Just imagine what it would be like if Obamacare & the Insurance & Medical Industry were ruled by Bitcoin? Why the hospital would be running their diesel backups 24/7 mining... but seriously. What could bitcoin do to solve the insurance exchange fiasco? What would have been different if 1 billion dollars were given for development to the bitcoin programmers, miners, investors? Couldn't bitcoin own and transfer my medical records? Lose them? No problem, I know right where they are. Wouldn't bitcoin regulated insurance industry eliminate ALL of the bezzle while rewarding true agents maintaining the system? http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225320Some of the information comes in the comments as I responded to people's questions, but most of it is directly in the essay. Total costs of uncompensated care in 2011: $41 billion. Making everyone insured would only have a $41 billion impact, versus about a $2,700 billion total. "Oh, we're only charging you more to cover someone who couldn't pay" is a lame excuse for the racketeering they're pulling off. (Doctors are completely ignorant about it -- they don't usually know how much they're charging). Upper bound on health care litigation: ~$20 billion at its peak, and it has been trending down for years. Cost of defensive medicine, ~$200 billion. Some say that tort reform will save us all the defensive medicine, but they forget that doctors and hospitals are profiting off the defensive medicine and it's not going to stop just because they won't get sued anymore. So tort reform will only realistically save a few billion, at the cost of losing whatever small degree of accountability the system has. Total costs of pharmaceuticals: ~$250 billion. Price differential between here and the rest of the world: ~2:1. The problem isn't to be found exclusively there. Difference between maximum and minimum charges for an identical common procedure (in this case, appendectomy): ~$180,000. Difference between maximum and median charge: ~$140,000 Difference between median and minimum charge: ~$35,000. Minimum charge: ~$3,000. (numbers extracted from graph). Common hospital markups for various drugs: ~%4,000. Conclusion: racketeering. Bitcoin efficiency, structure enhancements, regulation potential unlimited. "There's a bitcoin for that." Bitcoin doesn't imply or cause free or open markets. A couple of things said in your quote are wrong:
Total costs of uncompensated care in 2011: $41 billion. Making everyone insured would only have a $41 billion impact, versus about a $2,700 billion total. False, because the Mexican nationals going to the emergency rooms for free care would then go for the whole set of procedures which would be available. Upper bound on health care litigation: ~$20 billion at its peak, and it has been trending down for years. Cost of defensive medicine, ~$200 billion. Some say that tort reform will save us all the defensive medicine, but they forget that doctors and hospitals are profiting off the defensive medicine and it's not going to stop just because they won't get sued anymore. So tort reform will only realistically save a few billion, at the cost of losing whatever small degree of accountability the system has.Given the number of doctors I've heard express total outrage at having to order a battery of tests instead of the one they would prefer to, due to fear of litigation, this statement is simply false. You're arguing that they have no integrity, that they would order the battery of tests just for the profit in it. But in fact, they'd see three more patients instead of analyzing the results of that stupid battery of tests. And this statement: Couldn't bitcoin own and transfer my medical records? Lose them? No problem, I know right where they are....could better be stated as a public semi-anonymous database SIMILAR TO BITCOIN could be of great use for medical records storage, trumping all of the insurance, state and federal records. |
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....There's a heavy, and fairly successful lobbying and propaganda campaign in the US to convince people that ordering prescription drugs from outside the US is "scary and risky".
Maybe just one in ten people do it. Maybe fewer than that.
Canada? I just go to the pet store. Now that would be some Viagra. |
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... You are misunderstanding me lobby ing is present tense and current, they've succeeded yes but they still need to keep lobbying in order to maintain the monopoly on car insurance  My point is there are groups in our country as well as yours who keep flowing money into government to make sure that they control certain sectors of the economy and all that varies is which ones have successfully come under the control of special interests. They will use all kinds of bullshit arguments to try and scare everyone into thinking they need all of this. ...There's a heavy, and fairly successful lobbying and propaganda campaign in the US to convince people that ordering prescription drugs from outside the US is "scary and risky". Maybe just one in ten people do it. Maybe fewer than that. |
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..... As of this moment, we have a health insurance reform law that, as implimented, has outlawed about eight times as many existing health insurance policies in Florida alone than the government claims has been able to sign up for subsidized insurance plans via the health care websites across the entire country in three weeks time. "Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent." http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspxI'd almost prefer a single payer system myself, over this BS, and that is probably the point of it all. Also, 35 state ran high risk insurance pools, which directly insured the uninsurable with pre existing conditions, have been terminated. That's huge in terms of immediate negatives. Yes, we are talking about something like the US Post office running health care, and this is going to be bad. The thing is, you are not going to get single payer, because that would mean all those people and companies in the insurance business and associated industries would be out of work. And that's huge. You are not even going to get such a thing implemented over a ten year schedule. Those were key supporters of this krony kapitalist ring of corruption. It never was about actually supplying health care, it was about power and control and data. |
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....
