Say Anything Blog

So, who wants to put the government in charge of health care?

Stupid Democrats convinced that putting the incompetent government in charge is “compassionate”.

This reality inversion is said to be “reality based”.

Too bad the free-market system doesn’t work, huh?  (/sarcasm)

America wasn’t founded so we could all become better.  America was founded so we could all become whatever we damn well please.

Regards…

LTM,

Exactly.  Freedom works.  Freedom in the market is the solution to any crisis liberals can imagine or create including healthcare. 

And let’s not forget the only evil a liberal acknowledges in the world—profitable corporations—just gave us what government cannot, cheap prescription drugs. 

You liberals put that in your bong and smoke it.

Publix pharmacy offers a dozen or so drugs totally free of charge.  My last two visits there cost me zero.

Communism is evil

But Rob, Wal-Mart is eeevil.

The pharmacy section probably turns a larger profit than the rest of the store.
Loss leaders or minimally profitable generics bring people in whose other
medications turn huge profits for the store.
Walgreens and other chains award cash to people who transfer their prescriptions.
Pharming disease.

Wal Mart will recoup the cost by selling meat injected with a water and salt solution of up to 15% and charging full price as it were fresh meat. Do not be fooled.

Meanwhile, prescription drugs through the Medicare entitlement program are on pace to cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

So, who wants to put the government in charge of health care?

Inquiry Confirms Top Medicare Official Threatened Actuary Over Cost of Drug Benefits

“If a conservative is still a republican after the last 13 years, he is blind to the fact that his party of choice has failed him utterly.” – Realitybasedbob

Do not be fooled.

Yeah, cause it’s not like it is allowed by the USDA or something…

“The coalition said in accordance with what the USDA allowed, processors were told they could add up to 15 percent water solution to the chicken under the guidelines.”

Oh, and Walmart isn’t the only retailer who does this E.

You still have to accept the reality that freedom works.  Or you can continue to keep your head in your butt.

Woof, are loss leaders bad for consumers of prescription drugs?  I mean if ever there were a case for loss leaders I think a medical need would be it, no?

Not that this is the case, but still.

You gotta love the liberals who jump in the thread to say “Bbbbbut...Wal-Mart is making a profit!”

Yeah, Wal-Mart profits.  We get cheaper prescription drugs.  And along the way people get jobs selling/making the drugs.

It’s a win-win-win.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16330940/

With prescription sales at Walgreen, Rite Aid and CVS Corp. maintaining their strength nevertheless, many analysts have concluded that Wal-Mart’s pharmacy sales have been fueled by uninsured patients who weren’t buying prescriptions anywhere prior to its offer, as the drugstore chains say the overwhelming majority of their prescription customers are insured.

Loss leaders or minimally profitable generics bring people in whose other medications turn huge profits for the store.

Does not square with reality.  Fact is that most folks with insurance are unswayed by Walmart selling $4.00 generics since they have pharmacy benefits that cover the cost and the convenience of going through a drive up Walgreens outweighs the slightly lower cost.  Plus most major pharmacies have also lowered costs to be competitive.

What happened when Walmart lowered prices?  So did everyone else.  Who does this affect most?

--consumers who pay lower prices for generic drugs
--small local drug stores that charge much higher prices because they must pay more for their drugs from suppliers
--other drug store chains who also lowered prices to keep up
--Drug companies that Walmart forced to make concessions on prices by leveraging their massive buying power

Now we hear Woof try to claim that companies will simply raise prices on newer drugs that come out.  So be it.  Because most Americans can get by on older generic drugs just fine, especially those without health insurance that pay the full cost of their prescriptions. 

The problem is that we have a system where most people have health insurance that is paid for by employers.  They are insulated from the true cost of medical benefits because the employer typically pays about 80% of the cost of health insurance.  The consumer pays a copay that is the same regardless of how expensive the prescription is.  So why ask your doctor to prescribe a lower cost prescription instead of the latest, greatest?  Having a third party payer that is mandated to cover certain drugs by big government is the problem. 

And Woof wants to blame Walmart or Drug Companies.  Why not blame the government that got us into this mess with their overregulation, Medicare, Medicaid, FDA rules,…

Just what is wrong with profit?  Do any of you liberals out there care to work for nothing?  I do, now that I am retired, and did volunteer as a Boy Scout leader.  You?  A profit allows groups of people to pay their employees.  They can offer medical insurance, vacations, etc.  What is the alternative except communism where the solution is simply to kill people when they reach retirement age or do not parrot the party line. 
I did not buy anything else at Publix when I picked up my free prescription drugs.

Communism is evil

But…
How can Walmart do this without taxing the rich?

I’m confused…

The answer to the “more expensive drugs” is:  exercise (hight BP, cholesterol), stop engaging in risky sexual behavior (AIDS), east a sensible diet (diabetes).
Any questions?  I have simple answers, but they are too difficult for many to comprehend or do.  Five minutes of exercise in the morning is too difficult for some.  Not engaging in addictive sexual behavior is too difficult for some.  Saying no to that sweet cake is too difficult.  I have True stories to illustrate if anyone is interested.

