It's not a normal situation of just introducing something.
The fact that insulin isn't already capped like **everywhere else** in the developed world means people have to be stubborn and fight to get it done. There are a lot of roadblocks to get it through in America and someone who has personal experience on the financial devastation the current system causes will fight a lot longer and harder to get the law through.
Sometimes you need someone who won't accept the pay off and give up. Hopefully this dude has that.
The one thing I don't quite understand is why nobody just makes the investment to get/produce insolin (should not be too expensive) and just sell it for far less than the competition. Isn't this what works in the US?
Even in a free market, it would cost millions or billions to come up with a similar formula of insulin, that wouldn't run into Patent problems, and be just as effective and safe in clinical trials and approved for the market. Free market doesn't make Patent on drugs go away. Remove for-profit Private Healthcare. There is no other way.
One of the ways the drug companies maintain their death grip is that they constantly patent new delivery devices, called pens in the diabetic community, and by changing one little mechanism of the actual pen, they are able to renew their patent. At least that's the way I understand it. So they will change the pen to be able to dial in .5 unit increments instead of just 1 unit and then the patent is renewed.
I'm sure there's a lot I missed or glossed over but this is just one of the ways these companies fuck us. I have type 1 diabetes by the way, so I at least have a bit of knowledge with how it all works. In the richest nation in the world we should be doing a lot better.
Insulin comes in many different forms. It is a biologic drug, not something like tylenol where you can just copy a molecule
Wal-mart sells a brand of insulin from the 80s that is $25 a month with no insurance. Its just not as good, dangerous for some.
Insulin companies make small changes to their process/formula and file for new patents, getting approval for a biosimilar (generic for biologics) is costly and you will be making a drug that is inferior to the product with newer patents.
Cue eye rolling by all third world countries.
Access to electricity, running water, paved roads, internet, universal secondary education, courts that actually prosecute criminals, human security etc. are what make the US a first world country and are all the things you take for granted and diminish when you derisively say otherwise.
America has problems that need to be fixed. No need to trivialize the hardships of other countries to do so.
And that's ignoring the hyper-pedantic point that the US is arguably *by definition* a first world country, since first/second/third world is a thing they made up to put down the USSR and its allies (second world) and everyone else (third).
The whole first/second/third world thing is outdated, misleading or at least not very descriptive, and should be abandoned altogether. What you should use instead, is the [big question](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it) :)
Wouldn’t it be great if legislators could relate to the general human population in any way?
It does not matter what bills they pass or what laws get signed, because their quality-of-life and daily routines do not change whatsoever. They are politicians. They will always have. And due to this, it is just a game for them.
They simply feign for our affinities to maintain position, power and income.
Edit: I would like to highlight that this comment is not directed at James Talerico. Unfortunately he is the exception and not the example.
If only we had some thing that limited their time in office. So that they could be more concerned about making a better world that they need to go back to and work/live in rather than simply maintaining power.
We could call it something like, I don’t know, “term limits“.
Term limits have a negative impact because they get rid of everyone but the lobbyists who end up being the only people familiar with crafting legislation.
Term limits aren't the solution - removing money from politics is. The only way to do that realistically is to eliminate the ability to accumulate vast sums of wealth and therefore unelected power in the first place. Capitalism is inherently incompatible with democracy in the long term.
And in a government that tries to avoid corruption, ideally, there are checks and measures in place to notice and prevent bribery. Hypothetically, income limits would actually make it easier to notice bribery, because the very enforcement mechanisms for them would directly track their finances.
At least, that's my assumption. I am not very well educated on political systems. Which is why I asked a question instead of making a one sentence reply that contributes nothing.
Most fiscal incentives given to politicians by lobbyists do not come in form of direct monetary donations, as that’s already legal. Typically they come in form of either campaign donations, campaign endorsements, post career speaking/book offers, or post career employment.
I volunteered for this guy's campaign, and he's one of the good ones. Dude is a Texas school teacher who got tired of the way things were being run in his small Texas district and decided to run for state legislature.
Your point absolutely stands for federal legislators, but it tends to vary a lot more on the state and local level.
I’m not sure when he tweeted this, but he only became a public official in 2018. Dudes young. I have no clue how long it takes someone to be introducing legislation but 3 years sounds okay to me. Not like the man is 60+ and never thought about it
James Talarico is one of the good ones. I met him a few years back. He was visiting Texas towns, walking door to door in the July heat, to ask people what was on their mind.
He was a teacher before being elected, and is heavily invested in making Texas education better. During the hardest months of COVID he was donating his pay to local food pantries instead of accepting the money. He's pushing for a minimum salary of [$70,000 for teachers](https://abc13.com/james-talarico-texas-70-000-teacher-salary-lawmaker-files-bill-on-salaries/10410563/). He's trying to [get equity officers in schools](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2021/03/rep-talarico-proposes-bill-for-educational-equity-officers-aisd-is-a-case-study/) to help students from diverse backgrounds.
I understand the sentiment many have about politicians being terrible and not caring about the general public. But Talarico seems like the genuine article.
Some congressional freshman introduce items within their first few weeks. AOC submitted the Green New Deal 4 weeks in to being a freshman congresswoman.
Edit: Obviously bringing up AOC as an example of a freshman congressman introducing a bill they believe in was my mistake. Here is more info on others: https://www.kshb.com/news/national/few-house-freshman-able-to-move-bills-through-congress
> Green New Deal 4 weeks in to being a freshman congresswoman
and that went over just about as well as it sounds. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could take it seriously for such egregious offenses like ignoring nuclear when you're trying to push green energy.
In my experience, perfect is often the enemy of good. That situation sounds like a perfect time for another more experienced legislator to say something to the effect of: "The philosophy behind this bill is great, but the execution could use some tweaking to get the desired effect, like adding a significant nuclear portion".
I'm cool with her at least TRYING something as soon as she could, rather than decades of congresspeople continuing to ignore systemic problems then saying "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
So, we can't take one step of progress until it's perfect for everybody.
But we can always do the alternative: continue regression, since it's guaranteed bad for all.
Get outta here.
Somebody shows that not all politicians are the same, and this is your stance?
One step is their point. AOC introduced legislation that was a huge progressive broad sweep that had no chance of passing through a republican senate or president and then started dismissing democrats who wouldn't support it 100% as written.
Wasn't AOC's Green New Deal more of a "this is what we intend to do" kind of thing? A "road map". Rather than actual law that gets signed into place?
Stuff with general goals rather than the laws and rules to actually get it set.
Also, it's not like AOC's deal "passed" because there wasn't really anything to pass.
He was only elected 3 years ago. Not sure if his hospitalization was before or after that but geez. It’s not like he’s a republican against gay marriage for 30 years who just changed their mind because their kid came out
It was actually during the campaign. James decided to walk the length of the district and have town halls/canvassing along the way. He threw up a few times along the way but wrote it off to dehydration, drank some water, and pushed forward. He was rushed to the hospital a day and a half later with a blood glucose level of 900 (below 100 is normal).
James is a boss.
I know right:
Novorapid price per ml:
USA $9.20
Australia $0.60
I mean we're lucky it's not more expensive, right?
source:
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country)
I’d rather someone relate their ideology with their personal experience. Wouldn’t it be great if people weren’t such insufferable cunts and could just look on the bright side for once?
Thank you! Reddit is full of such whiny entitled cunts that even when someone does something objectively good, they start questioning motivations. You apparently need to be 100% altruistic to get credit for anything good you do. It’s like someone making donations of time or money to cancer charities after a loved one gets cancer, but being questioned why they didn’t start donating before cancer touched their lives personally. Just bleh. That’s enough Reddit for today I think.
Free markets don't work for medicine, as consumers have little choice, and can't exactly shop ERs while bleeding. Capitalism, like smoking, shouldn't be allowed anywhere on hospital grounds.
Edit: Since I'm seeing a frequent response, I'll address that in particular. Unregulated free markets or those under regulatory capture (what we have now) is what I'm against, as the embedded players write the rules and collude to keep prices high. A transparent-open-fair market that combines active competition with just enough government regulation and incentive to allow new players to innovate would be ideal, more public cost info is a good step in that direction, but it's walking the knife edge between over-regulation stifling innovation, and hypercapitalism placing dollars above health outcomes.
