What A Sustainable Health Care System In The U.S. Might Look Like

Patents and copyrights, not trademarks, which serve to certify the source.

There is no honest sense in which making a copy of something is "stealing" it. Do you think that if you hear a tune on the radio and whistle it as you walk down the street, that you have "stolen" it? Don't be ridiculous. Ideas are only "stolen" by plagiarism: claiming that someone else's work is yours. That is not what China does.

They can only profit immensely because the monopoly aggravates scarcity. If everyone was allowed to produce the item, there would be no such immense profit. That is how competition in the free market is supposed to work.

The fruits of his labor consist of what HE produces, not the additional copies that others might produce. Clear? Almost all invention is done by employees working for salaries, not the rich, greedy, corporate parasites who pocket all the monopoly profits.

Many lucrative patents have their terms extended on the flimsiest of pretexts, and in other cases, minor changes to a drug get a new patent. That is why old technology like epipens and insulin cost an order of magnitude more in the USA than in other countries.

"Ostensibly." Right. Google "cost of insulin in different countries" and start reading.

And yet are somehow still under patent monopolies, like insulin and epipens....

That is false. I am just opposed to anyone making a profit by violating others' rights without making just compensation, whether legally or otherwise.

The honest and productive 99% are not the ones pocketing the rents of monopoly privilege, duh. The rich, greedy, evil, privileged 1% are.

Your hypothesis is absurd. The people who actually do the inventing are paid salaries by companies that have problems they want to solve. None of that would change if others were allowed to use the same solutions. Indeed, without the monopolies, companies would pay engineers even more to invent things, because they would have no way to stay in business if they did not keep ahead in technology.

The fashion industry does not enjoy patent or copyright monopolies (except for some minor things like mechanical clothing fasteners). That is a major reason they splash their trademarks so prominently over everything. Do you think fashion designers are not paid enough? Do you think the fashion industry lacks creativity and innovation? Do you think the fashion industry said, "Ah, to hell with it... I'll just live off the government all my life...."?

You need to stop typing and start thinking.

 

It is by far the most important factor.

It's a major reason. Another, of course, is that it maintains hundreds of bases in other countries.

Research is often expensive, no doubt -- especially if it has to be kept secret, as military technology does. An aircraft carrier is expensive mainly because it is a giant boat full of secret stuff that can't be mass produced.

Often, it is.

Wrong. It is far more significant than all other factors combined.

I haven't advocated socialism or anything remotely similar to it. What is it about "open competition in a free market" that you consider "socialist"?

No, the medico-rentier complex and the military-industrial complex are just different PTB. The banksters are another, and landowners yet another.

 

That's EXACTLY what I advocate...plus getting rid of the government and major corporations as both of these entities stymie competition. Make health care about health care.

 

You do have some worthwhile ideas on these subjects, but underneath the patina of your 'social-justice warrior' costume lies the dogmatic, implacable dogma of a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool socialist.

Yes, my friends in Europe always laugh and/or commiserate with the desperately unfair situation that exists in the pricing of pharmaceutical drugs in the United States versus the rest of the world -- indeed, we American taxpayers PAY for all the research and development for medicine world-wide... a thing which I suppose is supported by socialists everywhere, since: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs" -- right?! Karl Marx would heartily agree!

Thus, to the inventor of a product you say, 'you own nothing -- everything belongs to everyone'. Moreover, the insulting meme, "stop typing and start thinking" is little more than a reflection of your own sophomoric arrogance and egotism. I've tried to have explorative, constructive dialogue with you about healthcare in the United States, but it always gets dragged down into these acrimonious 'social-justice warrior' screeds and never focuses on the most important thing of all -- i.e., HOW THE HELL DO WE PAY FOR IT?!

If you have something useful to contribute to that question then offer it. Otherwise I'm done with your childish insults.

 

Which you refuse to engage with...

That is merely a fabrication on your part. I simply identify the relevant facts of economics. The fact that economic injustice is at the heart of America's affordable health care crisis is just a fact.

That is nothing but name-calling, a fabrication with no basis in fact. I have stated that socialism is even worse than capitalism, and why.

Because America has decided that drug companies killing millions of people for money is rightful, that their unearned profits have unconditional priority over people's health and survival.

No, that is just another bald falsehood, as I already proved to you. American taxpayers pay for a substantial fraction (but well under half) of the basic research, while American drug companies fund a larger fraction of the clinical trials because they are totally focused on obtaining patentable properties, and actively suppress research into cheap, safe, effective, but non-patentable treatments like nutrients, naturally occurring hormones, herbal extracts, etc. We saw the proof in big pharma's active suppression of cheap, safe, effective, but public domain ivermectin treatment for COVID.

That has no basis in anything I have said.

No, that is just another bald falsehood from you. I say, "You own what you produced, but not all the additional versions of it that others might produce, which they rightly own."

Too bad you refuse to do it.

No you haven't. You have been dismissive, evasive, and insulting.

No. I have identified the facts of economics that make health care so astronomically more expensive in the USA than in ANY other country. You just blankly refuse to know those facts because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

That's NOT the most important thing. The most important thing is, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO FREAKIN' COST SO MUCH? You just blankly refuse to think about that.