There're also two things to clarify:
1) He indeed caused people to lose billions of CNY, and was not innocent at all.
2) His death penalty was debated for years online and finally approved by the Supreme Court, and his daughter knew that before he was executed. She just did not get notified the exact day of the execution and did not get her chance to see his father for the last chance. It was not a secret execution imagined by many westerners.....
Are you fucking serious? Nuancing a man being killed for losing investor money  You disgust me 'BitThink'. Fuck off!!! [/quote]You have to try to comprehend the Chinese world view to get an understanding on this. It's not BiThink or any other person. It is an entire world view. You live in China, you don't cause the Chinese nation to lose face in the eyes of the world. |
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as far as I can see, there is literally no way of getting around this issue except by onion routing.  This is sure to drive even more users to TOR, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing in the long run. Do you really think the NSA can't trace TOR? Something like 60% of TORs development money came from the US Govt. Enlighten me: How exactly do they get thru onion routing? The answer: They can't. There is a huge difference between legitimate parts of the government and illegitimate parts. They can "deanonymize" some users, they just need to control enough nodes. At best, its just a random thing. You basically need to set up a lot of nodes and just hope that the target user relays thru them. If you're concerned about stuff like this, the best thing you can do is, guess what, set up your computer as a relay. Yes, they admitted they are unable to de-anonymize all users.http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/tor-stinks-nsa-presentation-documentThat's not what they said. Basically they said they could only identify a few (a few percent). |
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...snip...
By the way, don't take me too seriously, I'm just doing this for fun and as an exercise, so my intents and purposes are very different than those who are true believers, or true polemics.
We don't  Good. And I never ever take the brainwashed Brits seriously. LOL... |
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You've had a couple generations of government propaganda to help develop the attitude that you should be happy with your NHS.
[...]
I would note that I and most people in the USA are opposed to government propaganda and shaping of behavior such as is accepted in the UK.
As I said: I'd say it also consists of people who are convinced that any socialised system (of anything) is "bad" You don't even think it is possible that the NHS could actually be delivering a good service, do you? In the US, we have a long history - and a lot of good reasons - to believe "government is evil, and the larger, the more evil, yet when smaller, still evil, but perhaps a necessary evil." It is not uncommon for me to confront people who start with the premise that "government is good and benevolent". The former is universally true, the latter may on occasion be true. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I would say though, that if in debate I found someone ignored the funding through debt instead of wealth issue, ignored the database and privacy concerns, and ignored the problem of government propaganda, then proceeded to debate using argument by anecdote, sweeping generalizations, and other easily identified logical fallacies, then I would be inclined to explore the premises underlying such behavior, such as the effect of propaganda on the individual in the society. This is separate from your question of whether the NHS could actually be delivering a good service, of course. I'm sure your last decade's flood of third world immigrants would agree with you that it was a good service. They particularly like the fact that it's free for them, along with the other government free stuff. By the way, don't take me too seriously, I'm just doing this for fun and as an exercise, so my intents and purposes are very different than those who are true believers, or true polemics. |
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And what I've been saying has very clearly been that I am happier with what I have than with what you have. ....
....On a different hot-button issue, I'm very glad I live in a country with no right to gun ownership. That doesn't mean I think you could simply ban all guns in the US and get the same result...
