You don't know what you are talking about. CivicaRx announced long before the "Inflation Reduction Act" (what a joke of a name that was for a bill), that they were bringing generic, long-acting insulin to market at $30 vial (delayed to 2024 because of waiting for FDA approval). Why is insulin so expensive? Utah company plans to make it more affordable - Deseret News The big drug manufacturers had no choice but to drop their prices or they would have been priced out of the market. The IRA implemented a government price fixing strategy above market value, which is meaningless (and unconstitutional).
You realize democrats were pushing for 30 dollar insulin back in 2021 in the original build back better......civicxs only came up with the 30 dollar price after democrats introduced it in 2021....Also not everyone will be eligible for their drug but rather quite the opposite....there's nothing "unconstitutional about it" lol. Insurance companies have the option not to take Medicare...every drug has a fee schedule price from Medicare. Nothing illegal about it. also if it wasn't for the IRA there's nothing stopping Civia from jacking up the prices later without the ira. You're clueless
CivicaRx is a non-profit drug supplier. They have been providing medication at affordable prices for years. It has nothing to do with Democrats or whatever they were "pushing for" in 2021. People saw what they perceived to be a problem (the lack of affordable prescription drugs) and chose to solve it themselves instead of involving the government. You are attributing to government, not even action but talking points, something that predated those talking points. First you tried to attribute it to the Inflation Reduction Act, which was announced after Civica Rx had already announced a release date for $30/vial insulin. Then when I showed you that was wrong, you pivoted to some nebulous statement by Democrats that they wanted there to be 30 dollar insulin. How about give credit to the people that actually just did it and didn't need the government to be involved. There is no indication that CivicaRx is limiting who can purchase their insulin. Their website specifically says that they are committed to selling at one low, transparent price for all. Making it illegal to sell above a government mandated price point is a violation of the contracts clause. Medicare can negotiate its own rates, and that is fine. That is not what you posted. You said: I haven't researched the question, but either you were lying, you were wrong, or the legislation is unconstitutional. They are a non-profit and their entire mission is to provide drugs at low prices. You are just making up fantasies to attribute what they have done to the Biden administration. The fact is you didn't know that they existed, and you thought is was something the government did to drive down the price of insulin. It is okay to admit you didn't know something and you were wrong.
If you read bidens SOTU speech in 2022 he called for insulin to be 30 dollars a mouth BEFORE they announced the plan to sell insulin at 3p dollars. In the original bbb that Democrats passed in October 2021 it already included a provision in the law that insulin had to be sold at 35 dollars for all insurance. Democrats also transformed the drug rebate program which medicaid relies on back in March of 2021. Pharmaceutical companies don't just voluntarily give up profits This article does a great job at explaining why these companies are reducing the price. Has nothing to do with what you said https://prospect.org/politics/2023-03-07-american-rescue-plan-triumphs/ FTC has been going after pharmaceuticals firms with monopolies in life saving medicines which is the right thing to do. Did you read the illumina grail merger the ftc blocked like I asked you?
While that's great news, what's even more important is the domestic production of advanced chips. Intel, Samsung, Micron, Qualcomm, and TSMC building new plants in the US over the next two decades is critical for the country, from defense to your smart toaster. This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime investments that will pay off for generations.
The treasury is the bridge fiscal and monetary policy. I think it's more important we keep servicing the debt than actually "paying it off". Interest rates change over time so it's not like we will necessarily being paying the same rates indefinitely, in fact indicators point towards lower interest rates in the future. It's also prudent to ask if back stopping the economy during Covid is better than the alternative. And again.... we can always raise taxes.
CivicaRX is just a drop in the bucket. Do you think pharmacies get their insulin through them? Your link shows they mostly serve hospitals.... which isn't where the vast majority of people get their insulin from. It's great what they do.... but they aren't moving the needle by themselves.
Maybe our disagreement is a matter of perception. You act like we have an option to choose. It's not a 34 trillion dollar credit card bill, more like a millennial student loan payment that never goes away. We can only hope those bridges we're rebuilding paid for itself while that interest payment is serviced by our grandchildren. Eisman's point, which you're not distancing from, is more or less that folks were worried when the interest payments were half trillion, but "nothing happened"...why bother when it's now double? What impacts do interest payments have on the GDP? Is it inert and Just There? Or is it worse like a black hole that you have to spend effort to move away from? Maybe the next president acts like a corporate raider who took over the country via 35T leveraged buyout, slashes all funding to service the debt into an "acceptable rating", then pats himself on the back with a 200 million dollar bonus. Fair. Also fair to question where that money went and whether every cent was accounted for. I've questioned our ballooning defense budget as well, though now it seems like Arkham Asylum released every crazy out there to the point where maybe one trillion a year to keep the global order is good for our sake. In this case, as interest payments and entitlements grow in proportion, we might not be able to sustain defense spending as our planners intended. Drinking Water from the tap is a miraculous innovation, but it breeds complacency into thinking it's not a scarce resource. You act like we've had a meaningful tax increase in the past quarter century. Instead we've had clowns shutting down the government from debt ceiling squabbles with downgrades by 2 credit agencies in this timeline. Wouldn't you agree that's part of the "structural problem"... how voters punish politicians for raising any form of taxes regardless of a vision for reducing spending while rewarding stooges who pass taxcuts and kickbacks skewed towards the wealthy?
I don't think it was delayed. In 2022, Civica stated that around the beginning of 2024, availability would be contingent on FDA approval after they completed the clinical trial and submitted it for FDA approval. However, I haven't seen an update from them on the progress of the trial, the submission, or the approval.
