Do you have anything to add or rebutt that doesn't require or start off with a personal insult? I could go there too, but your life before tackle isnt part of the debate.

I absolutely believe that socialized medicine WILL break the average worker's back. The little money most of us are able to now spend on enjoyment will be gone into the black abyss supporting the indigent. I'm baffled that anyone could think otherwise. Government can't run any damn thing efficiently, are you kidding me? Medical bills are ridiculously high now....no doubt about it....but some fools think that will DECREASE with government intervention!!!??? What?

I have come to the conclusion that the new accepted concept of "responsibility" is thoroughly investing every avenue available to get someone else to pay for one's choices/decisions. And coupled with that is the attitude of regarding one who chooses to live within their means and do without if they can't afford it as a chump. I've worked all my life and frankly I'm tired of supporting more and more leeches who choose to not make difficult choices. "Easy" has nothing to do with functioning as an adult, and I've already raised my children.....and no, I'm not interested in raising you and yours.

The cost of insurance is breaking the worker's back NOW & putting companies out of business. It's not suprising that people don't have much to spend when approximately a quarter of their wages are going toward insurance. No matter how you get your insurance, YOU are ultimately paying for it because there is a dollar amount that you are worth to a company & the cost of insurance is deducted from that number.

Jobs have been lost due to high insurance prices & will continue to be lost. Those left working will have to do the job of 2 people & in some industries that is dangerous.

Unions use actuarials to arrive at their self-insured price. Employee wages are presented to the employer at the total amount per hour & the employer either agrees or disagrees with that price until negotiated. The employer isn't involved in the deductions, medical, local & national pension, training, apprentice program, labor management fund, vacation, sick pay, etc, etc, what is deducted is between the union member & their union.

Who knows what is in the union pools, I guess billions but really have no idea. It will be interesting to see if they keep their same "actuary" when the cost of insurance comes down. Which it will when a government option is available & matter of fact, the price will drop even more if it is mandated.

Why does everyone freak out over the government offering an option? I figure because they know that the way it is now, no one in their right mind would stay & pay what the insurance industry has grown accustom to charging. That scares people but you gotta give the insurance companies a chance, they will soon be competative, truly competative. They own & have more than anyone realizes, they run OUR country NOW.

Insurance companies are not the villian, although the administration uses them as the villian. insurance companies write lots of policies for business, life, car, boat, flooding, earthquake. Yet we are complaining about insurance companies, for health insurance. If you want to know the true cost of medical insurance, you have to go back to every single expense, paid by everyone in the medical community.

None of those people work for free. Medical books can be over a hundred dollars for one book. Malpractice insurance is high due to excessive awards by a jury. Of course doctors have been ridiculed for high income. But would the same folks ridicule actors and pro-ball players who make 10 or 20 million per year. If people want to restrict what CEO and doctors make, dont forget about the very rich law firms.

The government will hire the same people from the now defunct health insurance industry and pay them just as much. You wont save a dime in the end.

If you want the best technology, you have to pay the price. Thru real competition, which we dont have, prices will come down, but only so far.... The rest is up to us. Drinking, drugs, overeating, bareback sex are just a few of the reasons some individuals make up for the bulk of the medical visits.

If you require medical insurance cover every itch, its going to cost a lot more. When people dont have any responsibility for the cost of care provided, like being billed for THREE attempts to put a needle in your arm, by a trainee, it just adds to the bill. The government RESTRICTS how many hospitals are allowed to have specific equipment, thus keeping the fees artificially high.

Part of the blame for skyrocketing health care in America can be blamed on the pharmaceutical industry.
Selling prescription drugs in Canada and Mexico at a fraction of what they cost US consumers, only hurts our health care bottom line.
Making a profit is one thing, holding US citizens hostage over prescription drugs is nothing short of wanton greed.

Used to be a guy on the radio down here, Dr. Dean Edell, that was on-the-street one day doing Q&A.

One woman was complaining about the $4.00 per-pill cost of her allergy meds. He asked her how much she paid for the Starbucks coffee she was holding. I think it was around the same cost as the pill.

He said something along the lines of "that coffe makes you feel good for a couple of hours, that pill makes you feel good all day".

Relax! Once we get "free" healthcare you won't have to worry about the obscene profits of the drug companies.

US citizens pay for R&D at the counter when they purchase and others control prices as they don't have to support the R&D. Not so sure that I care for it that way when my wifes cemo was a 1000 a week but I do understand the question on how do you pay for R&D another way?

