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A comment on YC Research: Universal Healthcare. Parent comment

Re:YC Research: Universal Healthcare by finnh on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @06:19PM (#13593960)
> Medicare is required to cover a number of classes of drugs. they can't say "no, we're not paying for it." > As a result, Medicare has no negotiating power. Unless you can walk away from the table, why would drug companies budge?

Those statements are only true for drugs with no alternatives - which doesn't apply to all (most?) drugs. And, even for those, couldn't the government say "we're not going to pay $(RANSOMPRICE) for drug X. If you insist that we do, we will not buy any other drugs from you but will instead source from your competitors at all times."

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Re:YC Research: Universal Healthcare by refurb on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @11:04PM (#13595646)
we will not buy any other drugs from you

Private payers are free to do that, but don't. The reason why they don't is because they have customers and telling someone "no you can't have this drug" makes people really upset.

I'm not sure Medicare would have much more success in that area. I could imagine politicians phones ringing off the hook with call from retirees stating "why won't you pay for my drug"?

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Re:YC Research: Universal Healthcare by KaiserPro on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @04:41AM (#13597043)
Because most patients are not competent to source alternatives.

Lets be honest, apart from generics, are you able to dive through source material to find older, equally effective, but with different side effect drugs?

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