Why wasn't product mark-up questioned?

So it says here it costs about a buck-twenty to produce one shot of mRNA gene therapy shot, two doses required, and Pfizer sells two doses for $39.95.

https://qz.com/pfizer-plans-to-sell-its-covid-vaccine-at-a-10-000-mar-1849688359

That means Pfizer is bringing in about $37.50 a patient. Is this excessive?

In light of context that many people were coerced by government to get the shot, I think it is excessive.

 

Doses 2 and 3 may cost $1.20, but I am betting the cost for the very first dose was in the billions.

 

Because it is all part of our quasi - socialized medicine "bookkeeping from hell" Ponzi scheme system that passes for accountability in DC.
Regarding Pfizer, it is part of the medical R&D bookkeeping kettle of tax breaks and i direct subsidies compliments of congress trying to let Americans think they are getting it's world class drugs for free.
Funny thing, now that it is off Medicare, my Dr. has not said boo about the Covid shots.

 

I think this is an issue that has nothing to do with the covid vaccine, it is a problem across the board with health care related products.

We need to impose price limits on all health care related services and items.

 

No, not price limits. Do you know the history of governments fixing prices?

In failed socialist Venezuela the government fixed the price of eggs. The very next day not a single egg was to be found on any store shelf in the entire country. And why should their be? Everyone knows that an egg is worth double the government fixed price under the counter in the free-market.

Price controls do not work for the consumer. I doubt you can find an example where they did. It might work out different with an emergency medication dependent on the percentage of the original markup. If it's priced too low, the manufacture won't bother making it.

 

So you don't think the government should do anything about Pfizer marking up the vaccine price?

Are you confused? Didn't you start this thread?

 

No not confused. We need an answer other than price fixing and I admit I do not have that answer.

We can't nationalize the pharmaceutical industry. That's exactly how Venezuela turned into a socialist utopia where people eat the food meant for zoo animals before ultimately eating the zoo animals. Venezuela has the richest oil reserves on the continent- they should be rolling in money, and they were. But Venezuela saw that the oil barons had more than everybody else. The people were envious. So they nationalized the oil industry to "spread the wealth around" and now the oil barons have as much as the common folk, which is to say they have "not much".

Meanwhile the government officials who run the oil company are loading up on lucure while the people eat zoo animals. Venezuela did not solve the problem of inequality- they just had government officials take the place of the former oil barons.

 

Normal business practice is to figure the costs of development into the product production cost. I don't know if that method was used in the article I cited.

Probably only cost Pfizer and Moderna a couple million and maybe much less. All the work on mRNA gene therapy development had been done already for SARS and pig flu (both of these vaccines were deemed unsafe) That and it normally cost a pharmacutical about 800 million (eight tenths of a billion) dollars to get a medication approved- not the covid shot, it got rushed through testing by the manufactuer and by the CDC/FDA.

 

If govt has the authority to mandate that I get a shot, then it has the authority to mandate Pfizer&etc provide it at cost. Of course the govt should have the authority to do neither, but its telling that the govt would coerce us to buy something that the corporations make bank off of 'selling'.

 

There is an answer other price fixing, but it involves theft of property -

Moderna has a recipie for a shot, so forcibly make their product available to other manufacturers to produce not on license but under their own generic brand. This would introduce competition for buyers dollars and lower prices.

- But the means does not justify the end result.

 

According to their website Pfizer spent $2B which includes $500M to build the capacity to make the drug. https://www.pfizer.com/sites/defaul.../story/expanding-covid-manufacturing-efforts/

Moderna, on the other hand, was largely funded by the government but it already was under government grants to help come up with coronavirus mrna vaccines when COVID-19 came along. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...rants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/

 

And no doubt the legislators dumped their Pfizer holdings and invested heavily in Moderna stock.

In which case the legislators, as shareholders in Moderna, and having the gall to think they have the authority to issue Moderna shot mandates, knew they would make bank. In that instance the legislators would want the highest markup the market could bear.

 

I personally think DC just wanted to pass anything with a big price tag to create the illusion it knew what needed doing was doing serious about it. Window dressing really. So far as I know, Uncle Sam paid for all three of my vaccines when it should have been something taken care of by my health insurance company. I was originally instructed to bring my health insurance card the first time but when I got there they refused to take it. They were listing everybody as uninsured so the government paid for it without them needing to process any insurance claims.

 

Uncle Sam paid for it?

Who's money did Uncle Sam pay for it with?

It was your money, wasn't it...

 

That’s why we need national healthcare!

 

Say hello to “enhanced” capitalism/“free enterprise".

 

We need to copy “best practices” of other countries: national healthcare.

 

THIS IS NOT VENEZUELA.

Haven’t you noticed we are any different?

Bullshit. Look into it instead of speculating that the right wing press might be "right”. The capitalist world intervened to bring Venezuela to her knees. They succeeded.

 

yeah we are not Venezuela. We are observe property rights.

It was the nationalized capitalist oil companies. Now I heard everything.

 

I would trade that for tight borders and getting illegals out of the country. But I want it run by pro at business, not the heavy hand of government.

 

duplicate

 

The view you express seems to show how little you know about business or economics.

But sure, if the Left wants to pounce on the vaccine companies and moan about "capitalism" and profiteering, I can't be troubled to put up a complaint against that.

If you want a private company to take a risk and develop a pharmaceutical product, someone is going to have to pay them for that.
There's just as likely a chance they could have invested a billion dollars and it could have turned out all for nothing, so if they want to charge three times what it cost to make, that is actually perfectly normal. No private company is going to take the risk if they can't get back big profits.

You know, government could have done the research and developed the product, but they didn't.

Free market supporters would have had no problem with government research and a government owned patent on that research.

 

Well let's see what I know about business and economics Kazebatsu-

I know that the government changed their own rules concerning approval of a new medicine that does not work, yet it was foisted upon you while government says- "this is the price We are paying".

What did I get wrong?

 

But you don't know what the cost of development was and didn't consider it in your opinion.

 

Here is a friendly, good natured article which describes how your ever loving government paid for the research and development.


https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/government-produced-covid-19-vaccine-success


You government also paid for everybody's shots. What this means is that your government used your credit and your tax money to develop, manufacture, purchase, and distribute your "free" covid shots.