The Brave Republicans showed - again - how they are fighting for the little guy - by voting to strip out a cap on insulin prices in private insurance.
I guess $35/month insulin costs just make those poor people lazy.
Republicans fight against the true enemy - cheap insulin
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@Ramshutu
Today on Face the Nation, Senator Rick Scott of Florida said that the Inflation reduction Act cuts Medicare benefits because it seeks to pay less for prescription drugs! Imagine the logic, or lack thereof, that allows a person and a party to believe that paying less for something that is provided to seniors is a cut in benefits! By that “logic” if the government agreed to pay twice as much for insulin as they are paying now, they would be doubling the benefit to seniors. Who votes for these people?
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@IwantRooseveltagain
If it passes, I’m half expecting ads saying that Democrats failed to lower insulin costs for people on private insurance….
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@Ramshutu
I’m not going to bat for the GOP vote on this, as they appear to lack a counter proposal of any kind. It seems like a “price controls bad!” sort of reaction which, while not entirely false, is an oversimplification which doesn’t lead to any solutions.
That said, my research shows that it wouldn’t be the insulin manufacturer’s benefitting from a lack of price controls. To the contrary, price controls would take the price pressure off of them and put it onto insurance companies, followed by insurance holders and taxpayers. Here is a good, nonpartisan article which brings up the point that middlemen are getting more of the insulin profits over time, while the insulin manufactures are getting less. Comprehensive reform should address all aspects of the insulin money flow:
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@cristo71
I’m not going to bat for the GOP vote on this, as they appear to lack a counter proposal of any kind. It seems like a “price controls bad!” sort of reaction which, while not entirely false, is an oversimplification which doesn’t lead to any solutions.
Remember the time when the government would provide assistance directly to affected people instead of engaging in corporate welfare?
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@cristo71
We absolute need comprehensive price reform.
But in the absence for that, I’d rather not have anyone needing to rationing insulin - even though there would have gaps in that.
Remember the time when the government would provide assistance directly to affected people instead of engaging in corporate welfare?
Let’s help people.
“That’s socialism”
Okay, let’s end corporate welfare then
“That will wreck the economy”
So you don’t want to do anything?
“Yeah - and it’s your fault.”
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@Greyparrot
Remember the time when the government would provide assistance directly to affected people instead of engaging in corporate welfare?
Aren’t insulin price caps an example of the former?
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@cristo71
yep.
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@Ramshutu
The Medicare Part D insulin cap would've applied to just that: beneficiaries of this program. These compulsory rebates would've come at a heavy cost for key companies and middlemen, and that cost would've been passed down to the average insulin consumer not covered by Medicare.
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@Ramshutu
A 2018 study that found that a 10ml vial of insulin could be made for the low costs of $3-$8.
Here are the approximate list prices for a 10mL vial of insulin according to the report:
- $275 for Humalog made by Eli Lilly
- $284 for Lantus made by Sanofi
- $290 for Novolog made by Novo Nordisk
Companies are not in the habit of throwing money away, and they are not in the habit of staying out of politics. Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi collectively rake in several billions of dollars in profits. That’s not millions, but billions – with a B. We know they spend millions on marketing, but they also spend millions on lobbying politicians and donating to our decision-makers so that they keep quiet about price gouging. Check if your representatives receive contributions from one of the ‘big three’ insulin manufacturers or any pharmaceutical company. Chances are, they do. Not to mention, the revolving door between pharma companies and US Government positions. Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services was previously an Eli Lilly executive. Obviously, his interests were not with people, but with power. This is why independent patient voices are so important.
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@cristo71
“half — about 53% — of the net proceeds from the sale of insulin go to middlemen, up from 30% in 2014. Meanwhile the share going to manufacturers has decreased by a third”…
Gee, sounds like a good argument for a single payer healthcare system. If only someone or some party would propose such an idea.
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@Greyparrot
Get this. The Inflation Reduction Act…doesn’t reduce inflation.
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@ILikePie5
pretty sure no bill lives up to the hyped name
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@ILikePie5
It doesn’t? Why do you say that? It reduces the price for prescription drugs, healthcare premiums, energy costs, and the deficit. Sounds like inflation reduction to me. Do you know what fundamentally causes inflation? If you say Biden, you would have to explain why inflation is just as bad in Europe and other parts of the world. Did you give Biden credit for reducing gas prices by a dollar a gallon over the last 5 weeks?
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@ILikePie5
The “Clear Skies Act” of 2003 by the Bush Administration was a law that increased pollution by amending the Clean Air Act from 40 years earlier.A
The law reduces air pollution controls, including those environmental protections of the Clean Air Act, including caps on toxins in the air and budget cuts for enforcement. The Act is opposed by conservationist groups such as the Sierra Club with Henry A. Waxman, a Democratic congressman of California, describing its title as "clear propaganda."
Among other things, the Clear Skies Act:
- Allows 42 million more tons of pollution emitted than the EPA proposal.