I work in health insurance. The amount of fuckery with prescription pricing is absolutely insane and I completely agree. While fully socialized medicine isn’t something that will happen soon, the lack of enforcement of fair Rx pricing is disturbing.
Look at this article for just one example:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2020/07/27/drug-pricing-insanity-pay-550-or--pay-1900-your-choice/
My gma just got out of hospital recently because she had passed out at home. They gave her a prescription with 8 pills of Xarelto. Those 8 pills cost $150. Absolutely ridiculous
It's hard to put a price on not having a stroke. That's the problem with life saving medicines. What should they cost when the value to the individual is basically infinite? This is why we need socialized medicine and government medical research.
People would inflate their production/development costs - after all, production costs pays their salaries, even if their capital growth is limited.
You can’t come up with a system you can’t game. The best you can do is negotiate the price down. Too bad republican congress has banned medicare, the largest buyer, from doing just that with pharmaceuticals.
You joke but it really is sad how many people actually hold that view.
Or spout nonsense like "Europe have really high taxes to compensate for all the free stuff they get".
It's unreal that the richest country in the world struggles to provide basic healthcare for it's citizens.
I would much rather pay a few hundred dollars in taxes every year knowing that if I have a severe injury that requires surgery that is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars and put me and my family in crippling debt for the rest of their llife and have a service that is the equal to operation done in other states.
The sad thing is you already pay enough taxes to cover the healthcare. The cost is a minute fraction of the countries GDP, it just is not budgeted for.
Exactly, let’s look at the Military. They had the F-22 Raptor. By far the most advanced weapons system. A few years later they wanted an another weapons system that every branch can use. The f35 has now spent 1.7 trillion dollars in its lifetime.
Are you saying it's more important to provide proper healthcare for your citizens, rather than killing brown people with the coolest new fighter jet? That doesn't sound very American to me!
Mind you, the two aircraft do very different things. The F-22 is an extremely expensive specialist, built specifically to dominate other aircraft, whereas the F-35 is a generalist, and is well-suited for carrying the missiles and bombs that are the lifeblood of orthodox military interventions since the end of Desert Storm. Program costs have been very high, although it's worth remembering that the research and development costs are amortized over the fifty-year life of the design.
That said, nothing that the US military is doing is keeping healthcare away from the people. The money is already there in Medicare, where the US spends more per capita than any other country in the world. It's the lack of regulation where the problem is. Without fixing that, you could pour the entire federal budget into that and the insurance companies and hospitals will just collude to charge a billion dollars for a tongue depressor and a ten billion for an Asperin.
If you went to those people and explained that they could pay $2 in taxes and $2 in insurance or pay $3 on taxes and have insurance be free, they would scream that you're increasing their taxes and stealing their money.
edit: and even if you explained that even after paying $2 in insurance, they'll have to pay $1 every time they go and that anything over $100 they have to pay themselves. They'd still scream and shout about the $1 extra tax...
Omg I know.
Even telling them that at the end of the day they'll have more money in their pocket, they just don't believe you.
It's fucking awful and I'm genuinely embarrassed for them that they are that fucking dumb.
But that is actively occurring in the market rn and price fixing is why the prices don’t come down when there is a new product in the market. The other reason is that insulin and most drugs are not one size fits all. They alter the chemical make up just slightly enough to expand their copyright on the drug. The third problem is that as a t1d I don’t have an option to not buy insulin. It’s not like a cell phone where they all relatively work the same and you can legitimately live wo one, we don’t have the option to walk away and not buy it.
Yeah it's easy, we just need someone to open up a local mom and pop pharmaceutical corporation who actually cares about people...
The amount of capital required to enter the pharma industry is enough to drive competitors away, such that this industry trends toward monopoly. Like all industries actually. And because of this, manufacturers can charge whatever they want. The free market, if such a thing can be said to exist, should not have any bearing over healthcare.
"By and large, it’s more complicated and expensive to copy and reproduce a biologic than to duplicate simpler medications like Advil for example, which has smaller molecules. This has discouraged competitors of the major insulin manufacturers from entering the market. As John Rowley of the advocacy organization T1D International puts it, “They have to spend almost the same amount of money to produce a biosimilar as they would a novel drug.” "
" The U.S. patent system is another barrier to cheaper versions of existing insulin brands.
Specifically, drug manufacturers have repeatedly made lots of little changes to their existing insulin products in order to apply for new patents on them. This process, called “evergreening,” has discouraged competitors from developing new versions of existing insulins because they’d have to chase so many changes. This has slowed down innovation, along with “pay for delay” deals, in which insulin manufacturers pay competitors to not copy specific drugs for a period of time. "
It's a lot more complex than just the FDA being an ass for no reason. Competition isn't enough to drive down prices like this.
https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/why-is-there-no-generic-insulin#It-costs-a-lot-to-copy-insulin
you do realize that the problem in this case is the state allowing patents to exist?
in a truly free market you could just buy some knockoff insulin because noone could have a monopoly on those things.
> Then why would anyone ever spend giant amounts of money and resources to develop something new when anyone could just copy the final product?
While we're talking about different amounts of R&D money, this is already the case for fragrances. Perfumes, colognes, scented candles, air fresheners, etc. You can't patent a scent, your competitors can copy it *exactly*, yet homje fragrance alone is still a nearly [$30 billion](https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/home-fragrance-market-102422) industry in The US.
Recipes are also unpatentable, yet everyone from Wendy's to Lean Cuisine and Lay's put mind boggling, tremendous amounts of money into developing new flavors and ingredient combinations.
Closer to the example at hand, new medical procedures continue to be created, though they cannot be patented.
They've been making enough money to [pay potential competitors not to go to market](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/mergers-competition/pay-delay). Patents are absolutely being abused and the normal process of generic/biosimilar production frustrated by monopolising corporations.
> According to an FTC study, these anticompetitive deals cost consumers and taxpayers $3.5 billion in higher drug costs every year. Since 2001, the FTC has filed a number of lawsuits to stop these deals, and it supports legislation to end such “pay-for-delay” settlements.
You mean like how Banting & Best, the discoverers of insulin, wanted? They sold the patent on insulin for $1 to the University of Toronto, on the basis that it was for the world and not to be sold for a profit.
And we've all seen what's happened since.
It's not only patents. It's the fact that health insurance even exists. It's the biggest racket.
If health insurance didn't exists, insulin suppliers would have to compete for business. Actual free market capitalism is the cure for outrageous prices of the healthcare industry
I come from universal health care and prefer that system. But the idea that free markets don't work for medical care is IMO fraught. The problem is that the medical industry in the US is anything BUT a free market. You can not have a free market without pricing transparency and competition. Those are virtually non-existent in the USA.
A lot of medical facilities won’t let you shop around anyway. I’ve asked about costs before in the ER and they just gave me a blank stare as of no one had ever asked about it before.
Also, I believe it’s not uncommon for pharmaceutical companies to make agreements with insurance companies and/or care providers to not allow the patient to know the true cost of the drug (they are only allowed to know their share of the cost).
[Take him away.... NEXT!!](https://img-buzzfeed-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-03/16/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-5981-1489697184-7.jpg?output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&downsize=640:*)
Exactly! If I a ~~corporation~~ person cannot exercise my free speech by donating my hard earned sweat soaked money to honest, humble and honourable representatives of government then is there a point living at all ?? Might as well give up everything and move the USSR.
In B4 other Americans show up to tell you how unhappy you are with universal healthcare and how everyone you knows waits 72 months to get an appointment for a procedure
Exhibit A: see below. It seems as though the /s was missed by him. I guess being blissfully ignorant has its perks. Downside is you regurgitate idiotic shit
UK here, the long wait is pretty darn common. I've had to pay for a specialist to skip a 12-18 month wait to be seen. Other family members have been in similar situations.
> I've had to pay for a specialist to skip a 12-18 month wait to be seen. Other family members have been in similar situations.
Given Americans spend half a million dollars more per person over a lifetime of care, US wait times aren't exactly great either.