In Mexico you go to the doc get script and aound the corner to the drug store. Doc appt will cost about 20 to 40 depending on situation. As Juan said in Mexico they utilize Darwin. If you are stupid enough to get prescription drugs and OD then the gene pool needs to be thinned because your not that bright. Kinda harsh way to look at it but it does reduce cost...............can't you see the PC folks in the US if this was our system. Talking heads would go crazy both L & C.

I work as a consultant to several large nonprofit research organizations. While most get some funding from drug companies, by far the largest proportion comes from the U.S. government via the National Institute of health. This has been true for at least the 30 years I have worked with them.
These nonprofits, like Fred Hutchinson Research Institute and The Benaroya Research Institute depend on federal grants and endowments for the vast majority of their funding. If the researcher comes up with a patentable product while working on a federal grant, that patent belongs to the federal government.
I am a firm believer in capitalism but the current system of pharmaceutical lobbyist pushing their addenda is wrong. Consider that the recent legislation to expand drug coverage under Medicare has a specific provision forbidding the govt to bargain for the best price. Where do you suppose that little gem came from? If you doubt the money the pharmaceuticals make just watch you TV during prime time and see how many pills they are pushing.

Here are some interesting numbers from 1999, I can only imagine this trend has accelerated in the past ten years. These are the bonuses paid to to[ executives of our 10 largest pharmacutical companies. If ypu want more data follow this:

http://www.actupny.org/reports/durban-licensing.html



$31,424,000


$15,159.000


$6,032,000


$16,486,000


$12,505,000


$4,381,000


$6,041,000


$4,093,000


$2,119,000


$2,366,000
$39,753,000


$38,983,000


$26,424,000


$22,061,000


$18,525,000


$16,272,000


$12,940,000


$11,779,000


$6,385,000


$5,042,000
$159,691,000


$107,115,000


$80,559,000


$250,681,000





$830,000


$33,667,000


$29,867,000


$104,506,000


$17,291,000

Which doesn't make sense to me. Why is big Pharma spending ad dollars trying to sell to me? I have no purchasing power. It's not like I can walk into my doc's office and say, "hey doc, I saw drug X on TV last night and I want some." I should trust my doctor to prescribe the drugs I need not what sounded sexy on the telly last night.

Of course the cynic in me realizes that Pharma is deviously trying to create a nation of hypocondriacs so we'll imagine the symptoms those advertised drugs will cure.

Spot on! I hate those f'n drug commercials. It perpetuates a false need.

Didn't say I liked the system. If you think it cost a 1000 to make a little bag of cemo then..........but that said if by profit or goverment we pay for R&D. Drugs sold outside US depending on patents and other bs are cheaper as this is not a factor. 3rd world countries get the same drugs much cheaper as they can not afford our prices.

I sorta look at this the same way as 30% of our hosp and doctors cost are covering people with no insurance or the ability to pay. Which is the thing that gets me the most. We are paying for drugs and health care all ( or most ) now one way or the other and it is all hidden and really sucks for low income and the non work place insured. To say access to health care and drugs are not a citizens right sounds good unless your sick and lack $$$$$$$$$ then it becomes BS......fast.

Point is to zoom in on one aspect of the system rather than all the parts does not work. Our greatest medical expenses are in our last 2 or three years of our lives when we become terminally ill...........which we all will get to go through. If you want to fix the health care cost then you have go after all aspects of the system not just the bloody drug companies jabbing us but all providers of all aspects of health care from birth to when we check out..........something we as a people don't seem to want to ( or can't ) get our arms around.

The money paid to people to run companies is generally the decision of the Board of Directors and quite often (as in stock options) based on performance.

Everybody gets up-in-arms about some salaries if they don't like the companies involved and think that if those executives were paid less their products would cost less.

When you look at the charts that Dave posted you see that salaries + marketing is a relatively small (about 15% on average) portion of the cost to do business. Missing in those charts is the tax paid by those companies, but I would imagine that's not on the radar screen of most drug company haters.

Part of the reason that drug (and most other companies) go off-shore is to avoid some of those taxes.

As for drug company advertising, they do it for the same reasons many companies do it. They can write it off on their taxes, for one, and it does let people know about the availability of new drugs.

I'm hoping that goharley doesn't have a passel of psychosomatic disorders that he sees the doctor for on a regular basis. The drug ads state that if you have these symptoms, check with your doctor to see if this drug would be right for you. I'm also hopeful that goharleys' doc will say "are you out of your fu**ing mind? You don't have ANY of those symptoms".

