Big Pharma, Big Phuck-Up

[robert l. bentham]

The wait is over: Even without socialist healthcare you can enjoy drug rationing. More than 200 drugs–from chemotherapy staples to antibiotics, from anesthesia to morphine–are now being denied to critically ill people, rationed or scalped at stratospheric prices.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11935/u.s._drug_shortage_big_pharma_big_phuck-up/

 

[the_leander]

The wait is over: Even without socialist healthcare you can enjoy drug rationing. More than 200 drugs–from chemotherapy staples to antibiotics, from anesthesia to morphine–are now being denied to critically ill people, rationed or scalped at stratospheric prices.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11935/u.s._drug_shortage_big_pharma_big_phuck-up/

And this was different to before how, exactly? There will always be rationing of resources such as medicine, if not due to availability than due to the ability to pay.

‘A lot of companies are making money hand-over-fist and not caring, not putting resources into old drugs with proven track records, and instead into ones that might be more profitable.’

But Dammy is always saying that regulation is bad, and that if the US is ever to recover they have to remove more of it!

 

[Glaucus]

Ya, all industries suffer from this sort of thing. Has anyone tried to source a spinning hard drive in last few weeks? Well, their prices have at least doubled due to global shortage. The cause? Well, it seems if you put all HD factories in a flood zone and then a flood happens, all HD factories get flooded. Oops. A similar thing happened a few years back with DRAM manufacturers. Shit happens.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

And this was different to before how, exactly? There will always be rationing of resources such as medicine, if not due to availability than due to the ability to pay.

And when you have a monopoly you can create an artificial scarcity. The resources are actually cheap and could be highly available but you just pretend that they are not and use your monopoly powers to inflate the price.

 

[Glaucus]

And when you have a monopoly you can create an artificial scarcity. The resources are actually cheap and could be highly available but you just pretend that they are not and use your monopoly powers to inflate the price.

Good thing they don't have a monopoly then!

 

[the_leander]

And when you have a monopoly you can create an artificial scarcity. The resources are actually cheap and could be highly available but you just pretend that they are not and use your monopoly powers to inflate the price.

Training Nurses, Doctors and Surgeons is not and never has been cheap and there is nothing artificial about the scarcity of all of the above.

 

[faethor]

There are quite a few out of work nurses still. So there really isn't scaricity there.

 

[the_leander]

There are quite a few out of work nurses still. So there really isn't scaricity there.

Define "quite a few" and then I would ask, how long have these nurses been out of the loop, in the UK you are required to do additional training if you wish to remain on the medical register if you are out of work for 12 months iirc.

 

[Glaucus]

Nurses for the most part are lucky in that it's easy for them to work in different fields. an ICU nurse does do different things from one on the wards, but the transition can be made easily. Doctors on the other hand go through much longer training programs. An ICU Dr may be useless at any other field of medicine and would need years of training to retool (my sis knows little about adult medicine, kids and adults have a totally different set of ailments to deal with).

But anyway, this article talks about drug shortages. And it's not big pharma cashing in. It's the middle-men right now. Big pharma is actually losing money here.

 

[faethor]

Define "quite a few" and then I would ask, how long have these nurses been out of the loop, in the UK you are required to do additional training if you wish to remain on the medical register if you are out of work for 12 months iirc.

http://www.workingnurse.com/articles/Why-Nursing-School-Grads-Have-Trouble-Finding-Jobs

Part of the issue is the Baby Boomers aren't retiring because they're afraid of the economy. Though as they age over the next decade the nursing need will skyrocket.