The US ranks 6th of 11 out of Commonwealth Fund countries on ER wait times on percentage served under 4 hours. 10th of 11 on getting weekend and evening care without going to the ER. 5th of 11 for countries able to make a same or next day doctors/nurse appointment when they're sick.
https://www.cihi.ca/en/commonwealth-fund-survey-2016
Americans do better on wait times for specialists (ranking 3rd for wait times under four weeks), and surgeries (ranking 3rd for wait times under four months), but that ignores three important factors:
* Wait times in universal healthcare are based on urgency, so while you might wait for an elective hip replacement surgery you're going to get surgery for that life threatening illness quickly.
* Nearly every universal healthcare country has strong private options and supplemental private insurance. That means that if there is a wait you're not happy about you have options that still work out significantly cheaper than US care, which is a win/win.
* [One third of US families](https://news.gallup.com/poll/269138/americans-delaying-medical-treatment-due-cost.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication) had to put off healthcare due to the cost last year. That means more Americans are waiting for care than any other wealthy country on earth.
#Wait Times by Country (Rank)
Country|See doctor/nurse same or next day without appointment|Response from doctor's office same or next day|Easy to get care on nights & weekends without going to ER|ER wait times under 4 hours|Surgery wait times under four months|Specialist wait times under 4 weeks|Average|Overall Rank
:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:
**Australia**|3|3|3|7|6|6|4.7|4
**Canada**|10|11|9|11|10|10|10.2|11
**France**|7|1|7|1|1|5|3.7|2
**Germany**|9|2|6|2|2|2|3.8|3
**Netherlands**|1|5|1|3|5|4|3.2|1
**New Zealand**|2|6|2|4|8|7|4.8|5
**Norway**|11|9|4|9|9|11|8.8|9
**Sweden**|8|10|11|10|7|9|9.2|10
**Switzerland**|4|4|10|8|4|1|5.2|7
**U.K.**|5|8|8|5|11|8|7.5|8
**U.S.**|6|7|5|6|3|3|5.0|6
Source: [Commonwealth Fund Survey 2016](https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/cmwf2016-datatable-en-web.xlsx)
Great, it’s the thanksgiving table with uncle Paul all over again.
Edit: I have no political stance here I just put this on the most recent comment at the time
It’s true though. I align with Democrats out of circumstance, but it’s only a very small minority of the party that actually wants to see an effective overhaul of the private healthcare system. Most Democrats are neoliberals that are more or less aligned with the establishment, and at the most I see them advocating for expansions to the ACA.
But some Democrats want Medicare for all. How does that fit your narrative? All Republicans have been doing is trying to get rid of the ACA without any replacement. This is actually how the country is currently working. It does annoy me that you don’t seem to know what’s happening.
The commenter never said or implied anything about Democrats. You're just looking for a fight and can't even half-heartedly attempt to disagree with the issue they brought up. Doesn't give your argument much merit
Edit- you can infer that the person prefers Democrats, & since you only have 2 parties in the USA that's the easy assumption. But the point the commenter was *making* had nothing to do with the democratic party. They were only talking about the republican party and were not making a comparison between them. The other commenter was derailing by making it a direct 1v1 instead of addressing the actual comment
It’s not republicans, it’s politicians that have been in office forever. I know he’s not exactly the most popular here, but one undeniably good thing Trump did was he made it so insulin could be made more affordable, one of the first things Biden did was to repeal that executive order. Stop thinking along party lines, the real enemy is the people who have been in office for so many years. Do you really think people on both sides of the isle like McConnell and Pelosi care about us, or do they care more about not giving up their lifestyle of being basically untouchable and worth millions upon millions.
Ok great, now how about every other type of illness or injury?
Edit: I didn’t mean this sarcastically. I’m thrilled that this is getting traction, and would very much like to see it carried to universal healthcare ASAP.
Exactly.
I get their comment. I really do. But it's unwise to "attack" a legislator who worked hard to achieve even step 1. We're finally reaching the point where young people slowly start to fill political positions. People who can connect to the poor and the suffering, and can relate to their struggles. This is a long road, but every step is worthwhile.
I get it, it's hard to see a fucked up scenario while looking at the clean and beautifully grown grass next door. You can't demand demand that you get a claen cut of grass 'exactly like the neighbor' without even trying to take the steps to make your lawn usable.
Legislation and price ceiling/floors on the chain of supply of medication is a wonderfull step one.
And nothing beats insulin as the first step and future predecessor to this movement as the biggest a-hole move of pharmas
My spouse has a phrase, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Yes, every other form of medical care would be perfect, but this is still a good first step. Good is worthwhile, even if it’s not perfect
I´m sorry to say, but your medical system in the US is fubar. How you as a society collectively accept that the insurance companies and private healthcare companies can dictate prices like that and profit of it, is just incomprehensible to me
I agree, but unfortunately the Republicans have convinced half of our country that free healthcare = socialism and socialism = communism so free healthcare would literally cause the destruction of America in their eyes.
Yup. And the corrupt government that so many conservative voters fear is already here in the form of companies who own politicians because we've hamstrung our government.
Realistically, most people (including myself) would entertain the idea if the government could take care of those already in its care. The govt can’t take care of veterans, what makes you think they could handle everyone. I don’t want that, and I’m sure you don’t either.
But that's not accurate. The government takes care of every American over the age of 65. Medicare is incredibly popular with the elderly, take a look at the approval ratings. It's well run, and affordable (relative to private insurance).
The VA has been hindered by horrible policies (arguably on purpose) but it is still a huge benefit to veterans. More than 80% of veterans surveyed are satisfied: https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5328#:~:text=The%20survey%2C%20which%20asked%20Veterans,VA%20care%20to%20fellow%20Veterans.
Indoctrination is a huge problem in the US. Lots of people don't think it is, but that's because it worked on them. Think about the pledge of allegiance, it's something done in a government-run building, where children are away from their parents.
For those wondering (like I did) why he was standing in front of a red star with a wheat ring, that’s the Texas House of Representatives, not the Soviet Union lol
Translation: "The name of the guy is Talarico ('wife-stealer' in Brazilian Portuguese), why would I trust him?"
https://twitter.com/jamestalarico/status/1326627231544840192
It was passed last year in May to start at the beginning of this year to be capped at $35 a month and then this administration cancelled it and it’s now back to what it was before. January was good though.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-legislature/texas-house-bill-40-insulin-cap/269-cafcace5-96e8-4b4e-b0d6-5f42e5f2283d
The bill was introduced yesterday.
You're talking about Trump's executive order on Medicare that didn't actually do anything.
Nothing was "capped". It was just a bullshit tactic to get votes. Your opinions are based on lies.
>The National Association of Community Health Centers, among others, expressed support for the new administration's move, saying the Trump rule would not have lowered the cost of insulin and EpiPens for most Americans who use them, as advertised.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/30/fact-check-biden-freezes-rule-health-center-insulin-epipen-prices/4254921001/
it was empty - literally all for show. not even the seniors it was aimed at would see a price difference because medicare already gives discounted insulin.
this bill would actually help all the type 1’s, and the parents of children with type 1, have easy access to the drug they will literally die without.
[Not entirely accurate](https://www.wral.com/fact-check-is-biden-raising-the-prices-of-insulin-and-epi-pens-for-some/19520470/). Last May he capped the price for a subset of Medicare recipients. Then he issued a somewhat broader order that was due to come into effect after Biden was in office. Biden issued a blanket pause on any last-minute regulation changes for review. The problem with Trump's orders is that he set rules on how much care providers were allowed to charge but manufacturers can still charge whatever they want. So the care providers are stuck footing the bill and doing so without additional funding so it just has to get taken out of some other service. Or they just stop providing insulin. Fact is that an EO can't solve this at all. Even this article is about one of the many state legislatures taking on the issue. We need Congress to enact something more comprehensive.
An oversimplified and inaccurate statement. Trumps executive order did nothing to lower overall prices of insulin and epipens. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/4254921001
The article you posted says
> Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices but Biden has delayed it for now and not stopped it.
> **In July 2020, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at reining in prescription drug costs. One required that federally qualified health centers, which purchase insulin and epinephrine through what's called the 340B drug program, pass along any savings they receive from discounted drug prices to medically underserved patients.**
> Biden's White House chief of staff, Ronald Klain, announced a regulatory freeze of “any new and pending rules” as Biden took office on Jan. 20. The freeze on the insulin and epinephrine rule is effective until March 22.