You've had a couple generations of government propaganda to help develop the attitude that you should be happy with your NHS. My knowledge of world reporting on the US is that there are errors and biases inherent in it, which incidentally your positions validate, which nonetheless reinforces the tribal concepts of "we're better than they are". That's not just Britian but across Europe. Incidentally you've ignored the fiscal issue underlying the health care, both in Britian and the US, which is curious because nothing exists unless it's funded. But don't worry; even if the NHS service funding goes down and deliverable health care shrinks, the propaganda budget will stay solid and probably increase. And people will continue to be told to believe that they are happy with their health care. Just as I have noted the fiscal problem as #1, and just as I have noted the dangers of government databases on private behavior, I would note that I and most people in the USA are opposed to government propaganda and shaping of behavior such as is accepted in the UK. |
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And in your, and Hawker's comments, is evident a pervasive tone of 'anything state run must, by definition, be GREAT.' No, just that it will be good or bad, as with most other things. The contradiction of 'All state-run things are AWFUL' is not 'All state-run things are GREAT', it is 'Some state-run things are not AWFUL'. Peoples' experiences of the NHS will vary based on where they are in the country, and what services they are using. I'm in a reasonably affluent suburb, and I have had good experiences. My guess is that those two are correlated, and that if I was in a poor inner-city area my experiences wouldn't be as good.I've had "good experiences" with police in totalitarian countries and communist countries. Others have not had good experiences with them. (LOL) And some people have had good experiences with police in democratic countries. Others have not had good experiences with them. When you try to substantiate your position based on your own experiences, this is called bringing anecdotal experience in as evidence. It is generally rejected as support for a position in debate. And what is it called when you just parrot political rhetoric? How does it advance the discussion more than just 'Four legs good, two legs bad'? So the argument that you call "parroting political rhetoric".... I am in the crappy UK and the NHS system is seriously messed up here.
It is true : you get what you pay for ! Crap doctors, huge waiting lists, can't do a blood test unless it is "needed" etc.
Healthcare managed by government = total POS; the government ruins everything mate !
I feel sorry for you in the US now you are forced to pay into the public healthcare scam ... ....doesn't fall under the exclusion to your broad sweeping generalization based on your anecdotal experience bolded above? A big problem with attempting to judge something like a health care system is that - like a person - you don't know it's true nature until it is seriously stressed. That's when you find out the character of a person. Or, a health care system.... But please note that this entire thread consists of people in socialist countries with state run health care systems trying to argue the sweeping generalization that socialist health care is "good", and therefore it must certainly be "good" if implemented in the USA. That is definitely a false statement. Let me give you one stark example of a possible problem with a state run health care system in the USA. A) In most states here, marihuana is illegal. B) As part of socialist health care, people get blood tests. C) Blood tests show clearly who is a user of marihuana. That info is entered into every single person's database which is held by the Fed. D) People are then blacklisted for various jobs, trades and licenses based on their personal life as revealed by the blood test and as collected by the government. There is nothing abstract or philosophical in that problem. |
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well it's pretty much what you pay is what you get all around the world...
Wait... You mean we can't get a boat load of free stuff? I want the free stuff. |
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....
I see, so I should ignore my own actual experiences with the NHS, and instead just accept your blindly parroted philosophical objections?....
No. You should accept them both as true. You've had a good experience, he's had a bad one. And he could have a good one in the future, as could you have a bad one. This isn't complicated. And if that was what he had said, I would agree. It wasn't. He said nothing about having bad experiences with the NHS, just knee-jerk political philosophy that anything state-run must, by definition, be awful. And in your, and Hawker's comments, is evident a pervasive tone of 'anything state run must, by definition, be GREAT.' I've had "good experiences" with police in totalitarian countries and communist countries. Others have not had good experiences with them. (LOL) When you try to substantiate your position based on your own experiences, this is called bringing anecdotal experience in as evidence. It is generally rejected as support for a position in debate. |
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Are you claiming because it is technically illegal there is no free market? A free market is not concerned about legalities. Constraints to a free market exist when it is CONSTRAINED, as when most of a million users' products are held at the border - not when one person's products are. Laugh. The free market is constrained by it being illegal. No, it isn't. The very article quoted above states that the FDA does not enforce this rule for a wide variety of conditions of individual purchase for 90 days or less supply. I and everyone else order - 90 day supply. And the FDA rules are not "law" but administrative regulation. Illegal doesn't even apply in this case. ....