Furthermore, I have stated explicitly how we should pay for it: Pigovian taxes that discourage unhealthy lifestyles, modest user fees to improve allocative efficiency, and location subsidy repayment to recover the subsidy to idle landowning that universal access to publicly funded healthcare would entail.

See above.

See your own disgraceful name-calling, above.

 

Corporations per se do not stymie competition, although they certainly don't like it:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

It is mainly when they get monopolies -- natural ones like infrastructure or artificial ones like patents and copyrights -- that they can successfully stifle competition.

 

... second verse, same as the first....

 

Disgraceful.

 

This is an absolutely nutty discussion of patents.

It takes billions or even 10's of billions of dollars to develop a new medicine. If some company can analyze the solution and create a copy for the cost of manufacturing, it would mean that NO company could POSSIBLY be willing to create a new medicine. It would be a monumentally stupid financial decision to even try.

The same goes in other fields of endeavor - not necessarily EVERY field, but a lot of them. Patents allow innovation to be rewarded.

Comparing medical technology to the fashion industry really pegs the meter.

 

No. It is fact.

No it doesn't. You are just regurgitating absurd big pharma talking points.

No, that's just baldly false, as proved, repeat, proved by the fact that companies create new non-patentable medicines all the time. Look at the vitamin and supplement shelf of your local pharmacy for the proof.

Disproved above.

Nope. None of them. As Boldrin and Levine demonstrated conclusively in "Against Intellectual Monopoly," there has never been a field where patents encouraged innovation. Quite the contrary.

No, they just enable rent seeking and suppression of competing products.

They are entirely comparable.

Drug patents kill millions of people -- including many thousands killed every year because patented drugs are so profitable that they are massively over-prescribed. You are an accessory to those murders. Deal with it.

 

This is why you need to eliminate government and corporations from the process. These two behemoths aid and abet each other.

 

Vitamins and "supplements" are NOT medicine. They do not have to demonstrate that they solve any health problem, for example.

Whether medicine is properly prescribed is a separate issue.

There are major schools of economics that disagree with your two authors.

 

They most certainly are. The great majority have been shown to be effective in treating or preventing specific medical conditions -- just by non-pharmaco researchers.

Because that has already been demonstrated. The definition of a vitamin is that it is needed to resolve a specific health problem. Furthermore, the notion that patented drugs have to demonstrate that they solve health problems is laughable: there is a huge amount of fraudulent drug "research" geared specifically to gaining approval for dangerous, ineffective, but patented drugs because they are so profitable.

No, it most certainly is not. Drug patents, specifically, make it profitable for pharmacos to pay and/or pressure doctors to over-prescribe their patented drugs. The result is that those inappropriate over-prescriptions KILL thousands of Americans EVERY YEAR. Just as one example, the inappropriate over-prescription of patented OxyContin -- which only happened because the patent monopoly made it so insanely profitable -- has resulted in millions of Americans becoming addicted to opiates, and thousands of them consequently dying of overdoses every month.

You are an accessory to those murders. You literally do not care that your vicious and indefensible profit-over-people ideology murders millions of innocent people.

Sickening.

Correct. For example, there is the neoclassical school, otherwise known as the "unearned profits of rich, greedy, privileged parasites must have unconditional priority over individual rights and the public interest" school. Then there is the Austrian school, otherwise known as the "government should be restricted to forcibly preventing the victims of rich, greedy, privileged parasites from defending themselves against legalized abrogations of their individual rights" school.

Massive, systematic, institutionalized evil has to be justified somehow, so obviously schools of economics have to be contrived to justify it.

 

Nonsense. Government just has to do its rightful job of securing individual rights rather than serving corporate interests that abrogate them.

 

There is no requirement for supplements and other nostrums to demonstrate any level of efficacy through a reasonable testing model such as is required for all prescription drugs.

You are ignoring that treating pain is incredibly difficult, and that drug is a miracle drug for pain.

Denying a patent for that drug would do no more than spreading the manufacturing more broadly than it already is.

Abuse of that family of drugs is not just driven by its profitability. It is a prescription drug. Doctors have to choose to prescribe it.

Purdue Pharmaceutical was found guilty of kickbacks to those who prescribed the drug. They actively promoted abuse.

Your accusation here is absolutely and completely BS.

I forgive you your wild eyed nonsense on economic schools.

 

And on your planet, that might be relevant.

You claimed no one would develop medicines without patents. I proved that claim was a bald falsehood.

No it isn't. It's a miracle drug for monopoly profits, opiate addiction, and overdose deaths.

Yes, thus REMOVING THE PROFIT MOTIVE FOR OVER-PRESCRIPTION.

HELLO??

GARBAGE. It is driven ENTIRELY by its profitability. Google "Opium War" and start reading. You just refuse to know that fact because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.

Yes, and the monopoly patent holder did everything it could to get them to over-prescribe it, and KILL PEOPLE, for MONEY.

You are defending MURDER FOR MONEY. That is pure, naked, smirking, Satanic evil. Deal with it.

