[Wheatfield]

Most major industries actually regulate themselves since they pretty much tell the government what the law will say.

I'm parsing this sentence out because it really goes a long way to disprove what you are saying. Regulations written by corporations and rubber stamped by government are not really regulations at all. This goes back to a previous post where it was mentioned that governments (yours more so than most others) are by the corporations (rich) for the corporations (rich). Meaningful regulations would be written to ensure both corporations and the populace are represented fairly.
Regulations written by corporations are, as you noted, there to benefit the corporate interests and nothing else.
This isn't a problem with regulations, per se, this is a problem with the way governments have structured themselves to be in the pockets of big business.
In other words, it isn't regulation, it's lobbying.

[GeneV]

The only reason birth control pills cost any more than aspirin is because of government regulation (pharmaceutical companies). The reason healthcare is so expensive is because of government regulation.

So, you would favor elimination of patent protection and allowing birth control pills to be sold over the counter?

I would rather see businesses not offer any health insurance and individuals select their own plan direct from the insurance companies. Let's open up the competition. Right now federal law prohibits Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Tennessee from selling health insurance in Alabama. The government limits competition across state lines. I am not opposed to regulation unless it limits competition.

The insurance industry is one of the richest in this country because of the way it is structured. They use the government to limit competition and mandate the use of their products.

I'm sorry, but the bit about interstate insurance is just a Republican talking point. Is United Health Care huge and profitable because it is located in a single, profitable state? They are located in 50 states and 33 countries. http://careers.unitedhealthgroup.com/Why-Work-Here/Our-Locations.aspx Blue Cross is everywhere, but with separate incorporations. The experience with banks was that opening up to interstate banking reduced competition rather than increasing it. Big banks just gobbled up local competitors. Now a few banking systems dominate everywhere.

On the specific issue of coverage, competition has actually made it harder to get coverage for all genders and conditions. Insurance depends upon selling to as many people as possible who won't use it. For health insurers, that means seeking as many males between 18 and 35, with no known issues, who don't have babies and don't go to the doctor. Their product actually becomes more competitive by exclusion. Insurance for women and middle aged people becomes even more limited and unaffordable as insurers lower the price to compete for the groups which don't utilize. This is exactly what was happening to individual policies before the ACA. My younger male employees could get individual policies for half what I could offer in my group, because my employer-based pools included more people of all ages and genders in the actuarial pool.

Get rid of the ideological canard and look at this from a practical point of view. A community can support only so many hospitals, doctors, etc. Only so many insurers can operate in a given pool profitably. There won't be more competition.

[Winder]

I'm parsing this sentence out because it really goes a long way to disprove what you are saying. Regulations written by corporations and rubber stamped by government are not really regulations at all. This goes back to a previous post where it was mentioned that governments (yours more so than most others) are by the corporations (rich) for the corporations (rich). Meaningful regulations would be written to ensure both corporations and the populace are represented fairly.
Regulations written by corporations are, as you noted, there to benefit the corporate interests and nothing else.
This isn't a problem with regulations, per se, this is a problem with the way governments have structured themselves to be in the pockets of big business.
In other words, it isn't regulation, it's lobbying.

Explain how that is disproving what I am saying. Corporations spend millions if not billions to make sure regulations are written to benefit them. Look at the censorship law that just got shot down. Who do you think was behind it. The populace? Do you think the populace supported the automotive bailout or the bank bailouts? Who do you think was responsible for those?

There is a limit to how far corporations can go before the populace will take action, but they push that limit more and more every year.

As I said in a previous post: Government and corporations need to be separated and lobbying needs to be "regulated".

[MRRiley]

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan told Roman Catholics on Saturday that in an era when the church was fighting the government on several fronts, they needed to make their voices heard more clearly in the political sphere.

Though the Obama administration has suggested a compromise that could let employers offer the coverage without paying for it directly, Cardinal Dolan told the crowd at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School that the government sought to make the church do something “we find unconscionable.”

“It is a freedom of religion battle,” he said. “It is not about contraception. It is not about women’s health.” He added: “We’re talking about an unwarranted, unprecedented, radical intrusion” into “a church’s ability to teach, serve and sanctify on its own.”

The cardinal mocked a secular culture that “seems to discover new rights every day.”

“I don’t recall a right to marriage,” he said, describing marriage, instead, as a “call.”