I see, so I should ignore my own actual experiences with the NHS, and instead just accept your blindly parroted philosophical objections?....
No. You should accept them both as true. You've had a good experience, he's had a bad one. And he could have a good one in the future, as could you have a bad one. This isn't complicated. |
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The very article you link to proves there is a free market in prescription meds. It cites a million Americans a year buying their drugs out of country. It cites one lady who had hers impounded. Are you claiming because it is technically illegal there is no free market? A free market is not concerned about legalities. Constraints to a free market exist when it is CONSTRAINED, as when most of a million users' products are held at the border - not when one person's products are. Respectfully, you are wasting your time pursuing this argument. I have talked with US Border Patrol agents about this and have taken prescription drugs across the US Mexican border. I have imported them from Canada, England, and India for over ten years. Anybody who chooses to do so can do so. If I understand correctly, Americans who try to buy their medicines with their own money get charged more than those who pay for the drugs through an insurance policy who in turn are charged more than those whose drugs are paid for by medicare. And the differences are sometimes over 1000% - price gouging rather than marketing differences.
If the prices you pay for your drugs are negotiated for all taxpayers and roughly the same for all, whats wrong with that? Here in the USA the very reason many of these prices are high is the unholy alliance of lobbyists and politicians in Washington DC. Give the politicians the ability to "negotiate a price" for drugs - or for anything - and here, you'll have a real disaster in the making. The result will be high prices, not low prices. Your statement above I bolded is correct except it is not price gorging by the patent holder, the price differentials occur in the distribution chain. For examples, by hospitals. This is the result of medicare and other social insurance services payments' being TOO LOW. They make up the difference by charging the free market customer. Therefore if you expand the social insurance, this problem is made worse, not better. |
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If you can afford your own care, shouldn't you be expected to pay for it? Either directly or via taxation? But if you can't afford it, who then is responsible for your bad luck? Other taxpayers?
In the European model, yes to both. You pay through general taxation, so the more you can afford, the more you pay. And the entire country forms one huge insurance pool, so everybody pays for everybody else's bad luck. (Actually it is more than just the one country, as in general membership of a socialised medical system in one European country also qualifies you for treatment in any other one.) Healthcare is simply viewed differently here, it is the third emergency service alongside the police and fire service. We wouldn't consider making people pay for using those services, either, they are all considered part of the basic set of services provided by the state. I realise that that is not the American view of things. And, at least where I am, it works. I can go and see my GP whenever I need, get referred for specialist consultations as needed, get whatever tests I need, and pay a single fixed price for any prescription medicine, regardless of what it actually costs. I realise that the largest part of the leftpondian objection is on philosophical, rather than practical grounds, you have a much smaller view of government than on this side, but on a practical level, I wouldn't want to swap what I have for what you have, especially when there is also a parallel private healthcare sector for non-urgent issues, or for if you just want nicer surroundings, a private room, and so on. And for that private heathcare cover, which my work provides, I'm taxed as though it cost me about 100 dollars a month. That is for myself and my wife, including all existing conditions. So either way, public or private, it seems better over here. But under the Euro, your country cannot inflate it's currency to pay for votes it wants to buy by giving people free stuff. So is your country going further into debt to provide these services, or does it have a balanced budget? Because there is nothing wrong with a country choosing to spend excess wealth on medical, space, museums, or free tennis shoes for everybody. What is wrong is creating and spending excess debt on such things. |
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Because there is a difference between health care and health insurance. The health insurance system in the US is broken. However, if you do have insurance, or can otherwise pay the costs yourself, the US has the highest rate of health care access and the highest health care quality for the middle class of any nation in the world. The proof is in the pudding, as the wealthy still come to the US to get care when things get serious; although that's probably going to change. Can I get cheaper care for common problems in other nations? Yes, that's provablely true. But for cutting edge care, historically speaking, that's the US. Another way of saying that is that the US is the best place to be ill if you are rich. It you aren't rich, you would be much better off being ill in Europe instead. ....I do not take a dime out of my health savings account in a normal year, and have only taken $1K out of it in the entire time that I've had it. Because I'm saving for a time when I really need it. I have a major medical plan that is attached to the medical savings account, with an annual deductable of $6500. I've not yet hit this mark in a year, but then I also don't pay for expensive testing that's not likely to tell me something about my condition that I can't guess. Eventually, my condition is going to be very expensive. That's not your problem. It's mine. .... They don't want you to do this. This is a way for you to be independent and not to be sucking up to the rulers of subjects like you. You are doing some thinking. You need to stop that and get with the program. Here is what is going to happen to the HSA/MSA: http://floppingaces.net/2012/07/08/obamacare-killing-health-savings-accounts-reader-post/HHS has decided, despite repeated petitions to amend their rule, to simply not count any of the monies paid by HSA insured towards their deductible. HHS will only count monies paid by insurers. So, if you have a $5,000 deductible, and pay $3,000 in health expenses to meet your deductible, for the purposes of HHS’s rigged rule, none of that money counts – because you paid it, not the insurer. Given that only roughly 6% of the HSA insured population will hit their $5,000 deductible, it is just about mathematically impossible for the HSA qualified insurance to meet the MLR regulation. HHS knows this, they have been told for just about two years by HSA policyholders and advocates.
