In article , Joe from Kokomo writes:
I watched a CNN film called "Unseen Enemy", a non-political documentary
about the potential for world-wide pandemics from various diseases, the
flu, h1n1, SARS, Zika, Ebola, etc, etc.

Not at all mentioned in the film but what *is* political is that
trumpo-the-Clown's proposed budget is *cutting* funding for medical
research and funding for the National Institute of Health. Brilliant!

I suppose I should keep my mouth shut since I work in the health
care industry and have from time to time in the past provided
services to medical researchers even though they are not the ones
paying my salary.

But just a tiny bit of a counter argument, and certainly not one
my employers would agree with: if we fund research that is then
given away free to the rest of the world, we are subsidizing with
taxpayer dollars health care that the rest of the world will not
have to pay for. I.e., very low payback on the taxpayer's dollar.

Similar reasoning applies to Big Pharma. It costs so very much
to develop a drug that we have our system set up to allow the
pharmaceuticals to charge high prices in order to pay back those
costs _by passing them on to Americans who become ill_ while
charging much lower prices to the rest of the world. In that
case it is to some extent charging what the market will bear,
and God knows that affordable AIDS treatment, for example, is
extremely important to the third world. But what happens is
that we pay the full price of the drug (although our insurance
companies may have negotiated a discount so they pay somewhat
less), while, far ahead of schedule, many other countries are
paying "generic drug" prices even for drugs for which patent
protection has not expired and for which generic alternatives
are not yet available.

I'm not apologizing for excesses of Big Pharma in that second
case, just pointing out that our system is set up to have
America's health care researchers and pharmaceutical industry
subsidize everyone else.

How to fix it? Well, in this world of globalization we do
try to assure that everyone pays their share. But it is
very easy to get caught up in the idea that so much of the
world cannot pay for state of the art health care and we should
pay for their free ride. Not a bad idea except that we are
just a small proportion of the entire planet's population, and,
wealthy as we are, cannot continue subsidizing everyone else
forever.

And even if we did have agreements that everyone would pay their
own way we would still have many refusing to follow the rules,
and they just might choose to violate patent rights on a massive
scale so that they can sell cut rate versions of products for
which we - and that means the American public - had to pay
dearly in terms of up front costs as well as in of having to
pay full sticker price after the fact, except for the
relatively small discounts previously noted for the cases
where an insurance company is paying the bill. (Not that
any government insurance programs pay their share of the
medical bill, but that's a bit of cost shifting I won't even
try to venture into).

Just my opinion, and if it coincides in any extent in any with
that of my employer it will astound me to the same extent that
it astounds them.

George

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

trump -- an embarrassment to the country, a danger to the world

On Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at 8:07:56 PM UTC-5, George Cornelius wrote:
In article , Joe from Kokomo writes:
I watched a CNN film called "Unseen Enemy", a non-political documentary
about the potential for world-wide pandemics from various diseases, the
flu, h1n1, SARS, Zika, Ebola, etc, etc.

Not at all mentioned in the film but what *is* political is that
trumpo-the-Clown's proposed budget is *cutting* funding for medical
research and funding for the National Institute of Health. Brilliant!

I suppose I should keep my mouth shut since I work in the health
care industry and have from time to time in the past provided
services to medical researchers even though they are not the ones
paying my salary.

But just a tiny bit of a counter argument, and certainly not one
my employers would agree with: if we fund research that is then
given away free to the rest of the world, we are subsidizing with
taxpayer dollars health care that the rest of the world will not
have to pay for. I.e., very low payback on the taxpayer's dollar.

Similar reasoning applies to Big Pharma. It costs so very much
to develop a drug that we have our system set up to allow the
pharmaceuticals to charge high prices in order to pay back those
costs _by passing them on to Americans who become ill_ while
charging much lower prices to the rest of the world. In that
case it is to some extent charging what the market will bear,
and God knows that affordable AIDS treatment, for example, is
extremely important to the third world. But what happens is
that we pay the full price of the drug (although our insurance
companies may have negotiated a discount so they pay somewhat
less), while, far ahead of schedule, many other countries are
paying "generic drug" prices even for drugs for which patent
protection has not expired and for which generic alternatives
are not yet available.

I'm not apologizing for excesses of Big Pharma in that second
case, just pointing out that our system is set up to have
America's health care researchers and pharmaceutical industry
subsidize everyone else.

How to fix it? Well, in this world of globalization we do
try to assure that everyone pays their share. But it is
very easy to get caught up in the idea that so much of the
world cannot pay for state of the art health care and we should
pay for their free ride. Not a bad idea except that we are
just a small proportion of the entire planet's population, and,
wealthy as we are, cannot continue subsidizing everyone else
forever.

And even if we did have agreements that everyone would pay their
own way we would still have many refusing to follow the rules,
and they just might choose to violate patent rights on a massive
scale so that they can sell cut rate versions of products for
which we - and that means the American public - had to pay
dearly in terms of up front costs as well as in of having to
pay full sticker price after the fact, except for the
relatively small discounts previously noted for the cases
where an insurance company is paying the bill. (Not that
any government insurance programs pay their share of the
medical bill, but that's a bit of cost shifting I won't even
try to venture into).