- Weakens the current cap on nitrogen oxide pollution levels from 1.25 million tons to 2.1 million tons, allowing 68% more NOx pollution.
- Delays the improvement of sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution levels compared to the Clean Air Act requirements.
- Delays enforcement of smog-and-soot pollution standards until 2015.
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@Swagnarok
Insulin is literally the poster child for a commodity for which the price should be through the floor due to market forces. The fact that it isn’t, given how cheap it is to produce, is not down to the “cost” of insulin.
If you are concerned that private insurance would have shared the cost across all those who are insured (which is kinda the point of insurance), it’s not an issue of “passing on the cost”, but “passing on consumers being f***ed” - given that the people telling us that the cost will be shared are the people raking in billions - I’m not entirely convinced.
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@ILikePie5
Get this. The Inflation Reduction Act…doesn’t reduce inflation.
Creating debt and giving it to people and corporations apparently increase inflation, right?
On what economic basis do you believe that doing the opposite (in the form of corporate rates and buyback tax) won’t decrease it?
Insulin is the poster child of crony capitalism. Why American voters allowed Congress to have so much power over Commerce and the free market is a testament to how badly America education has failed to instill a healthy level of skepticism against government fiats. This is a predictable result of the government managing education itself.
Canadian insulin is 10 times cheaper than American insulin riddled with government mandates in the name of "safety"
Insulin is the poster child of crony capitalism. Why American voters allowed Congress to have so much power over Commerce and the free market is a testament to haw badly education has failed to instill a healthy level of skepticism for government fiats. A direct result of the government managing education itself.
Crony capitalism is capitalism. Because why bother being better, cheaper, faster and stronger when you make just as much profit, for less investment lobbying politicians.
It’s market forces.
Crony capitalism is just the consequences of market capitalism that market capitalists don’t want to talk about.
Get this: deregulation would not only make insulin as affordable as Canadian insulin, but also pull us out of the recession.Did you know FDR took the advice of business experts and deregulated industry in order to produce the massive amounts of tanks needed for the war? We need this level of deregulation again from Biden if we are to recover from this recession.
“The starved, rabid bear keeps trying to bite us from behind the bars of its cage - we just need to let it out and it will solve all our problems”
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@Ramshutu
What was the given justification for voting against it?
The WaPo is so funny, “democracy dies in darkness” but all their stuff is paywalled 😹
@GreyparrotGet this: deregulation would not only make insulin as affordable as Canadian insulin, but also pull us out of the recession.Did you know FDR took the advice of business experts and deregulated industry in order to produce the massive amounts of planes and tanks needed for the war? We need this level of deregulation again from Biden if we are to recover from this recession. The starved people of America deserve to actually live in a land of free commerce.
So - as this is the third time you’ve removed this post and re-added it, for some reason; I will assume that you’ve been seriously triggered by my post, and are now trying to find some way to make me stop posting.
I’ll try and add a little bit more to the argument each time.
Insulin is expensive because of the free market - there’s no onerous regulation: no new or unreasonable huge hurdles or steps that require pharmaceutical companies to spend much more - it’s not regulation causing the issues at all - this would be a lie.
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@Greyparrot
@Ramshutu
Insulin is expensive because of the free market - there’s no onerous regulation: no new or unreasonable huge hurdles or steps that require pharmaceutical companies to spend much more - it’s not regulation causing the issues at all - this would be a lie.
Lol
@GreyParrotGet this: deregulation would not only make insulin as affordable as Canadian insulin, but also pull us out of the recession.Did you know FDR took the advice of business experts and deregulated industry in order to produce the massive amounts of planes and tanks needed for the war? We need this level of deregulation again from Biden if we are to recover from this recession. The starved people of America deserve to actually live in a land of free commerce.
Deleted post #4
Conservatives love to splutter about regulations - but the reality here is that other than regulation to prevent drugs killing people, and making sure they work; because there once was a time people marketed snake oil as cures, and suggested X-rays would be an awesome cure all.
The price of insulin is purely driven by capitalist interests and not any form of production costs - and we can tell that because GP is deleting and reposting this nonsense each time instead of simply specifying the government regulation (or regulations) that have caused the cost of insulin to skyrocket, and how.
Everyone, the Republican politicians, the media, GP, all lay the blame on regulation - yet they can’t and won’t specify which, what and how that regulation has raised the price of manufacture.
Given that Gp will delete his post a fifth time rather than explaining which regulation(s) has caused the issue will be fairly instructive.
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@ILikePie5
Lol!
Lol!
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@ILikePie5
I swear! that almost seemed like pure satire straight out of the Onion.
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@ILikePie5
Check out this slide show from the FDA...did you even know the FDA was hard at work spending your tax dollars to eliminate pharmaceutical competition?
Fun stuff! Too bad the FDA won't let us buy the "snake oil" from Canada for 10 times cheaper.