“Now we hear there’s a right to sterilization, abortion and chemical contraceptives. I suppose there might be a doctor who would say to a man who’s suffering some type of sexual dysfunction, ‘You ought to visit a prostitute to help you.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/nyregion/cardinal-timothy-m-dolan-urges-ca...ly-active.html

Dolan and Limpbaugh, perfect together.

The rights to self determination and privacy (the basis for the "new rights" you list) rank right up there with freedom of religion Cardinal.

[Winder]

So, you would favor elimination of patent protection and allowing birth control pills to be sold over the counter?

Can you please point out where I said I am in favor of eliminating patent protection? Why the hell do you have to eliminate patent protection to sell something over the counter? Look at all the drugs that are sold OTC. Bayer and Tylenol are both profitable brands selling product OTC. Brand awareness for OTC drugs is just as strong as it is for any other industry. There are generic versions of most of the popular birth controls pills. The patents have expired.

Can you please explain what eliminating patent protection has to do with selling OTC?

I'm sorry, but the bit about interstate insurance is just a Republican talking point. Is United Health Care huge and profitable because it is located in a single, profitable state? They are located in 50 states and 33 countries. Our Locations Blue Cross is everywhere, but with separate incorporations. The experience with banks was that opening up to interstate banking reduced competition rather than increasing it. Big banks just gobbled up local competitors. Now a few banking systems dominate everywhere.

On the specific issue of coverage, competition has actually made it harder to get coverage for all genders and conditions. Insurance depends upon selling to as many people as possible who won't use it. For health insurers, that means seeking as many males between 18 and 35, with no known issues, who don't have babies and don't go to the doctor. Their product actually becomes more competitive by exclusion. Insurance for women and middle aged people becomes even more limited and unaffordable as insurers lower the price to compete for the groups which don't utilize. This is exactly what was happening to individual policies before the ACA. My younger male employees could get individual policies for half what I could offer in my group, because my employer-based pools included more people of all ages and genders in the actuarial pool.

Get rid of the ideological canard and look at this from a practical point of view. A community can support only so many hospitals, doctors, etc. Only so many insurers can operate in a given pool profitably. There won't be more competition.

Competition does not make it harder to get coverage. Does it make it harder for everyone to get the same coverage? Yes. But is everyone entitled to the same coverage? I must have missed that part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights where they talked about equal insurance coverage for all. Insurance is not a right or entitlement. People who exercise, eat well, and take care of themselves should have access to cheaper insurance than people who don't take care of themselves. Why should people who abuse and neglect their bodies be given the same rates and people who take care of their bodies? Your argument seems to be based on the idea that everyone is entitled to the same insurance coverage at the same rate, and my question is why do you think that? Why are all people entitled to the same coverage at the same rate?

I agree that it is a numbers game and that insurance companies only make money if they sell to people who don't need their product. They have done a great job using fear and marketing to convince the general population that they must have insurance. They have even been successful at using the government to mandate their products. Auto insurance is more expensive or 16 year old male than it is it females because we can demonstrate it costs more to insure young male drivers than young female drivers. We can demonstrate that it costs more to provide health insurance to females than to males. Should females not pay more for insurance? Typically these costs are occurred by the family and not by the individual so it is a wash.

A community can support only so many hospitals, doctors, etc. Only so many insurers can operate in a given pool profitably. There won't be more competition.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. A community can only support so many photographers, gas stations, restaurants, movie theaters, dry cleaners. You are correct in that only so many insurers can operate in a given pool profitably, but how is that different than any other industry? Why should we give insurance companies limited monopolies? Insurance companies are getting filthy rich off of these government mandates and regulations.

[ihasa]

Prices of brand name drugs in the United States are significantly higher than in Canada, India, the UK and other countries, nearly all of which have price controls. Prices for generic drugs tend to be higher in Canada. The price differential for brand-name drugs between the U.S. and Canada has led Americans to purchase more than US$1 billion in drugs per year from Canadian pharmacies

Why are pharmaceuticals cheaper in Canada - is it because they have less regulation? The problem isn't regulation, it's whether the regulation is intended to benefit the citizen or the corporation. Clearly the government has a role firstly in providing regulation that ensures drugs are safe and effective, and secondly, that prices are kept as low for the consumer as possible without disincentivising innovation.