Since HHS is in full “let’s just not count it” mode, HSA qualified health plans in the individual and small group market can not comply with the combined rigged rule effect of both the MLR and AV regulations. This means the 5.4 million Americans in these two markets who now have an HSA will not be able to find HSA qualified health plans. Poof – forty percent of Americans with an HSA just won’t be able to have one. |
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...BTW, the Holvereson article includes source research. You just have not looked.
Yes, I did see the footnotes, to the end of the Klein article in which he quotes Holverseson, for whom he admits he has no transcript. What all the research and your own experience shows is that there is no free market in drugs because the US has patent laws and regulations to prevent it.... If there is no free market, then how is it that I buy things cheaply and have them promptly shipped to my door? A 30 second check of my current Canadian pharmacy shows that they do stock the inhalers, and will sell and ship them to me. Nobody is forcing Americans to pay more for inhalers as you claim. Please stop these ridiculous claims. |
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...snip...
Interestingly, from an economic point of view, this is an internal transfer so its harmless. Wealth is being transferred within the US population and a huge chunk of the US deficit is a simple subsidy going to the drug and device patent holders.
First, the article is by Erza Klein, whom is simply an obama/obamacare shill. Second, it doesn't say or imply what you say it does. It does not prove the problem is patents, and neither does it disprove (or can it be disproven) that lawyer costs drive medical costs. Neither does it present data that in any way supports a single payer system. It just shows the costs of a doctor visit, a sample procedure, and a drug - in the US versus other countries. Arguably, you could say that the Lipitor price difference is patents. But there is another problem there. I buy Lipitor, both internationally and in the USA, and I do not agree with his quoted numbers. Buying through Canada Liptor manufactured in India, the price is about 60% of the US pharmacy price. That ratio is roughly accurate for other drugs. The chart implies a five to one differential. The politics of the author are immaterial if the facts he bases it on are accurate. As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.
I really don't see how you can read that and think that tort reform is the answer. The US pays more for the drugs and the devices. Your Lipitor example proves that. Actually, the Lipitor example proves the reverse and disproves your assertion about price gorging of patents. I pay about half for Lipitor by buying 'the cheap way'. That's no different than you or I buying through Ebay to get the same thing cheaper. We can thus assume that the differential is 'retail markup', not price gorging. Retail markup doesn't go to the patent holder. Having said that, I am certain that one could show certain drugs to be vastly overpriced in the US and prove that it was due to a patent holder pricing it one way in the US and differently overseas. However, that is pricing to cater to the local market and it's supply/demand characteristics. Yet again, all one needs for a correction is to purchase competitively from the low bidder and the markets will adjust accordingly. Regarding Klein, you note:
The politics of the author are immaterial if the facts he bases it on are accurate.That's only true if the author does not cherry pick facts or engage in various logical fallacies in asserting a conclusion. Klein is not known for this sort of impartial presentation, quite the opposite.  Lipitor is out of patent protection and has been since mid 2012. If it was patent protected, the differential between the US and abroad would be way higher. The implication is that you are seeing facts that you don't like and trying to pretend they are not real. Here are more examples: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/the-soaring-cost-of-a-simple-breath.htmlThat is price gouging - plain and simple. People have to choose between allowing their child to die and paying well over the market rate for drugs. The thing that puzzles me is that you want to defend this price gouging. Do you own a patent yourself that means it would cost you money if prices were controlled. I don't get where you are coming from here. Well, so I disproved your assertion about Lipitor and price gorging, but noted that one could find examples of price gorging. Then you respond:
The thing that puzzles me is that you want to defend this price gouging. which makes no sense, does it? What I've defended is the ability to purchase medicines in the free market both in and between countries, in order to get the best price. And that rather destroys the foundation of your pro-socialist argument that the state must be in control of prices, doesn't it? I suggest you look again at the concept of 'price-gorging' and ask how it could exist except with the active assistance of the state in restricting competition, then ask why, if the state created the problem, would further regulation and market restrictions be a necessary solution. As for this... As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.