Communism is evil

HG I am not talking about chicken. I am talking about beef. You know! Cow, my man. And this is not bull. Ask Pilgrim about his experience. Try some rib eye or t-bone from Wal- mart some time.

E.  and that means affordable prescription drugs are somehow not directly attributable to free market economics? 

My point is you have no argument that can change this reality.  You, like other liberals, simply hope to discredit the success by bringing up something totally unrelated.

Try some rib eye or t-bone from Wal- mart some time.

I agree, they have a surprisingly good meat dept.

The money the pharmacies want to cage.

, prescription drugs through the Medicare entitlement program are on pace to cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

Cato on drug prices:

For the average American, however, what matters is the disparity in the prices of the drugs he uses, and that’s what’s driving the debate. So what explains the disparity?

There are two main reasons. First, when drug companies look at the world they see essentially one free market—America. Here they can set prices at levels that aim at maximizing profits. In the rest of the world, companies tell us, socialized medical systems set prices: “monopsony” buyers make take-it-or-leave-it offers. Because a company’s marginal cost for the second pill is so low, as noted earlier, it can accept those offers and still come out ahead. But it can do so only because it has America—half the world market—to fall back on. In effect, the rest of the world rides free—or at least at well below cost—while American citizens pick up the tab for drug R&D. And that, too, is driving this debate.

Given that scenario, it’s no surprise that companies oppose lifting the importation ban. For if we imported drugs at those controlled prices we’d undercut the profits they make in the large American market, thereby rendering them unable to attract the capital they need for future R&D

Legalizing Prescription Drug Importation

Since we are quoting Cato:

http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-tm081302.html

Although adoption and dissemination of advanced health care technologies is frequently blamed as the key culprit in the long-term secular trend toward rising health care costs, that sort of oversimplified analysis often neglects to ask whether (1) our lives are better off, on balance, even after paying those higher costs, and (2) how the pattern and pace of such technological advancement might change if we relied less on third-party payers to fund it and increased the share of health spending that is paid out-of-pocket by individual consumers.

Another related set of governmental and non-governmental factors have combined to diminish the former role of managed care insurers in holding down the costs, if not improving the value, of private sector health care. The managed care backlash, in conjunction with provider pushback on prices, the pendulum swing of the insurance underwriting cycle, and employers’ competition for scarce labor, may have been inevitable to some degree - but public policy efforts to regulate, if not outlaw, many managed care practices and to encourage court challenges to third-party restrictions on access to care certainly contributed to a loosening of referral and authorization rules, as well as more inclusive provider networks. As a result, today we have more choice and access to care in many health insurance plans, as long as we (or our employers) still can afford to pay the higher premiums…

MSAs help control costs, improve access to health care, expand consumers’ choice in and control of health care, and increase savings.

By putting individuals back in control of more purchasing decisions, MSAs create incentives for individuals to purchase health care more prudently and reduce their overall health care spending in a given year.

Whereas out-of-pocket payments by individual consumers accounted for about 50 percent of total health care spending in 1960, the share of third-party payments (by private health insurers, employers, and government agencies) for health care has grown to about 80 percent. Third-party payment of health bills insulates individual consumers from the real cost of their health care decisions and treatment. Consumers have less reason to avoid unnecessary care, question costs, or shop around for the best treatment available at a reasonable price, but they have every incentive to demand more services.

Excessive third-party coverage with low deductibles increases administrative costs, because every small bill must be submitted for review and checking for accuracy.

Instead of limiting the supply of desired medical services, MSAs lower the demand for those services by requiring individuals to pay directly and up front for their discretionary health care choices…

Under many third-party health benefit arrangements, consumers have little incentive or ability to become more knowledgeable about health care. MSAs stimulate consumer demand for information about the quality and price of health care.

You want to talk about reimporting prescription drugs?  How about we talk about who pays for the drugs in the first place--consumers that use them or third parties?  When you are spending someone else’s money, you are less likely to be careful and prudent with it.

And BTW, most foreign countries do not even allow their nationalized health care plans to prescribe many of the newer drugs or severely limit the supply to cut costs.  How about we use the British model and just let patients die on waiting lists to control costs?

Ellinas, if you take a look around at Wal-Mart, you won’t find a terrible lot of loss leaders there.  Yes, they do try and make things “comprehensive” so as to get people through the doors, but I severely doubt that they plan on losing money on product A to get it back on products B and C--at the very least, my experience there is that they do “loss leaders” far less often than most stores.

Does Wal-Mart sell a lot of junky products?  You bet.  I just don’t think they’re using loss leaders on the few quality products they have to get you to buy the others.

Yes, and Waffle House was up and running the day after Katrina hit.

Communism is evil

The pharmacy section probably turns a larger profit than the rest of the store.
Loss leaders or minimally profitable generics bring people in whose other
medications turn huge profits for the store.
Walgreens and other chains award cash to people who transfer their prescriptions.
Pharming disease.