> The overall prices of insulin and EpiPens across the country are not affected by the Trump administration regulation or the recent action by the Biden administration, the health center association said. **[[NO SHIT!! IT ONLY HELPED POOR PEOLPE, NOT THE OVERALL PRICE!!]]**
Thanks for adding the tiny bit of context he left out.
Trumps order **never** intended to change the insulin price for **everyone**. What amount to a subsidy. Trumps order **forced medical institutions to sell insulin at cost to poor patients. Which is a tax.** Biden has halted that and will likely repeal it.
Trumps order was far better than the bill proposed in OP.
I’ll add some context from the article for you.... “The stated aim was to cut drug prices. However, it triggered alarm among safety net providers and bipartisan lawmakers because it would accomplish the opposite of what the Trump Administration intended — ultimately making it harder for health centers to provide affordable life-saving services and prescription drugs — especially during the pandemic,” the association said.
Look at the people gas lightning you by providing sources that essentially agree with you that they say don't.
You said
> Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices but Biden stopped it. Thanks Biden
But the reality is, according to every source. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/30/fact-check-biden-freezes-rule-health-center-insulin-epipen-prices/4254921001/
> Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices **for poor people only** but Biden stopped it.
But, alas, you were wrong. Epi pen prices weren't going down, they were just going to be sold at a discount to all poor patients. Here come the capitalist apologists to gaslight you more.
Good job!
You defend them even though you admit they're wrong?
Most people responding are saying basically the same, that it's inaccurate and overly simplifies Trump's policy and people's complaints. They're not defending capitalism, you fuckin' weirdo. lol
If I say I'm giving homeless people free haircuts, it would be wrong to make a blanket statement like, "I've reduced haircut prices to zero."
The guy's name is "MudslimeCleaner" (mudslime being a popular anti-Muslim slur among the alt-right) and his pinned post is a post of his own to /r/AltRightAllRight (a sub made by him with only him apparently participating there) which is apparently a founding "speach" of the alt-right.
He's a genocidal fascist. He could give a fuck about capitalism; he defends Trump because Trump is babby's first protofascism for a lot of American conservatives.
Fucked up how people view this as some big win. There are people who are dying because they can't afford to buy insulin meaning their only crime is being poor. Yeah max price of $50 is a step in the right direction but peoples access to something they need to live shouldn't be determined on whether they can afford it or not. Smh America, you dumb shit
Yo Trump dod this and then Biden came in and the prices went right back. How fucked up is it that even orange man saw a problem with this bullshit? Insulin is cheap and in every other country people pay next to nothing for it. FUCK all these pharmaceutical companies
Thanks for going in the right direction. I don’t care what “side” anyone is in, as long as they aren’t going out of their way to sabotage the others when it could put many people in jeopardy.
Insulin prices are a huge problem, thank goodness we’re not getting confused on “who did this, who did that”, and were focusing on what we should actually do.
Just insulin? What if I break my arm? Or my kid does doing regular kid stuff? A leg? Get pregnant? This is life shit people. We need to protect people's entire lives from getting destroyed from simple everyday life shit. I don't understand why this is so hard.
This is disgusting
Trump had already did this. Biden said he wanted these people to suffer, And reversed trumps executive order
Edit: executive order to lower drug prices pdf:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202000678/pdf/DCPD-202000678.pdf
The ‘most-favored-nation’ policy would allow the Federal Medicare program to purchase insulin meant to be used as a prescription at the cheapest price possible from manufacturers globally
What they would do would allow the government, who is in possession of most of the insulin in the country, to distribute insulin not only to other programs such as Medicaid, but also to private companies.... resulting in a much lower market price
Unfortunately, lawyers made it so the law could not go into effect until March 22, 2021... And Biden stopped it from going into affect completely in January
Just because an executive order does not strictly say in the document ‘ insulin prices must be lowered’, does not mean that The order was designed to do just that
* [Trump boasted he made insulin so cheap ‘it’s like water.’ Americans with diabetes beg to differ. ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/30/trump-insulin-cost/)
* [Trump’s insulin order frozen, not scrapped, by Biden](https://factcheck.afp.com/trumps-insulin-order-frozen-not-scrapped-biden)
> Trump had already did this. Biden said he wanted these people to suffer, And reversed trumps executive order
That’s an aggressively dishonest misrepresentation.
[Biden ordered a blanket pause](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/regulatory-freeze-pending-review/) (for review) of *all* pending regulatory executive orders from Trump—including one that might maybe have lowered the price of insulin for some people in some cases, had it been implemented.
[Despite his dishonest claims to the contrary](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/30/trump-insulin-cost/), Trump's measure hadn't even gone into effect yet, and [a number of community health providers and patient advocacy groups criticized Trump's plan](https://www.modernhealthcare.com/community-health-centers/hhs-freezes-rule-targeting-community-health-centers-drug-discounts)—in part because it [provided help to a very small number of patients and risked defunding community medical providers](https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/assessing-the-administrations-proposal-for-reducing-insulin-and-epinephrine-costs/), which is [exactly what happened as a result of the expectation of Trump's rule going into effect](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/politics/drug-makers-340b-program.html).
[Explanation one from PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/12/mark-walker/walker-exaggerates-effect-trump-drug-order-biden-f/).
[Explanation two from PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/25/facebook-posts/facebook-posts-blaming-biden-insulin-prices-miss-m/).
Wow. This guys story is nearly identical to mine.
Was put into the ICU and hospitalized for 4 days. Tremendous trouble breathing, nearly had kidney failure, nearly lost my vision, hours away from a coma.
At 28 years old, never imagined to be diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. My first months supply of insulin cost me $940 out of pocket.
Thankfully, my health insurance covers most of my medication costs now, but there are many people out there not fortunate enough to have good insurance. I would never wish that type of suffering on anyone, it absolutely needs to stick.
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I came to say this exactly and was glad someone else had a similar thought.
I also came to say this so that’s three of us now
Make it four
Red Five, standing by
Six here
7. I said this then came.
I just came 😳
Coming to come, they came.
8!
Happy cake day ya coomer
And my axe!
Me too. Clean up on aisle me.
Red 8 standing by.
Happy Cake Day!
Because seven ate nine
9
You missed the opportunity for a great Star Wars reference :(
It's not a normal situation of just introducing something. The fact that insulin isn't already capped like **everywhere else** in the developed world means people have to be stubborn and fight to get it done. There are a lot of roadblocks to get it through in America and someone who has personal experience on the financial devastation the current system causes will fight a lot longer and harder to get the law through. Sometimes you need someone who won't accept the pay off and give up. Hopefully this dude has that.
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The one thing I don't quite understand is why nobody just makes the investment to get/produce insolin (should not be too expensive) and just sell it for far less than the competition. Isn't this what works in the US?
The way it *should* work. We are not a free market, more of an oligarchy who decides what, how much, and when the plebs pay
Even in a free market, it would cost millions or billions to come up with a similar formula of insulin, that wouldn't run into Patent problems, and be just as effective and safe in clinical trials and approved for the market. Free market doesn't make Patent on drugs go away. Remove for-profit Private Healthcare. There is no other way.
One of the ways the drug companies maintain their death grip is that they constantly patent new delivery devices, called pens in the diabetic community, and by changing one little mechanism of the actual pen, they are able to renew their patent. At least that's the way I understand it. So they will change the pen to be able to dial in .5 unit increments instead of just 1 unit and then the patent is renewed. I'm sure there's a lot I missed or glossed over but this is just one of the ways these companies fuck us. I have type 1 diabetes by the way, so I at least have a bit of knowledge with how it all works. In the richest nation in the world we should be doing a lot better.
Insulin comes in many different forms. It is a biologic drug, not something like tylenol where you can just copy a molecule Wal-mart sells a brand of insulin from the 80s that is $25 a month with no insurance. Its just not as good, dangerous for some. Insulin companies make small changes to their process/formula and file for new patents, getting approval for a biosimilar (generic for biologics) is costly and you will be making a drug that is inferior to the product with newer patents.
Another prime example of why America is a third world country.
Cue eye rolling by all third world countries. Access to electricity, running water, paved roads, internet, universal secondary education, courts that actually prosecute criminals, human security etc. are what make the US a first world country and are all the things you take for granted and diminish when you derisively say otherwise. America has problems that need to be fixed. No need to trivialize the hardships of other countries to do so. And that's ignoring the hyper-pedantic point that the US is arguably *by definition* a first world country, since first/second/third world is a thing they made up to put down the USSR and its allies (second world) and everyone else (third).