Yes, because their patent monopoly made it so incredibly profitable to MURDER PEOPLE.

You are defending MURDER.

Get that through your head.

No, it is FACT, and I will thank you to remember it.

No, those are accurate descriptions of the actual teachings of those schools (however much they might be sugar-coated and euphemized), and I will thank you to remember it.

 

That's just hilarious.

You're trying to call supplements "medicine"!! That fact that nobody cares whether it is tested to see if it actually works tells you everything you need to know.

The criminal behavior did not have to do with patents. That is clearly false.

 

You're trying to deny that most supplements have recognized medical uses!!

"Let food be your medicine..." -- Hippocrates

The fact that you falsely and absurdly claim no one cares that peer-reviewed research has determined what medical uses supplements are effective for -- which is why doctors sometimes prescribe them -- tells you everything you need to know.

That is merely another bald falsehood from you. The patent was the ONLY thing that made the criminal behavior profitable, and therefore CAUSED the criminal behavior, and the thousands of resulting MURDERS that you are trying to justify.

It is an indisputable fact, and you know it.

 

Nonpharmaceutical medicines do not have:

- requirements for standardized efficacy testing
- standards for dosing.
- identification of strength of a substance
- identification of side effects and medical interactions
etc.

A large percent of our entire pharmacopeia would not exist without there being patent protection. The cost of developing and testing is gigantic. If that work to develop a medical solution can be taken for free by others, it's just flat out impossible to make the investment.

YOUR argument totally ignores the lives saved by having the medical solutions we have today, which are developed BECAUSE they are patented, allowing a method of compensating the development expense.

 

I've always had health care as part of my compensation at work. I started by working hard in school, getting a valuable education, then working hard in my career. Make yourself valuable in the labor marketplace... and good salary, good medical care follow... along with vacation time, etc. Its not rocket science.

 

Which pharmacos routinely manipulate and even falsify to get approval for their patented formulations...

Go look on the supplement shelf and try to find a product that does not have these.

Because they are generally recognized as safe. The ones that have side effects and interactions almost always list them.

Yes, including almost all the dangerous and ineffective ones.

Which must be why pharmacos spend far more on marketing and promotion than they do on development and testing...

That's just baldly false, like most of your other claims. Governments, universities, non-profits, etc. make such investments all the time: they HAVE to make them for non-patentable treatments because pharmacos' efforts are exclusively devoted to developing patents, not cures. Without the research by governments, etc. there would be NO research on off-patent medicines AT ALL.

GARBAGE. In countries where health care is publicly funded, government funds development of medical solutions impartially between patentable and public domain treatments because they save money. That is inherently a more effective use of research funds than restricting research to patentable formulations, as pharmacos do.

 

That's like telling the victim of a protection racket to just work a little harder and he'll be fine: it may be true, but it is not the point.

 

I stand by my comments on homeopathic medicine.

And, ideas like "generally recognized as safe" are total BS. You know from your own arguments that "generally recognized" means nothing at all.

Your comments on "patents, not cures" is preposterous. It is true that those making the gigantic investments in creating medicine are sensitive to what treatments are likely to pay them back for their investment. Unfortunately, this means that rare diseases get little focus, as there is no chance of creating a working financial model.

Yes, the USA invests in science through universities and other institutions, but those institutions are doing the deep science. They do not create products useful to humans. That research is not what is the central topic here, because this work is required regardless of how products are created to address the various needs of people. For example, biochemistry research came up with a new way for vaccines to work. The result was that COVID vaccines could be created by pharma corporations in a shockingly short time. Another case is the advent of gene splicing technology - which can now be used in numerous ways.

I don't agree that eliminating capitalism in healthcare is an effective solution. There do need to be strong limits on capitalism - as is always the case. But there is strong reason to believe that governments creating medicine is a worse solution than having private enterprise creating solutions.

 

What socialists cannot comprehend is that people with the mentality and energy to invent and develop a product want to make as much money as they can from their invention. Socialists VILIFY any such idea, preaching instead that the person who invents something can make some money, on a limited basis, and then -- his invention belongs to the government, which, in turn, funnels money out to a mass of 'bottom-feeders' through welfare and subsidy programs. Oh, and you can bet that this "mass of 'bottom-feeders'" will vote to support this variety of government distribution forever!

. "Dude! I exist, so, I'm a STAKEHOLDER!"

 

NOBODY believes that on expiration patents should belong to the government. Who told you THAT?

When patents expire, other corporations may use and produce what was patented.

The big issue isn't that pharma is capitalist, it is that the government is not allowed to bargain for drug prices. Thus US citizens pay while other countries negotiate substantially lower prices.

And, the remainder of you post here is just disgusting. The elderly are not to be called "bottom feeders". You need to grow the heck up.

This is the kind of problem referenced:
https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/87383/us-drug-prices-highest-world/#:~:text=After rebates, the US had,the US and foreign counterparts.

Plus, in the USA life giving drugs can easily be priced out of the reach of citizens. This is a serious issue in comparing US stupendously high healthcare prices and the prices of countries that actually care for all their citizens.