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A comment on The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the Books. Parent comment

Re:The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the B... by disordinary on Monday May 14, 2018 @02:25AM (#17063173)
But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising. I'd rather pay more and either only use the medication when I need it, or get the most effective medication.

One of the reasons why the US spends so much more than the rest of the world is because of the share amount of prescription drugs that people have. Here it's extremely hard to convince a Dr that anything other than paracetamol and rest is required for most ailments, yet life expectancy is higher than in the US.

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Re:The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the B... by AnthonyMouse on Monday May 14, 2018 @02:49AM (#17063292)
> But then those 160,000 other patients are either getting medication that they don't need or are getting medication which is inferior to something else which they should have gotten but has inferior advertising.

Yes, if the advertising is total bullocks that is what happens. But getting rid of the advertising still doesn't make the price of the drug go down for the people who actually need it.

And it's at least theoretically possible for the advertising to help patients who otherwise wouldn't have known about the drug, e.g. because they asked a doctor about it years ago and there was no treatment then even though there is one now.

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Re:The Best Fix for American Drug Prices Is Already on the B... by stinkbug on Tuesday May 15, 2018 @08:18AM (#17073364)
Yes of course the advertisements are total bollocks. That is the claim. You are making these very strident back-of-the-envelope "economics" arguments without realizing that the economic ideal for the health care industry is to provide therapies that make people sicker, thereby ensuring their return for more therapies.
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