Comment by yurishimo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yurishimo | Hacker News Reader

How else will they pay for all of the marketing costs? /s

It's supply and demand. 75% of Americans can be classified as overweight or obese. For $150, I can get a doctor to write me a prescription. If I have that much money to throw around for "cosmetic" medication, it makes sense that the drug companies are going to increase their prices to take advantage of middle-class/rich Americans with too much disposable income.

This is also a side effect of the USAs lack of government subsidized healthcare. The gatekeeper to any treatment you want in America is $$$. That's fine for some things, but this is another aspect of that paradigm.

Here in the Netherlands, we've having discussions in the government about taxing or limiting certain types of unhealthy foods because it is lowering health outcomes AND it costs the government a lot more if everyone becomes metabolically unhealthy at 45 instead of 75 because their diet is crap. [0]

Until the paradigm changes, drug companies will keep milking Americans for all they're worth.

0: https://nltimes.nl/2024/06/17/health-disaster-making-netherl...

> drug companies will keep milking Americans for all they're worth

There’s a lot of blubber in them whales!

That’s the thing about socialized medicine. The government should put limits on what citizens are allowed to do because it impacts the bottom line.

In the US more people die per year of alcohol related diseases than by guns (1) (2). If we’re going to try to remove people’s rights to self defense, we need to remove people autonomy to purchase alcohol. The government would save billions of dollars a year on treatments if they just prohibit it.

The same goes for cigarettes, highly processed foods, and high fructose corn syrup. All of these should be banned because they lead directly to obesity, which costs trillions of dollars over a 10 year period. As the EU and even the US budget for their universal healthcare, they need to control the children, I mean citizens under their watch. The citizens show themselves unable or unwilling to control their consumption. Therefore such things should be out right banned.

1 - https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death... 2 - https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-j...

That's only if prohibition works, prohibition of consumption does not have a great track record of actually accomplishing the intended outcome.

If instead you look at why people drink, why they over consume, you can work levers that way. Are people seeking out escapes? Why? What can we do to make it so they don't feel that need?

Actually health improved under prohibition. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit...

The provider of health care can require that individuals stop indulging in certain practices. In the EU they can say you stop drinking or no health care. A person would then be free to find an alternative provider of health insurance. Maybe the EU countries would allow private insurance.

"health" did not improve, cirrhosis of the liver cases dropped. At the same time crimes related to drug addiction jumped 45% and all crime was up 20%.

That article is blinding the reader in its selective use of stats, by limiting the assessment to violent crime they ignore the wider social deleterious effect alcohol prohibition had.

The question is not "will this succeed in what it attempts to do", but rather "is it worth all the extra baggage", does it matter if alcohol prohibition works when it's also a weed and cocaine popularity campaign?

Killing other people is significantly different from killing oneself.

More than half of all gun deaths are suicide related. The US is middle of the pack in suicides per capita, which I interpret to mean removing all guns would not significantly reduce suicide per capita.

Also death by alcohol impacts more than just the dead person. There is massive emotional and economic impacts. There is lost time and productivity by both the dead guy and survivors. For the sake of economic wellbeing we need to out law any and all things that raise the cost of healthcare.

Everyone should be required to join Government or healthcare provided zoom meetings where we are all watched exercising in unison.

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