single percentage point of the sale price.
This argument is always that if the government would just step out of the way the private market would provide for everyone and there would be full employment. As though somehow things like minimum wages and OSHA are what keep capitalism from reaching its full potential. As though things were better in the 19th century.
I've read Friedman and Hayek. The world they wanted is a terrifying world indeed.
When companies stop competing with each other, and start trying to suck as much money out of the government that they can - that's when things fall apart.
This is so hilariously wrong I'm not even going to address it.
You either pay for things up front with taxes, or you pay for them later by way of inflation. There's no free lunch.
The government has chosen inflation. Really at this point they'd save money by shutting down the IRS, dismantling the entire tax system and just pay for things by printing what they need. Inflation is the ultimate flat tax.