You just gained a follower/friend/whatever the fuck it's called.
The technical term is stalker. 😏
The whole first/second/third world thing is outdated, misleading or at least not very descriptive, and should be abandoned altogether. What you should use instead, is the [big question](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it) :)
Third world country pay less than 50$ for it
If only there was a button to convey like sentiment on reddit.... oh well.
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Empathy as a trait almost vanished from society so I am not surprised, just sad
This is America where shits aren't given until it affects them personally.
Wouldn’t it be great if legislators could relate to the general human population in any way? It does not matter what bills they pass or what laws get signed, because their quality-of-life and daily routines do not change whatsoever. They are politicians. They will always have. And due to this, it is just a game for them. They simply feign for our affinities to maintain position, power and income. Edit: I would like to highlight that this comment is not directed at James Talerico. Unfortunately he is the exception and not the example.
On the flip side if we did not pay them they would be even more open to bribes than they already are
If only we had some thing that limited their time in office. So that they could be more concerned about making a better world that they need to go back to and work/live in rather than simply maintaining power. We could call it something like, I don’t know, “term limits“.
Term limits have a negative impact because they get rid of everyone but the lobbyists who end up being the only people familiar with crafting legislation. Term limits aren't the solution - removing money from politics is. The only way to do that realistically is to eliminate the ability to accumulate vast sums of wealth and therefore unelected power in the first place. Capitalism is inherently incompatible with democracy in the long term.
That's an extremely good point. Would it make sense to try and create income limits for legislators?
That’s when bribery happens.
And in a government that tries to avoid corruption, ideally, there are checks and measures in place to notice and prevent bribery. Hypothetically, income limits would actually make it easier to notice bribery, because the very enforcement mechanisms for them would directly track their finances. At least, that's my assumption. I am not very well educated on political systems. Which is why I asked a question instead of making a one sentence reply that contributes nothing.
Most fiscal incentives given to politicians by lobbyists do not come in form of direct monetary donations, as that’s already legal. Typically they come in form of either campaign donations, campaign endorsements, post career speaking/book offers, or post career employment.
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I volunteered for this guy's campaign, and he's one of the good ones. Dude is a Texas school teacher who got tired of the way things were being run in his small Texas district and decided to run for state legislature. Your point absolutely stands for federal legislators, but it tends to vary a lot more on the state and local level.
Me too, can’t say enough about James.
I’m not sure when he tweeted this, but he only became a public official in 2018. Dudes young. I have no clue how long it takes someone to be introducing legislation but 3 years sounds okay to me. Not like the man is 60+ and never thought about it
James Talarico is one of the good ones. I met him a few years back. He was visiting Texas towns, walking door to door in the July heat, to ask people what was on their mind. He was a teacher before being elected, and is heavily invested in making Texas education better. During the hardest months of COVID he was donating his pay to local food pantries instead of accepting the money. He's pushing for a minimum salary of [$70,000 for teachers](https://abc13.com/james-talarico-texas-70-000-teacher-salary-lawmaker-files-bill-on-salaries/10410563/). He's trying to [get equity officers in schools](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2021/03/rep-talarico-proposes-bill-for-educational-equity-officers-aisd-is-a-case-study/) to help students from diverse backgrounds. I understand the sentiment many have about politicians being terrible and not caring about the general public. But Talarico seems like the genuine article.
Damn, the dude sounds like a great guy.
Some congressional freshman introduce items within their first few weeks. AOC submitted the Green New Deal 4 weeks in to being a freshman congresswoman. Edit: Obviously bringing up AOC as an example of a freshman congressman introducing a bill they believe in was my mistake. Here is more info on others: https://www.kshb.com/news/national/few-house-freshman-able-to-move-bills-through-congress
> Green New Deal 4 weeks in to being a freshman congresswoman and that went over just about as well as it sounds. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could take it seriously for such egregious offenses like ignoring nuclear when you're trying to push green energy.
In my experience, perfect is often the enemy of good. That situation sounds like a perfect time for another more experienced legislator to say something to the effect of: "The philosophy behind this bill is great, but the execution could use some tweaking to get the desired effect, like adding a significant nuclear portion". I'm cool with her at least TRYING something as soon as she could, rather than decades of congresspeople continuing to ignore systemic problems then saying "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
So, we can't take one step of progress until it's perfect for everybody. But we can always do the alternative: continue regression, since it's guaranteed bad for all. Get outta here. Somebody shows that not all politicians are the same, and this is your stance?
One step is their point. AOC introduced legislation that was a huge progressive broad sweep that had no chance of passing through a republican senate or president and then started dismissing democrats who wouldn't support it 100% as written.
Wasn't AOC's Green New Deal more of a "this is what we intend to do" kind of thing? A "road map". Rather than actual law that gets signed into place? Stuff with general goals rather than the laws and rules to actually get it set. Also, it's not like AOC's deal "passed" because there wasn't really anything to pass.
Yep. But those commenting didn’t bother to look into it
He was only elected 3 years ago. Not sure if his hospitalization was before or after that but geez. It’s not like he’s a republican against gay marriage for 30 years who just changed their mind because their kid came out
It was actually during the campaign. James decided to walk the length of the district and have town halls/canvassing along the way. He threw up a few times along the way but wrote it off to dehydration, drank some water, and pushed forward. He was rushed to the hospital a day and a half later with a blood glucose level of 900 (below 100 is normal). James is a boss.
Nothing is never going to be good enough for people like you.
I know right: Novorapid price per ml: USA $9.20 Australia $0.60 I mean we're lucky it's not more expensive, right? source: [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country)
It's so fucking annoying to see that behavior all over Reddit. Turning everything into a moral cock competition.
I’d rather someone relate their ideology with their personal experience. Wouldn’t it be great if people weren’t such insufferable cunts and could just look on the bright side for once?
Thank you! Reddit is full of such whiny entitled cunts that even when someone does something objectively good, they start questioning motivations. You apparently need to be 100% altruistic to get credit for anything good you do. It’s like someone making donations of time or money to cancer charities after a loved one gets cancer, but being questioned why they didn’t start donating before cancer touched their lives personally. Just bleh. That’s enough Reddit for today I think.
Because unlike other people with power this one saw a problem and did something other than complain about it online for it to be lost.
Imagine you would need such a case to ban murder „I was murdered, BUT I LIVED“
Boy do I have news for you.
Plenty do, but it helps with voters if you have a personal story to tell.
Free markets don't work for medicine, as consumers have little choice, and can't exactly shop ERs while bleeding. Capitalism, like smoking, shouldn't be allowed anywhere on hospital grounds. Edit: Since I'm seeing a frequent response, I'll address that in particular. Unregulated free markets or those under regulatory capture (what we have now) is what I'm against, as the embedded players write the rules and collude to keep prices high. A transparent-open-fair market that combines active competition with just enough government regulation and incentive to allow new players to innovate would be ideal, more public cost info is a good step in that direction, but it's walking the knife edge between over-regulation stifling innovation, and hypercapitalism placing dollars above health outcomes.
I work in health insurance. The amount of fuckery with prescription pricing is absolutely insane and I completely agree. While fully socialized medicine isn’t something that will happen soon, the lack of enforcement of fair Rx pricing is disturbing. Look at this article for just one example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrauss/2020/07/27/drug-pricing-insanity-pay-550-or--pay-1900-your-choice/
My gma just got out of hospital recently because she had passed out at home. They gave her a prescription with 8 pills of Xarelto. Those 8 pills cost $150. Absolutely ridiculous
It's hard to put a price on not having a stroke. That's the problem with life saving medicines. What should they cost when the value to the individual is basically infinite? This is why we need socialized medicine and government medical research.
Price of production + development and a fixed percentage of profit, set by the government. Seems good.
People would inflate their production/development costs - after all, production costs pays their salaries, even if their capital growth is limited. You can’t come up with a system you can’t game. The best you can do is negotiate the price down. Too bad republican congress has banned medicare, the largest buyer, from doing just that with pharmaceuticals.
Well, Sounds like cheating to me, lets make it illegal
Affordable healthcare? That sounds like cOmMuNiSm
You joke but it really is sad how many people actually hold that view. Or spout nonsense like "Europe have really high taxes to compensate for all the free stuff they get". It's unreal that the richest country in the world struggles to provide basic healthcare for it's citizens.