This is a point worth repeating: the US healthcare market is all messed up. You have PBMs securing favorable placements for pharmaceutical manufacturers offering good rebates. They act as intermediaries between pharmaceutical manufacturers, health insurers, and pharmacies. The rebates and pricing are hidden, and the negotiations between manufacturers and PBMs have been criticized for resulting in inflated list prices to accommodate negotiated rebates. Mark Cuban's drug company is trying to change this model, but he realizes that for now, he's not making a huge dent. He also has to contend with PBMs, but only those that don't take rebates. Cuban's company and CivicaRx plays a role in helping to bring prices down for generic drugs. The federal government also plays a huge immediate role by capping insulin costs through Medicare. (Remember that, until the IRA bill, the federal government was barred from negotiating drug pricing, which was simply stupid.) Without IRA, I don't think Cuban's company and CivicaRx would impact Medicare patients directly and might not even indirectly. CivicaRx also has an agreement with the state of CA to provide low-cost insulin through a CA RX plan. As you can see, they needed the state government to step in to provide an insulin drug plan to California. They can't simply go to pharmacy and said, take my drugs and sell it for cheap. The idea that CivicaRx (or Cuban's drug company) can impact pricing quickly is based on the wrong assumption that there is actual fair market competition in healthcare. There is not. Until and unless there is true market competition (but it's ineffective at cost control even if you remove all these 3rd parties given the nature of demand vs. supply with health), the government plays a major role in controlling costs. It's how every government in modern society, except the US, is doing it. We should strive to make pricing transparent, remove middlemen as much as possible, not allow middlemen to essentially control the market pricing, allow the private sector to compete where they may, and also use the government to contain health costs.
@Major and all the proponents of the ACA told me healthcare would become affordable despite ignoring the fundamental problem behind the US healthcare system. My premiums went up about ~ 20% this year when I am told inflation is right under 3%. Cuban is a grifting idiot... he doesn't have an altruistic bone in his body. He made 5.6B with his hail mary play and to date, he is worth 6.2B. In 20 years, he's barely increased his wealth by 10% There is not much that can be done when we continue to elect geriatric politicians who are well entrenched in this corrupt system. Middle class is perpetually getting hollowed out while the naïve voters continue to support the political teams. end of my morning rant.
The ACA certainly made healthcare affordable for some (as in, it's free or almost free, lol). However, 'affordable' is subjective, and other than marketing, I don't think the ACA ever really claimed what that means. The main claims are increased access to care, protected pre-existing conditions, required no-cost benefits for certain preventative cares, and as for 'cost,' they didn't claim any specific value other than to 'bend the out-of-control cost increase' in healthcare. The cost side was severely weakened after the government option was removed, as it didn't even have enough Democrats to vote it through. It accomplished most of those. On the cost side, did it actually 'bend the cost curve'? Studies have shown that it actually has. Without it, healthcare costs would be even less 'affordable' today. It's not enough, though, as we all have seen. Unfortunately, the government has to play a bigger and more direct role to control costs. Again, that's how every other modern country is doing it. We don't even have to reinvent the wheel, but we can't get over the political wall.
The bending of the cost curve is distorted by allowing insurance companies to increase the premiums max rate YOY. Also quality of care has been sacrificed. One thing I have been hammering into millennials is to start finding good doctors now when they are young. Good luck to the person who finds themselves in a health care crisis w/out the support of good doctors. The pre-existing conditions should have gone into a socialized pool instead of handed over to the private healthcare cartel. The entire industry is now being consolidated. Healthcare should not be this expensive.
I was not a proponent of the ACA. As I said, pre-existing conditions should have been funneled into a socialized pool. But that would never happen because insurance companies would become extinct
The proponents of the ACA might have said that healthcare would become more affordable. Proponents of a tax break for the top 1% might have said that the tax breaks would pay for themselves ... but ... only a fool would believe such nonsense.
More ranting... Aside from a broken system, we've got to be focusing much, much more on preventive care. We, as a western society as a whole, are almost solely focused on acute and chronic care. The cheapest healthcare ever is to prevent or delay chronic conditions as much as possible. We should be throwing big bucks at that. Every dollar spent there probably has a 100x return. But that involves the government 'giving' out money and incentives, which some people are completely against, ideologically. I think it's funny how most Americans understand the concept of investment for the future—investment by our government in things like transportation, technology, R&D, core technology, medicine, energy —yet we have so little room for allowance of investment in human health (physical and mental), and again, I'm talking about preventive care. This doesn't mean we shouldn't improve and reduce the cost of acute and chronic care, but to do all of the above.
I do agree completely and largely what I was getting at. After 30, people should be getting routine check (at least 2x a year) with regular blood workups. Doctors should be more forward with their patients and patient records should be more readily available. For several years, the couple doctors I would visit would tell me I should start doing more exercise and improve my diet. My elevated blood pressure was not serious and that sometimes people's blood pressure runs high. As I was not catastrophically at risk, they were passed off as 'suggestions and improvements'. ...Until I had a catastrophic event. It was then I realized I had a **** doctor who wasn't tracking my vitals properly. It took 3 months to find a good doctor, much of that time waiting on 'new patient' appointment, which were 6 weeks out. If I had a good doctor from the start, I would have likely fully recovered. Some of the basic preventative medicine can be extremely affordable if the medical cartel would allow it to happen.
Sorry to hear about your health crisis. I think western doctors are trained on # that are more aligned to chronic thresholds. Until you cross over, you are okay. I think the mindset should be to be as healthy as possible and prioritize it. You want great # and maintain it as much as possible. You want to build up to sustain the stress and age-related decline that you will eventually come across. This isn't simply regular preventive checkups, but a wholescale change in mindset toward mental and physical health. It also involves government policies such as (and here is when people start hating it) planning cities in ways that encourage movement. Cleaner air, water. Healthier food. Now, don't go force people to do things, but make it by "default" easier for people to do healthier and better things.