WOOF—And your point would be what?  That because they make a profit Wal-Mart should not sell 1,000+ generic drugs for under $10?  What would you propose they do instead, give them away?  Ya’know, some things are so patently ridiculous that only a liberal will believe them.

America wasn’t founded so we could all become better.  America was founded so we could all become whatever we damn well please.

Regards…

Ellinas is right about this:

Wal Mart will recoup the cost by selling meat injected with a water and salt solution of up to 15% and charging full price as it were fresh meat.

They do. Check the back (bottom) of your next meat purchase at Wal-Mart. I won’t buy meat at Wal-Mart again. Ever. If I want something in or on my steak I’ll put it there, thank you.

That being said, however, you can buy meat in any grocery store. Affordable drugs that are so necessary to so many are a different story.

I say bravo to Wal-Mart for their drugs policy. They’re not only doing a good thing for those who need it, they’re putting pressure on the competition to do the same.

What’s wrong with that?

Election ‘08 - We Are So Screwed

I don’t know about other areas of the country, but here in the metro-Atlanta area most Rite-Aid and CVS locations have pretty well matched WalMart’s previous price reductions on prescription drugs.  Kroger pharmacies are very close in their pricing policies, and Publix locations here are not only matching Kroger’s pharmacy pricing, but are also offering their own incentives, including no charge at all for generic antibiotics. 

I think that those who label Walmart’s drug pricing policies as “loss leaders” should rethink their use of that term… unless, of course, you know that the per unit price at which Walmart purchases from its suppliers is demonstrably higher than what it is charging ti’s customers.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Competition brings down prices.  Government monopolies raise prices.

Communism is evil

Riddle me this.
Why are Americans paying more for prescription medications than those countries with national health?

Why are Americans paying more for prescription medications than those countries with national health?

Because in those other countries, the actual cost of the prescription meds is hidden by the overall taxpayer subsidy which is not counted, and because in the US we have far more prescription written per patient than do those other countries.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Why are Americans paying more for prescription medications than those countries with national health?

Because they pay for it with their taxes?

Typical liberal.  Thinks tax money belongs to the government, not the taxpayer.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

The Europeans bargain with the drug manufacturers for lower prices.
Has nothing to do with gov’t subsidies.

You mean the nationalized government medical systems in Europe mandate lower prices from drug companies.

Governments negotiate with private enterprise like poodles negotiate with pit bulls.  That is, they don’t negotiate at all.

I, personally, do not want to live under a system where the reward for research and innovation is “negotiating” with government mandates on prices.  Such a system isn’t going to produce the sort of life-saving drugs at the same pace as a free-market system will.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

You mean the nationalized government medical systems in Europe mandate lower prices from drug companies.

Governments negotiate with private enterprise like poodles negotiate with pit bulls.  That is, they don’t negotiate at all.

I, personally, do not want to live under a system where the reward for research and innovation is “negotiating” with government mandates on prices.  Such a system isn’t going to produce the sort of life-saving drugs at the same pace as a free-market system will.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Why are Americans paying more for prescription medications than those countries with national health?

Are they paying less than $4 per prescription? 

Bat One and Rob nailed it.  You must factor in the taxes which subsidize the cost paid at the register. 

Moreover, America leads the world in medical advances for a reason, there is profit in it.  Take away the profit and you take away a very strong incentive. Then we’ll all just sit back and watch as fewer and fewer medical achievements materialize.

We pay retail, they pay wholesale.

Remember when some countries were aghast at the price of AIDS drugs that they made their own?

Marketing > Research?

Woof wants to nationalize health care and take the freedom out of market.  This is suppose to lower medical costs and give us better healthcare.  Better than who?  America has the best care in the world.  Why do the citizens of these other countries who “pay wholesale” come to America for healthcare? 

Woof your love of socialized medicine is appalling and offensive to this freedom loving American.

Woof, dangerously simplistic.  What actually goes on is that governments more or less figure out the marginal cost, add a very marginal profit, and say “take it or leave it--oh, and if you leave it, your patents are void.”

Now this is the cost to actually make the drug, not to develop it.  Now consider what happens if the U.S. goes to such a model; you’ve just eliminated R&D funds for the drug companies to a large extent.  What happens?

First of all, all of your startup drug companies (like, say, “Genentech” a decade ago or so) lose their venture capital.  Big companies like Eli Lilly slash their R&D.  As a result, people like “Dr. Napoleon Ferrara” lose their jobs.

Why is this significant to me?  Well, Dr. Ferrara developed, mostly by himself, a neat little anticancer drug called “Avastin” that probably saved my mother’s life.

You bastard, Woof.  You’d have killed my mother to get cheap Lipitor. 

See the problem with your scheme?  If you remove the incentives to cash in on a patent, as you’d propose, you simultaneously remove the incentives to develop new lifesaving drugs.  You can’t substitute government money for the pot of gold that exists with drug patents and expect to get the same kind of energy towards R&D that you do today.