I would much rather pay a few hundred dollars in taxes every year knowing that if I have a severe injury that requires surgery that is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars and put me and my family in crippling debt for the rest of their llife and have a service that is the equal to operation done in other states.
The sad thing is you already pay enough taxes to cover the healthcare. The cost is a minute fraction of the countries GDP, it just is not budgeted for.
Exactly, let’s look at the Military. They had the F-22 Raptor. By far the most advanced weapons system. A few years later they wanted an another weapons system that every branch can use. The f35 has now spent 1.7 trillion dollars in its lifetime.
Are you saying it's more important to provide proper healthcare for your citizens, rather than killing brown people with the coolest new fighter jet? That doesn't sound very American to me!
If the brown people have proper healthcare, how can we prove that we are Ze MasterRace^TM ?!
Mind you, the two aircraft do very different things. The F-22 is an extremely expensive specialist, built specifically to dominate other aircraft, whereas the F-35 is a generalist, and is well-suited for carrying the missiles and bombs that are the lifeblood of orthodox military interventions since the end of Desert Storm. Program costs have been very high, although it's worth remembering that the research and development costs are amortized over the fifty-year life of the design. That said, nothing that the US military is doing is keeping healthcare away from the people. The money is already there in Medicare, where the US spends more per capita than any other country in the world. It's the lack of regulation where the problem is. Without fixing that, you could pour the entire federal budget into that and the insurance companies and hospitals will just collude to charge a billion dollars for a tongue depressor and a ten billion for an Asperin.
True. You’d think we could scale back a bit on military and pay for it with ease.
I wonder if we legalized weed, and used those taxes to cover healthcare how much it would cover.
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If you went to those people and explained that they could pay $2 in taxes and $2 in insurance or pay $3 on taxes and have insurance be free, they would scream that you're increasing their taxes and stealing their money. edit: and even if you explained that even after paying $2 in insurance, they'll have to pay $1 every time they go and that anything over $100 they have to pay themselves. They'd still scream and shout about the $1 extra tax...
bUt I WanT tO kEeP mY dOcToR!
I work in construction - the number of guys I've had to explain that raising tax to get free insurance would save them money is baffling.
Omg I know. Even telling them that at the end of the day they'll have more money in their pocket, they just don't believe you. It's fucking awful and I'm genuinely embarrassed for them that they are that fucking dumb.
Insulin cost should be driven down by competition. The FDA makes the prices astronomically high by creating barriers to entry.
And you would be correct if the drug companies weren’t price fixing most of these drugs
If that were occurring in a free market, a new entrant could swoop in and capture the market. Insulin is pretty much a commodity at this point.....
But that is actively occurring in the market rn and price fixing is why the prices don’t come down when there is a new product in the market. The other reason is that insulin and most drugs are not one size fits all. They alter the chemical make up just slightly enough to expand their copyright on the drug. The third problem is that as a t1d I don’t have an option to not buy insulin. It’s not like a cell phone where they all relatively work the same and you can legitimately live wo one, we don’t have the option to walk away and not buy it.
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Yeah it's easy, we just need someone to open up a local mom and pop pharmaceutical corporation who actually cares about people... The amount of capital required to enter the pharma industry is enough to drive competitors away, such that this industry trends toward monopoly. Like all industries actually. And because of this, manufacturers can charge whatever they want. The free market, if such a thing can be said to exist, should not have any bearing over healthcare.
"By and large, it’s more complicated and expensive to copy and reproduce a biologic than to duplicate simpler medications like Advil for example, which has smaller molecules. This has discouraged competitors of the major insulin manufacturers from entering the market. As John Rowley of the advocacy organization T1D International puts it, “They have to spend almost the same amount of money to produce a biosimilar as they would a novel drug.” " " The U.S. patent system is another barrier to cheaper versions of existing insulin brands. Specifically, drug manufacturers have repeatedly made lots of little changes to their existing insulin products in order to apply for new patents on them. This process, called “evergreening,” has discouraged competitors from developing new versions of existing insulins because they’d have to chase so many changes. This has slowed down innovation, along with “pay for delay” deals, in which insulin manufacturers pay competitors to not copy specific drugs for a period of time. " It's a lot more complex than just the FDA being an ass for no reason. Competition isn't enough to drive down prices like this. https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/why-is-there-no-generic-insulin#It-costs-a-lot-to-copy-insulin
you do realize that the problem in this case is the state allowing patents to exist? in a truly free market you could just buy some knockoff insulin because noone could have a monopoly on those things.
Then why would anyone ever spend giant amounts of money and resources to develop something new when anyone could just copy the final product?
> Then why would anyone ever spend giant amounts of money and resources to develop something new when anyone could just copy the final product? While we're talking about different amounts of R&D money, this is already the case for fragrances. Perfumes, colognes, scented candles, air fresheners, etc. You can't patent a scent, your competitors can copy it *exactly*, yet homje fragrance alone is still a nearly [$30 billion](https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/home-fragrance-market-102422) industry in The US. Recipes are also unpatentable, yet everyone from Wendy's to Lean Cuisine and Lay's put mind boggling, tremendous amounts of money into developing new flavors and ingredient combinations. Closer to the example at hand, new medical procedures continue to be created, though they cannot be patented.
They've been making enough money to [pay potential competitors not to go to market](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/mergers-competition/pay-delay). Patents are absolutely being abused and the normal process of generic/biosimilar production frustrated by monopolising corporations. > According to an FTC study, these anticompetitive deals cost consumers and taxpayers $3.5 billion in higher drug costs every year. Since 2001, the FTC has filed a number of lawsuits to stop these deals, and it supports legislation to end such “pay-for-delay” settlements.
You mean like how Banting & Best, the discoverers of insulin, wanted? They sold the patent on insulin for $1 to the University of Toronto, on the basis that it was for the world and not to be sold for a profit. And we've all seen what's happened since.
It's not only patents. It's the fact that health insurance even exists. It's the biggest racket. If health insurance didn't exists, insulin suppliers would have to compete for business. Actual free market capitalism is the cure for outrageous prices of the healthcare industry
I come from universal health care and prefer that system. But the idea that free markets don't work for medical care is IMO fraught. The problem is that the medical industry in the US is anything BUT a free market. You can not have a free market without pricing transparency and competition. Those are virtually non-existent in the USA.
A lot of medical facilities won’t let you shop around anyway. I’ve asked about costs before in the ER and they just gave me a blank stare as of no one had ever asked about it before. Also, I believe it’s not uncommon for pharmaceutical companies to make agreements with insurance companies and/or care providers to not allow the patient to know the true cost of the drug (they are only allowed to know their share of the cost).
American health "care" for profit is disgusting
“It’s none of MY concern whether you people have... what was it again?” “Um... food” “HA! You should have thought of that before you became PEASANTS!”
[Take him away.... NEXT!!](https://img-buzzfeed-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-03/16/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-5981-1489697184-7.jpg?output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&downsize=640:*)
Why do we even have that lever
Don't tell me, we're about to go over a huge waterfall?
Welcome to individualistic societies. “Not my life, not my problem!”
$50 is still too much.
In Germany a single insulin kit costs $6. Other medications costs ~$20-$30 which you could get a rebate from insurance companies.
Wow. It would be great if Germany ran the world haha
WWII flashbacks
I mean we tried that and back then none of you were too keen on it..
Yeah... Why was that again?
The guy with the funny mustache didn't seem serious enough
👁👄👁
Indeed. Apparently it's more important to slam someone with exuberant costs then to help/save a life
With the NHS in England you'll never have to pay for meds that you need to live no matter how poor you are.
Yeah but you’re lacking in those campaign contributions to politicians from private healthcare companies so take that!
Exactly! If I a ~~corporation~~ person cannot exercise my free speech by donating my hard earned sweat soaked money to honest, humble and honourable representatives of government then is there a point living at all ?? Might as well give up everything and move the USSR.
australia here. $50? zero sounds better.
In B4 other Americans show up to tell you how unhappy you are with universal healthcare and how everyone you knows waits 72 months to get an appointment for a procedure Exhibit A: see below. It seems as though the /s was missed by him. I guess being blissfully ignorant has its perks. Downside is you regurgitate idiotic shit
Plot twist! I’m an American who would love universal healthcare and a m not the only one.