[GeneV]

Can you please point out where I said I am in favor of eliminating patent protection? Why the hell do you have to eliminate patent protection to sell something over the counter? Look at all the drugs that are sold OTC. Bayer and Tylenol are both profitable brands selling product OTC. Brand awareness for OTC drugs is just as strong as it is for any other industry. There are generic versions of most of the popular birth controls pills. The patents have expired.

Can you please explain what eliminating patent protection has to do with selling OTC?

You compared the price of birth control to that of aspirin. Aspirin is not protected by a patent and is available OTC. Those are two big reasons (having to do with the government) why aspirin is much cheaper. Some BC pills are now generic and some aren't.

Competition does not make it harder to get coverage. Does it make it harder for everyone to get the same coverage? Yes. But is everyone entitled to the same coverage? I must have missed that part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights where they talked about equal insurance coverage for all. Insurance is not a right or entitlement. People who exercise, eat well, and take care of themselves should have access to cheaper insurance than people who don't take care of themselves. Why should people who abuse and neglect their bodies be given the same rates and people who take care of their bodies? Your argument seems to be based on the idea that everyone is entitled to the same insurance coverage at the same rate, and my question is why do you think that? Why are all people entitled to the same coverage at the same rate?

In our society, if you don't have insurance, you don't get health care. Not every human right or need or desirable outcome is expressly set out in the Constitution. If you think it is just fine that some people cannot get the health care they need, then there is no real point in discussing this further. I understood you were saying that competition would solve the problem which the ACA is seeking to alleviate.

Surely you are not saying everyone can stay healthy just by exercising. We are not talking about discounts for fitness here, but rates set on gender, age, past medical history (whether self-inflicted or not) and even genetics.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. A community can only support so many photographers, gas stations, restaurants, movie theaters, dry cleaners. You are correct in that only so many insurers can operate in a given pool profitably, but how is that different than any other industry? Why should we give insurance companies limited monopolies? Insurance companies are getting filthy rich off of these government mandates and regulations.

Many health care facilities are natural monopolies, and the same is true for insurers. It is not the government that is granting a limited monopoly. There is no unlimited competition which will have the same effect on hospitals and insurers as it has on pencils or even photographers.

---

Last edited by GeneV; 03-05-2012 at 12:51 PM.

[redrockcoulee]

Why are pharmaceuticals cheaper in Canada - is it because they have less regulation? The problem isn't regulation, it's whether the regulation is intended to benefit the citizen or the corporation. Clearly the government has a role firstly in providing regulation that ensures drugs are safe and effective, and secondly, that prices are kept as low for the consumer as possible without disincentivising innovation.

The government acts like a monopoly as far as a buyer goes in that it negotiates with the drug companies on prices, the companies can agree on a reasonable price or not sell in Canada. The government does not set the price but negotiate so that it is a price that both parties can live with. It is more than just nice to be able to get a prescription filled and know that the person providing the medication knows what it is how it interacts with others and able to provide advice on it. I can buy aspirin at the gas station but the clerks there are not very knowledgable about adverse affects from taking both an antibiotic and a anti inflamatory, especially the evening shift that still goes to high school. Of course I could simply look on the internet where all information is 100% accurate. Part of the price of the drugs being behind the counter is to pay for the professional people who work there.

With anti-govenment people it seems that if the government works with companies in creating regulations than it is under the corporation's thumbs and if it acts on its own it is stiffling growth, a totally no win situation. Industries do self regulate, if they feel that it can prevent manatory regs from coming in place however it only takes one company to go off the rails and they all might follow plus without governments not bringing in regs there is no reason for industries to even self regulate.

Without doubt some regulations make no sense, I work with them all the time and it is one department enforcing on another, however without them things would be much worse.

[Winder]

Why are pharmaceuticals cheaper in Canada - is it because they have less regulation? The problem isn't regulation, it's whether the regulation is intended to benefit the citizen or the corporation. Clearly the government has a role firstly in providing regulation that ensures drugs are safe and effective, and secondly, that prices are kept as low for the consumer as possible without disincentivising innovation.

A big reason for the price difference is big pharmaceuticals write the laws in this country. They are allowed to advertise directly to the general population. In Canada drug companies spend less than $2 billion a year on marketing. In the United States drug companies spend somewhere around $50 billion. Americans love pills. We have a pill for everything. More money is spent on marketing drugs than is spent on R&D. Marketing generate demand even when there is no real need. Insurance plans mean that people can buy products that they don't actually need for a fraction of the actual cost.