You realize you are quoting a newspaper reporter who is quoting from an interview he made? These are not 'facts'. You've been told by several persons in this thread some of the details on how medical procedures differ between the US and other countries which accounts, whether rightly or wrongly, for the price differences. How are you not ignoring that? I know why Klein ignores it, let's leave that aside for the moment. |
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....
What about mandate, with a ban on employee provided insurance? Make everyone pay for the entire coverage directly I.e. instead of employer paying for $500 of your insurance without you even knowing, have them give you a $500 raise, and let you go out and pick something. If we go in this direction, we may even end up moving into a more free-market health coverage system, and really drive down costs, which are mostly hidden from view now.
That's not an acceptable solution, because insufficient potential for graft and corruption exists. ....If, instead of doctors being worried about being sued and doing whatever they can to an unwitting patient whose insurance is willing to pay for whatever, the doctor actually gave the patient a direct option to either bill them $50 for a check, or $1,000 for a scan, the patient would take their own risks into consideration, and may forgo the more expensive option on their own, in which case the doctor's liability will also be limited, since it was the patient who made that decision. I know several people who have recently done just that, walked right out instead of doing the MRI. |
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...snip...
Interestingly, from an economic point of view, this is an internal transfer so its harmless. Wealth is being transferred within the US population and a huge chunk of the US deficit is a simple subsidy going to the drug and device patent holders.
First, the article is by Erza Klein, whom is simply an obama/obamacare shill. Second, it doesn't say or imply what you say it does. It does not prove the problem is patents, and neither does it disprove (or can it be disproven) that lawyer costs drive medical costs. Neither does it present data that in any way supports a single payer system. It just shows the costs of a doctor visit, a sample procedure, and a drug - in the US versus other countries. Arguably, you could say that the Lipitor price difference is patents. But there is another problem there. I buy Lipitor, both internationally and in the USA, and I do not agree with his quoted numbers. Buying through Canada Liptor manufactured in India, the price is about 60% of the US pharmacy price. That ratio is roughly accurate for other drugs. The chart implies a five to one differential. The politics of the author are immaterial if the facts he bases it on are accurate. As Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.
I really don't see how you can read that and think that tort reform is the answer. The US pays more for the drugs and the devices. Your Lipitor example proves that. Actually, the Lipitor example proves the reverse and disproves your assertion about price gorging of patents. I pay about half for Lipitor by buying 'the cheap way'. That's no different than you or I buying through Ebay to get the same thing cheaper. We can thus assume that the differential is 'retail markup', not price gorging. Retail markup doesn't go to the patent holder. Having said that, I am certain that one could show certain drugs to be vastly overpriced in the US and prove that it was due to a patent holder pricing it one way in the US and differently overseas. However, that is pricing to cater to the local market and it's supply/demand characteristics. Yet again, all one needs for a correction is to purchase competitively from the low bidder and the markets will adjust accordingly. Regarding Klein, you note:
The politics of the author are immaterial if the facts he bases it on are accurate.That's only true if the author does not cherry pick facts or engage in various logical fallacies in asserting a conclusion. Klein is not known for this sort of impartial presentation, quite the opposite. |
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