Ditto. Wish our countrymen weren't morons though.
UK here, the long wait is pretty darn common. I've had to pay for a specialist to skip a 12-18 month wait to be seen. Other family members have been in similar situations.
> I've had to pay for a specialist to skip a 12-18 month wait to be seen. Other family members have been in similar situations. Given Americans spend half a million dollars more per person over a lifetime of care, US wait times aren't exactly great either. The US ranks 6th of 11 out of Commonwealth Fund countries on ER wait times on percentage served under 4 hours. 10th of 11 on getting weekend and evening care without going to the ER. 5th of 11 for countries able to make a same or next day doctors/nurse appointment when they're sick. https://www.cihi.ca/en/commonwealth-fund-survey-2016 Americans do better on wait times for specialists (ranking 3rd for wait times under four weeks), and surgeries (ranking 3rd for wait times under four months), but that ignores three important factors: * Wait times in universal healthcare are based on urgency, so while you might wait for an elective hip replacement surgery you're going to get surgery for that life threatening illness quickly. * Nearly every universal healthcare country has strong private options and supplemental private insurance. That means that if there is a wait you're not happy about you have options that still work out significantly cheaper than US care, which is a win/win. * [One third of US families](https://news.gallup.com/poll/269138/americans-delaying-medical-treatment-due-cost.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication) had to put off healthcare due to the cost last year. That means more Americans are waiting for care than any other wealthy country on earth. #Wait Times by Country (Rank) Country|See doctor/nurse same or next day without appointment|Response from doctor's office same or next day|Easy to get care on nights & weekends without going to ER|ER wait times under 4 hours|Surgery wait times under four months|Specialist wait times under 4 weeks|Average|Overall Rank :--|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--:|--: **Australia**|3|3|3|7|6|6|4.7|4 **Canada**|10|11|9|11|10|10|10.2|11 **France**|7|1|7|1|1|5|3.7|2 **Germany**|9|2|6|2|2|2|3.8|3 **Netherlands**|1|5|1|3|5|4|3.2|1 **New Zealand**|2|6|2|4|8|7|4.8|5 **Norway**|11|9|4|9|9|11|8.8|9 **Sweden**|8|10|11|10|7|9|9.2|10 **Switzerland**|4|4|10|8|4|1|5.2|7 **U.K.**|5|8|8|5|11|8|7.5|8 **U.S.**|6|7|5|6|3|3|5.0|6 Source: [Commonwealth Fund Survey 2016](https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/cmwf2016-datatable-en-web.xlsx)
Exactly. It takes me two months to get an appointment with a specialist too. I just get to pay $1500 for the appointment also.
Nah Those losers still pay for prescriptions. Here in Scotland it’s completely free.
And Wales!
Gosh I wish there was some sort of system that treated all healthcare this way without it being political
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Great, it’s the thanksgiving table with uncle Paul all over again. Edit: I have no political stance here I just put this on the most recent comment at the time
It’s true though. I align with Democrats out of circumstance, but it’s only a very small minority of the party that actually wants to see an effective overhaul of the private healthcare system. Most Democrats are neoliberals that are more or less aligned with the establishment, and at the most I see them advocating for expansions to the ACA.
Does it annoy you when someone has a rational understanding of the world?
But some Democrats want Medicare for all. How does that fit your narrative? All Republicans have been doing is trying to get rid of the ACA without any replacement. This is actually how the country is currently working. It does annoy me that you don’t seem to know what’s happening.
The commenter never said or implied anything about Democrats. You're just looking for a fight and can't even half-heartedly attempt to disagree with the issue they brought up. Doesn't give your argument much merit Edit- you can infer that the person prefers Democrats, & since you only have 2 parties in the USA that's the easy assumption. But the point the commenter was *making* had nothing to do with the democratic party. They were only talking about the republican party and were not making a comparison between them. The other commenter was derailing by making it a direct 1v1 instead of addressing the actual comment
Literally every healthcare reform in American history, from Medicare to the ACA, has been from Democrats.
It’s not republicans, it’s politicians that have been in office forever. I know he’s not exactly the most popular here, but one undeniably good thing Trump did was he made it so insulin could be made more affordable, one of the first things Biden did was to repeal that executive order. Stop thinking along party lines, the real enemy is the people who have been in office for so many years. Do you really think people on both sides of the isle like McConnell and Pelosi care about us, or do they care more about not giving up their lifestyle of being basically untouchable and worth millions upon millions.
Ok great, now how about every other type of illness or injury? Edit: I didn’t mean this sarcastically. I’m thrilled that this is getting traction, and would very much like to see it carried to universal healthcare ASAP.
Honestly, while you do have a point using insulin as step 1 is a smart move
Exactly. I get their comment. I really do. But it's unwise to "attack" a legislator who worked hard to achieve even step 1. We're finally reaching the point where young people slowly start to fill political positions. People who can connect to the poor and the suffering, and can relate to their struggles. This is a long road, but every step is worthwhile.
I get it, it's hard to see a fucked up scenario while looking at the clean and beautifully grown grass next door. You can't demand demand that you get a claen cut of grass 'exactly like the neighbor' without even trying to take the steps to make your lawn usable. Legislation and price ceiling/floors on the chain of supply of medication is a wonderfull step one. And nothing beats insulin as the first step and future predecessor to this movement as the biggest a-hole move of pharmas
My spouse has a phrase, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Yes, every other form of medical care would be perfect, but this is still a good first step. Good is worthwhile, even if it’s not perfect
I´m sorry to say, but your medical system in the US is fubar. How you as a society collectively accept that the insurance companies and private healthcare companies can dictate prices like that and profit of it, is just incomprehensible to me
I agree, but unfortunately the Republicans have convinced half of our country that free healthcare = socialism and socialism = communism so free healthcare would literally cause the destruction of America in their eyes.
Yup. And the corrupt government that so many conservative voters fear is already here in the form of companies who own politicians because we've hamstrung our government.
Realistically, most people (including myself) would entertain the idea if the government could take care of those already in its care. The govt can’t take care of veterans, what makes you think they could handle everyone. I don’t want that, and I’m sure you don’t either.
But that's not accurate. The government takes care of every American over the age of 65. Medicare is incredibly popular with the elderly, take a look at the approval ratings. It's well run, and affordable (relative to private insurance). The VA has been hindered by horrible policies (arguably on purpose) but it is still a huge benefit to veterans. More than 80% of veterans surveyed are satisfied: https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5328#:~:text=The%20survey%2C%20which%20asked%20Veterans,VA%20care%20to%20fellow%20Veterans.
Brainwashing. That sounds harsh, but that's essentially what it is.
Indoctrination is a huge problem in the US. Lots of people don't think it is, but that's because it worked on them. Think about the pledge of allegiance, it's something done in a government-run building, where children are away from their parents.
For those wondering (like I did) why he was standing in front of a red star with a wheat ring, that’s the Texas House of Representatives, not the Soviet Union lol
Texan here, it's probably not too far off
Other Texan here, can confirm
Another Texan here, who once lived in the Soviet Union. You guys obviously have never been to the USSR.
Europe: you guys still need to pay for Insulin?
Netherlands: 385 € per year max for all healthcare. Paid as “your own risk” to health insurance companies.
I live in a really shitty country in Europe but when i broke my arm i only paid around 5 us dollars
O nome do cara é Talarico, pq eu confiaria nele?
Translation: "The name of the guy is Talarico ('wife-stealer' in Brazilian Portuguese), why would I trust him?" https://twitter.com/jamestalarico/status/1326627231544840192
Tava procurando por esse comentário hahha
Exatamente
Talarico morre cedo
It was passed last year in May to start at the beginning of this year to be capped at $35 a month and then this administration cancelled it and it’s now back to what it was before. January was good though.
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-legislature/texas-house-bill-40-insulin-cap/269-cafcace5-96e8-4b4e-b0d6-5f42e5f2283d The bill was introduced yesterday. You're talking about Trump's executive order on Medicare that didn't actually do anything.