As an example: Viagra should not be covered by insurance. Impotence for the majority of men is caused by lifestyle. Diet and exercise can reverse impotence. Why are insurance companies covering a problem that is treatable by diet and exercise? Why is any medical condition that is treatable by diet/exercise/lifestyle covered by insurance? Because people are too lazy and would rather pop a pill that was paid for by someone else.

This was not always the case. Drug companies spent big money to change the regulations in their favor.

Yes, government has a role in regulating the safety of drugs. Government should not be involved in price regulation. Show me an industry where the government successfully regulates pricing? Anytime the government regulates pricing someone is getting rich, and it is not the general public.

[Winder]

You compared the price of birth control to that of aspirin. Aspirin is not protected by a patent and is available OTC. Those are two big reasons (having to do with the government) why aspirin is much cheaper. Some BC pills are now generic and some aren't.

Most major birth control pills are now available in generic form. The patents have expired.... just like Aspirin. They could be made available OTC and would be much cheaper if that were the case. The regulation keeps the price higher. I don't think we have to worry about people abusing BC pills.

In our society, if you don't have insurance, you don't get health care. Not every human right or need or desirable outcome is expressly set out in the Constitution. If you think it is just fine that some people cannot get the health care they need, then there is no real point in discussing this further. I understood you were saying that competition would solve the problem which the ACA is seeking to alleviate.

This is actually not true. I went almost 10 years without health insurance, and only paid for what I needed when I went to the doctor. I was never refused care. This included paying for shoulder surgery.

Where do you find this "right" to healthcare? What can you base this on? Just saying so doesn't work. Wishful thinking doesn't work. Mankind existed for thousands of years before insurance ever existed. Insurance and healthcare are relatively new commercial products. They are not constitutional rights. Fear and marketing have done a great job creating demand for these commercial products and making these industries extremely rich.

Competition will benefit everyone who wants to purchase insurance. If people want "free" healthcare then competition will be of no benefit. There is no such thing as free. The things that government provides for "free" are usually extremely expensive.

Surely you are not saying everyone can stay healthy just by exercising. We are not talking about discounts for fitness here, but rates set on gender, age, past medical history (whether self-inflicted or not) and even genetics.

I'm not saying exercise and diet cure everything, but the leading killers in this country are due to unhealthy lifestyles. Not bad luck or genes. Obesity and a sedimentary lifestyle are major factors in heart disease, stroke, & diabetes. Lifestyle choices like smoking are major contributors to cancer. Healthcare in the country is expensive because Americans do a piss poor job of taking care of themselves. If Americans would get off their butts and eat right healthcare costs would fall like a rock. Demand for healthcare, drugs and insurance would fall like a rock.

Look at sugar consumption in the country. Government actually subsidizes the sugar industry. Why? Government is looking out for us right? Record high level of diabetic kids in the country and the government is subsidizing production making it cheaper. Government does not work for the people. They work for industry. If government has a solution it means someone is getting rich and the majority of the citizens are getting screwed.

[ihasa]

Extract of a report from U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration report:

In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that
would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative
medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both
from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates.
The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added
competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and
Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that
reason.

By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries studied in this report, governments have relied heavily on government fiat
rather than competition to set prices, lowering drug spending through price controls
applied to new and old drugs alike. Such controls, when applied to new drugs, reduce
company compensation to levels closer to direct production costs, leaving less revenue
for R&D. As OECD countries individually seek to reduce spending on drugs through
price controls, their collective actions reduce R&D that would provide substantial health
benefits to all.

http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/chemicals/drugpricingstudy.pdf

The Department spin there is that, by actually pursuing a policy of keeping pharmaceuticals expensive, drug companies have larger R&D budgets and patients can benefit from more new and innovative treatments. The obvious downside is that fewer people will be able to afford these treatments, and there will be a huge impact on Medicare/aid costs.

Also, are these R&D budgets really being spent 'for the good of mankind'? Or do they go on the inventing of 'new' 'innovative' non-illnesses which we were previously unaware of, and the treatments for which they will push through TV advertising and direct to GP promotions? It's quite amazing how everything is 'over-medicalised' in the USA, the ad breaks on TV are just swamped with pills and potions, most of which are targeting problems which either generally go away on their own, or would be alleviated through eating more roughage....

I've also seen reports of pharmaceutical companies keeping potential improved treatments quiet, because they would, for example, be less profitable than their existing products.