Just my opinion, and if it coincides in any extent in any with
that of my employer it will astound me to the same extent that
it astounds them.

George

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

trump -- an embarrassment to the country, a danger to the world

pravdareport.com Kimmy boy calls for 600, 000 to evacuate Pyongyang. ...Platoon!, Report!, that's it!fall out......

In article , Joe from Kokomo writes:
I watched a CNN film called "Unseen Enemy", a non-political documentary
about the potential for world-wide pandemics from various diseases, the
flu, h1n1, SARS, Zika, Ebola, etc, etc.

Not at all mentioned in the film but what *is* political is that
trumpo-the-Clown's proposed budget is *cutting* funding for medical
research and funding for the National Institute of Health. Brilliant!

On 4/12/2017 9:03 PM, George Cornelius wrote:

I suppose I should keep my mouth shut since I work in the health
care industry and have from time to time in the past provided
services to medical researchers even though they are not the ones
paying my salary.

But just a tiny bit of a counter argument, and certainly not one
my employers would agree with: if we fund research that is then
given away free to the rest of the world, we are subsidizing with
taxpayer dollars health care that the rest of the world will not
have to pay for. I.e., very low payback on the taxpayer's dollar.

Similar reasoning applies to Big Pharma. It costs so very much
to develop a drug that we have our system set up to allow the
pharmaceuticals to charge high prices in order to pay back those
costs _by passing them on to Americans who become ill_ while
charging much lower prices to the rest of the world. In that
case it is to some extent charging what the market will bear,
and God knows that affordable AIDS treatment, for example, is
extremely important to the third world. But what happens is
that we pay the full price of the drug (although our insurance
companies may have negotiated a discount so they pay somewhat
less), while, far ahead of schedule, many other countries are
paying "generic drug" prices even for drugs for which patent
protection has not expired and for which generic alternatives
are not yet available.

I'm not apologizing for excesses of Big Pharma in that second
case, just pointing out that our system is set up to have
America's health care researchers and pharmaceutical industry
subsidize everyone else.

How to fix it? Well, in this world of globalization we do
try to assure that everyone pays their share. But it is
very easy to get caught up in the idea that so much of the
world cannot pay for state of the art health care and we should
pay for their free ride. Not a bad idea except that we are
just a small proportion of the entire planet's population, and,
wealthy as we are, cannot continue subsidizing everyone else
forever.

And even if we did have agreements that everyone would pay their
own way we would still have many refusing to follow the rules,
and they just might choose to violate patent rights on a massive
scale so that they can sell cut rate versions of products for
which we - and that means the American public - had to pay
dearly in terms of up front costs as well as in of having to
pay full sticker price after the fact, except for the
relatively small discounts previously noted for the cases
where an insurance company is paying the bill. (Not that
any government insurance programs pay their share of the
medical bill, but that's a bit of cost shifting I won't even
try to venture into).

Just my opinion, and if it coincides in any extent in any with
that of my employer it will astound me to the same extent that
it astounds them.
George


George,

1) Thanks for the polite response. It's nice to have a reasonable and
intelligent discussion.

2) Another responder to my original post missed my point and turned it
into a rant against Big Pharma. Wrong! What I did post was " Not at all
mentioned in the film but what *is* political is that trumpo-the-Clown's
proposed budget is *cutting* funding for medical research and funding
for the National Institute of Health. Brilliant!"

Nothing to do with Big Pharma per se, my point was just that trumpo was
stupid to cut funding for medical research.

3) To address your point above about the US paying for medical research
for the rest of the world. Well, I would respectfully submit the following:

a) Third world countries do not have the scientific knowledge -- or
money -- that we do.

b) Unfortunately, in today's small world, disease is only one airline
passenger away from this country. Also unfortunately, disease bacteria
and viruses are no respecters of geopolitical boundaries nor do they
care who paid for the research.

I get it that you feel we are giving the Third World countries a "free
lunch", but if we don't do the medical research, then who will? If your
or my relatives (or either of us) come down with Zika or Ebola or some
of the other tropical diseases invading this country, I think both of us
would wish that trumpo had not cut back medical research funding.

Joe

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

trump -- an embarrassment to the country, a danger to the world

On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 12:01:21 PM UTC-5, Joe "the KOOK" from Kokomo wrote:

I get it that you feel we are giving the Third World countries a "free
lunch", but if we don't do the medical research, then who will? If your
or my relatives (or either of us) come down with Zika or Ebola or some
of the other tropical diseases invading this country, I think both of us
would wish that trumpo had not cut back medical research funding.

Joe "the KOOK" -- an embarrassment to the country, a danger to the world.

Now every "pandemic" is Trump's fault. You are an idiot with an agenda (to bash Trump) so have no credibility. Get over it, you lost the election.

And look at the bright side, your vapid existence now has purpose for the next 4 years - bashing everything Trump.