Or there is enough room for a Cranial Rectal Inversion I worked for the Fed (and retired) for 42 years, and from the "Inside" you do NOT want anything to do with it.

Kill 9 out of every 10 Lawyers and Presto-Changeo...the World becomes a better place.

I agree; and the performance they are rewarding is overcharging the American public. Hankster can you tell me you think an annual salary of $250,000,000 is reasopnable? The boards have absolutly no incentive to hold down such outrageous payments as they are aslo recipients of similar payment. It a good ole boy network financed by americas middle class.

Why are drugs so much cheaper in Mexico and Canada? Yes the exact same drug masxde in at the exact same factoiry is often 1/3 the price of what we pay in the USA.

I do not hate the drug companies - I hate their behaviour.

High pay isn't limited to just the drug industry execs. There are many execs in other industries that get paid more than you think reasonable. Do you like the pay to folks in the auto,financial,computer, etc. industries or are you mostly disgusted with those in the drug trade?

Have you ever thought to look at the salary of the directors of those non-profits? I quit donating to the United Way when I discovered what he was making.

Do you think a big league pitcher is overpaid, or peeved because Brad Pitt makes 120 Mil a picture? They don't get that kind of money unless they deliver the goods. Except for Zito of course.

There are many factors involved in drug price discrepancies between Canada and the U.S. Healthcare for all is provided by the national govt but doesn't cover prescription drugs. If you are under 65 you are either covered by your employer or you pay cash. Prescription coverage for those 65 and older is provided by the provincial govts and they have formularies that are used to determine which drugs are dispensed there. A price is established that the provincial govt will allow for drugs that do similar things. U.S. drug companies will establish a lower price for new drugs just to be listed in that formulary. It's either sell for that or lose that market entirely.

Keep in mind that those prices are for drugs that are still covered under patent laws. Prices for generic drugs are 24-40% higher in Canada than they are in the U.S. or Europe.

[quote=Hankster]High pay isn't limited to just the drug industry execs.

That you have right.

They don't get that kind of money unless they deliver the goods.

On that you are totally wrong.

Many of the execs that got the largest bonuses ran companies that lost money or even went bankrupt. They have seen their pay raise exponentially during good times and bad. I think they pay themselves that much for the same reason a dog licks his dick.

The oldest of adages in Business,is simplistic: "They're only benefits if you use them".

I've no qualm with the Private Sector paying wages in accords to it's profit margin,as those calls are none of my business. Where I begin to take issue,is when those wages are afforded via Gubment interaction(s),which is akin to kicking me in the nuts and running away with my wallet to pad same.

That dog won't/can't Hunt.

The Drug Company CEO makes more than $2,000.00 a minute because they deliver the goods? So then where is our cure for cancer, or AIDS, or how about MRSA? How much did Alexander Fleming make for his contribution of penicillin? But now that the staph has mutated, seems as if no CEO can direct a cure for the mutation (MRSA). How much did Louis Pasteur make for discovering germ spreading or for treatments for tetanus, rabies, TB, diptheria? Isn't it ironic that one of the new successful treatments for cancer came not from a doctor or scientist or CEO but from an engineer who had cancer & developed a machine in his garage to target cancer cells?

What you get from a CEO who makes $2,000.00 a minute is MARKETING, that means for one thing convincing Americans that they have to pay that price or nothing new will be developed. So go ahead & defend them that is one of the things they are being paid for & it seems they are getting that done.

Most of our cardiac drugs are the same drugs that our great-grandparents took, tried & true without the many side effect some of the new ones have & most cardiologist prefer to prescribe those older drugs. CEO's did recently bring us cholestrol lowering pills though & that is helpful so that we can continue with an unhealthy lifestyle, if we want. They also continue to bring us vanity drugs such as botox, so that a 60 year old can look 50.

The cures for our deadly diseases will come from another genius not from CEOs crunching numbers, not from CEOs deciding what will sell best & so therefore what should be researched, not from making commercials or haggling with other countries over block prices. The deadly diseases will be cured as they always are by humanitarians, by people who focus on healing, who hate to see needless suffering & disease.

Read this about Joseph Lister, notice this " He was uninterested in social success or financial reward." http://web.ukonline.co.uk/b.gardner/Lister.html

Invent the cure and charge in accordance.

Until then...STFUP.