Re:The Danger of Managing Drug Prices
by specialist on Saturday September 12, 2015 @04:45PM
(#10209312)
But since it's fashionable these days to push for a single-payer system...
Good. I'm pleased that evidence-based rationality is coming back into fashion.
...the only way to get low prices is to be willing to walk away.
Don't confuse individual choices with collective action.
Prices can decrease through economies of scale. Which requires investment.
Libertarians wax poetic about Freedom Markets (tm), conflating profit motive and incentive, ignoring externalized costs, ignoring the need for law and order to form open markets. It's exhausting.
OP wrote:
People who are dying are price insensitive; they would pay any amount to get a few more months of life.
Your misinterpretation:
I suppose I'm questioning the author's assertion that (rational) people are willing to pay any price for drugs.
OP makes no such assertion. The fear of death is the definition of irrationality.
Good. I'm pleased that evidence-based rationality is coming back into fashion.
...the only way to get low prices is to be willing to walk away.
Don't confuse individual choices with collective action.
Prices can decrease through economies of scale. Which requires investment.
Libertarians wax poetic about Freedom Markets (tm), conflating profit motive and incentive, ignoring externalized costs, ignoring the need for law and order to form open markets. It's exhausting.
OP wrote:
People who are dying are price insensitive; they would pay any amount to get a few more months of life.
Your misinterpretation:
I suppose I'm questioning the author's assertion that (rational) people are willing to pay any price for drugs.
OP makes no such assertion. The fear of death is the definition of irrationality.