Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Real Reason I Am In Favor Of A Single Payer Health Care System. It means Big Profits For Big Pharma, That's Why.

Don't take my word for it. Take the word of Big Pharma. From yesterday's New York Times:

Amgen claimed a profit margin of almost 100 percent on its foreign sales, but only 15 percent on its American sales.


That's right, not only does every other industrialized country manage to cover all their citizens, spend less on health care, and have better health outcomes than we do (USA!.... USA!.... USA!), but according to the drug companies themselves, there's a shitload more money to be made for them overseas than in the USA, where drug prices are an arm and a leg higher. Those Amgen figures are echoed by Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Merck. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky the pharmaceutical industry wants to do business here at all, since they make so little money in the United States. Evidently Big Pharma just really cares about the health of the American people, since they are willing to stay in such low-margin environment.

Either that or those figues are nothing but a bullshit tax dodge. According to the Times article, the companies that happily accept billions of tax dollars from your government, the companies that used their political muscle to have it written into law that your government is prohibited from even asking for a price break to cover Medicare Part D recipients, have now learned to shift their profitable assets overseas to avoid paying into the pot they suck so much out of. Using the figures from the Times, Pfizer alone would have avoided $10.8 billion in taxes. Getting Pfizer to pay it's fair share would be like getting a coupon for 1 free month of war in Iraq.

At least it's supposed to be your government. The word "corporation" does not appear in the Constitution, the first three words of which are "We The People." If you're a person, do something today to hold your government to those words.

5 comments:

turnerBroadcasting said...

Good post.


Do you think if we had the fed, in a universal system - as a big buyer, that we'd have price levelling and markets?


Someone told me once one of the big problems is that since so much is billed against markdown or markup , that we don't actually have real price based markets for the drugs.

I wonder if we had an 800 pound gorilla out there setting price levels, if we might end up with benchmark pricing and start having markets for not only the drugs but also the procedures?

Jenn Siva said...

I had a patient tell me not too long ago that our drug prices were so high to compensate for all the AIDS/HIV drugs they were sending overseas to Africa, and because of that he didnt mind.

Mother Jones RN said...

Drugmonkey, since our beloved Howard isn't running for office this year, would you consider running for President? I'd vote for you:-)


MJ

DrugMonkey, Master of Pharmacy said...

MJ,

I once attended a town hall style meeting with our local Congressman where he told us that at a similar event the week before, a little old lady had stood up and shouted at him. YOU KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE!!!!! That is why I could never run for office. Because there is no way I could not tell that woman she was a fucking moron. Then there would be film of me telling a little old lady she was a fucking moron. I think that would be worse for my political career than Dean's isolated and amplified scream was for his.

I did briefly consider running in the California recall though, but only because I thought there might be a chance I would meet Gary Coleman.

Anonymous said...

Why dont the Pharmacy Associations support UHC like the nurses do? We stand far more to gain as pharmacists..... is it that our oppinion doesnt matter because we are too weak in lobbying or are we weak in lobbying because we dont get involved?