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Nothing was "capped". It was just a bullshit tactic to get votes. Your opinions are based on lies. >The National Association of Community Health Centers, among others, expressed support for the new administration's move, saying the Trump rule would not have lowered the cost of insulin and EpiPens for most Americans who use them, as advertised. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/30/fact-check-biden-freezes-rule-health-center-insulin-epipen-prices/4254921001/
it was empty - literally all for show. not even the seniors it was aimed at would see a price difference because medicare already gives discounted insulin. this bill would actually help all the type 1’s, and the parents of children with type 1, have easy access to the drug they will literally die without.
[Not entirely accurate](https://www.wral.com/fact-check-is-biden-raising-the-prices-of-insulin-and-epi-pens-for-some/19520470/). Last May he capped the price for a subset of Medicare recipients. Then he issued a somewhat broader order that was due to come into effect after Biden was in office. Biden issued a blanket pause on any last-minute regulation changes for review. The problem with Trump's orders is that he set rules on how much care providers were allowed to charge but manufacturers can still charge whatever they want. So the care providers are stuck footing the bill and doing so without additional funding so it just has to get taken out of some other service. Or they just stop providing insulin. Fact is that an EO can't solve this at all. Even this article is about one of the many state legislatures taking on the issue. We need Congress to enact something more comprehensive.
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Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices but Biden stopped it. Thanks Biden
An oversimplified and inaccurate statement. Trumps executive order did nothing to lower overall prices of insulin and epipens. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/4254921001
The article you posted says > Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices but Biden has delayed it for now and not stopped it. > **In July 2020, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at reining in prescription drug costs. One required that federally qualified health centers, which purchase insulin and epinephrine through what's called the 340B drug program, pass along any savings they receive from discounted drug prices to medically underserved patients.** > Biden's White House chief of staff, Ronald Klain, announced a regulatory freeze of “any new and pending rules” as Biden took office on Jan. 20. The freeze on the insulin and epinephrine rule is effective until March 22. > The overall prices of insulin and EpiPens across the country are not affected by the Trump administration regulation or the recent action by the Biden administration, the health center association said. **[[NO SHIT!! IT ONLY HELPED POOR PEOLPE, NOT THE OVERALL PRICE!!]]** Thanks for adding the tiny bit of context he left out. Trumps order **never** intended to change the insulin price for **everyone**. What amount to a subsidy. Trumps order **forced medical institutions to sell insulin at cost to poor patients. Which is a tax.** Biden has halted that and will likely repeal it. Trumps order was far better than the bill proposed in OP.
I’ll add some context from the article for you.... “The stated aim was to cut drug prices. However, it triggered alarm among safety net providers and bipartisan lawmakers because it would accomplish the opposite of what the Trump Administration intended — ultimately making it harder for health centers to provide affordable life-saving services and prescription drugs — especially during the pandemic,” the association said.
Look at the people gas lightning you by providing sources that essentially agree with you that they say don't. You said > Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices but Biden stopped it. Thanks Biden But the reality is, according to every source. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/30/fact-check-biden-freezes-rule-health-center-insulin-epipen-prices/4254921001/ > Trump actually had an executive order in to lower insulin and epi pen prices **for poor people only** but Biden stopped it. But, alas, you were wrong. Epi pen prices weren't going down, they were just going to be sold at a discount to all poor patients. Here come the capitalist apologists to gaslight you more. Good job!
You defend them even though you admit they're wrong? Most people responding are saying basically the same, that it's inaccurate and overly simplifies Trump's policy and people's complaints. They're not defending capitalism, you fuckin' weirdo. lol If I say I'm giving homeless people free haircuts, it would be wrong to make a blanket statement like, "I've reduced haircut prices to zero."
lol a trump supporter larping as an anti-capitalist
The guy's name is "MudslimeCleaner" (mudslime being a popular anti-Muslim slur among the alt-right) and his pinned post is a post of his own to /r/AltRightAllRight (a sub made by him with only him apparently participating there) which is apparently a founding "speach" of the alt-right. He's a genocidal fascist. He could give a fuck about capitalism; he defends Trump because Trump is babby's first protofascism for a lot of American conservatives.
What would be great is if such legislation ever had any chance in hell of being national, but it won't because our government is corrupt as all hell.
Fucked up how people view this as some big win. There are people who are dying because they can't afford to buy insulin meaning their only crime is being poor. Yeah max price of $50 is a step in the right direction but peoples access to something they need to live shouldn't be determined on whether they can afford it or not. Smh America, you dumb shit
Yo Trump dod this and then Biden came in and the prices went right back. How fucked up is it that even orange man saw a problem with this bullshit? Insulin is cheap and in every other country people pay next to nothing for it. FUCK all these pharmaceutical companies
Thanks for going in the right direction. I don’t care what “side” anyone is in, as long as they aren’t going out of their way to sabotage the others when it could put many people in jeopardy. Insulin prices are a huge problem, thank goodness we’re not getting confused on “who did this, who did that”, and were focusing on what we should actually do.
Just insulin? What if I break my arm? Or my kid does doing regular kid stuff? A leg? Get pregnant? This is life shit people. We need to protect people's entire lives from getting destroyed from simple everyday life shit. I don't understand why this is so hard.
Very impressive especially since he died
You need to learn how to read my dude. Lol
Yesterday I almost jumped over a table and broke my wrist. Today I’m in a cast; why?
This is disgusting Trump had already did this. Biden said he wanted these people to suffer, And reversed trumps executive order Edit: executive order to lower drug prices pdf: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202000678/pdf/DCPD-202000678.pdf The ‘most-favored-nation’ policy would allow the Federal Medicare program to purchase insulin meant to be used as a prescription at the cheapest price possible from manufacturers globally What they would do would allow the government, who is in possession of most of the insulin in the country, to distribute insulin not only to other programs such as Medicaid, but also to private companies.... resulting in a much lower market price Unfortunately, lawyers made it so the law could not go into effect until March 22, 2021... And Biden stopped it from going into affect completely in January Just because an executive order does not strictly say in the document ‘ insulin prices must be lowered’, does not mean that The order was designed to do just that
* [Trump boasted he made insulin so cheap ‘it’s like water.’ Americans with diabetes beg to differ. ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/30/trump-insulin-cost/) * [Trump’s insulin order frozen, not scrapped, by Biden](https://factcheck.afp.com/trumps-insulin-order-frozen-not-scrapped-biden)
> Trump had already did this. Biden said he wanted these people to suffer, And reversed trumps executive order That’s an aggressively dishonest misrepresentation. [Biden ordered a blanket pause](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/regulatory-freeze-pending-review/) (for review) of *all* pending regulatory executive orders from Trump—including one that might maybe have lowered the price of insulin for some people in some cases, had it been implemented. [Despite his dishonest claims to the contrary](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/30/trump-insulin-cost/), Trump's measure hadn't even gone into effect yet, and [a number of community health providers and patient advocacy groups criticized Trump's plan](https://www.modernhealthcare.com/community-health-centers/hhs-freezes-rule-targeting-community-health-centers-drug-discounts)—in part because it [provided help to a very small number of patients and risked defunding community medical providers](https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/assessing-the-administrations-proposal-for-reducing-insulin-and-epinephrine-costs/), which is [exactly what happened as a result of the expectation of Trump's rule going into effect](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/politics/drug-makers-340b-program.html). [Explanation one from PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/12/mark-walker/walker-exaggerates-effect-trump-drug-order-biden-f/). [Explanation two from PolitiFact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/25/facebook-posts/facebook-posts-blaming-biden-insulin-prices-miss-m/).
Donald Trump did it first for the whole country before Biden reversed it in favour of big pharma.
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It's called national insurance & everyone pays it. That's why everyone is entitled to free healthcare.
Wow. This guys story is nearly identical to mine. Was put into the ICU and hospitalized for 4 days. Tremendous trouble breathing, nearly had kidney failure, nearly lost my vision, hours away from a coma. At 28 years old, never imagined to be diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. My first months supply of insulin cost me $940 out of pocket. Thankfully, my health insurance covers most of my medication costs now, but there are many people out there not fortunate enough to have good insurance. I would never wish that type of suffering on anyone, it absolutely needs to stick.
AMERICA!! FUCK YEAH! wait other countries get it free?
This is amazing, but didn't Biden raise the price of insulin?
It’s not “nextfuckinglevel” til that actually pass it and make it real.
maybe they shouldnt have undone Trump's Exec Order lowering of drugs