[redrockcoulee]

A big reason for the price difference is big pharmaceuticals write the laws in this country. They are allowed to advertise directly to the general population. In Canada drug companies spend less than $2 billion a year on marketing. In the United States drug companies spend somewhere around $50 billion. Americans love pills. We have a pill for everything. More money is spent on marketing drugs than is spent on R&D. Marketing generate demand even when there is no real need. Insurance plans mean that people can buy products that they don't actually need for a fraction of the actual cost.

As an example: Viagra should not be covered by insurance. Impotence for the majority of men is caused by lifestyle. Diet and exercise can reverse impotence. Why are insurance companies covering a problem that is treatable by diet and exercise? Why is any medical condition that is treatable by diet/exercise/lifestyle covered by insurance? Because people are too lazy and would rather pop a pill that was paid for by someone else.

This was not always the case. Drug companies spent big money to change the regulations in their favor.

Yes, government has a role in regulating the safety of drugs. Government should not be involved in price regulation. Show me an industry where the government successfully regulates pricing? Anytime the government regulates pricing someone is getting rich, and it is not the general public.

That is only twice the dollars per capita if 25 times more money is spent on 12 times the number of people. Not that out of line. All I know is that our health care is regulated by the government much more than it is in the United States and drugs, doctor visits, hospital stay and health care administration costs are all less expensive than in the US. So the simple answer that government regulations or pricing end up costing more does not hold up. The Europeon experience is more like Canada than the US. Other factors are at play that might not be as easy to state or to fix than blaming government regulations.

When our energy prices were regulated our energy costs were lower. Same with telephone. Some of our food prices are regulated to increase the costs but that was to insure that producers in our country could thrive, one does not want to have to import eggs and milk .

One of the differences is that lobbyists have less impact here because the local MP is less influencial than your Congressman or Senator hence to lobby you need to target the party rather than an individual. We also trust our government (public servants I am referring to) more than Americans seem to therefore we expect and demand good service instead of simply claiming the government cannot work which may become a self fulfilling prophecy as at least your last President seemed to appoint people who did not believe in the agency they ran rather than having career bureucrats running an agency. And of course what you have stated as your position does come to play as well. But if you look at our two countries , we have a better safety net, public health care etc and one should expect that it would be we and not you that takes advantage of the system but that does not seem to be the case.

And in the original statement by Ms Fluke she was taking about birth control pills that were prescribed for medical reasons other than for birth control. I wonder if Viagra was not covered by insurance in the States and was found to be needed to fight say prostate cancer if the same comments and exclusions would have been made? Here the governments decide which treatments and which medications are covered in a broad sense and then it is only the doctor, the pharmasist and the patient that have any say in it. The politicians have no business in deciding if they want to cover any one medication.

[Wheatfield]

Explain how that is disproving what I am saying. Corporations spend millions if not billions to make sure regulations are written to benefit them. Look at the censorship law that just got shot down. Who do you think was behind it. The populace? Do you think the populace supported the automotive bailout or the bank bailouts? Who do you think was responsible for those?

There is a limit to how far corporations can go before the populace will take action, but they push that limit more and more every year.

As I said in a previous post: Government and corporations need to be separated and lobbying needs to be "regulated".

I was speaking pretty specifically to this, which you posted prior:
"Show me an industry that is getting rich and I will show you an industry that is heavily regulated by the federal government."
However, it appears we are saying much the same thing regarding large corporations writing their own legislation, where we differ is that you don't see any options other than to do away with regulations entirely, whereas I am living in a country that is making regulations work for the good of the population.
If your government is screwed up, you need to fix your government, not just bleat about how they can't do anything right.
When my truck breaks, I fix it, when my dog misbehaves, I train it. This is how grown ups deal with things.

[Winder]

I was speaking pretty specifically to this, which you posted prior:
"Show me an industry that is getting rich and I will show you an industry that is heavily regulated by the federal government."
However, it appears we are saying much the same thing regarding large corporations writing their own legislation, where we differ is that you don't see any options other than to do away with regulations entirely, whereas I am living in a country that is making regulations work for the good of the population.
If your government is screwed up, you need to fix your government, not just bleat about how they can't do anything right.
When my truck breaks, I fix it, when my dog misbehaves, I train it. This is how grown ups deal with things.

I am not opposed to regulation. Regulation is a good and necessary role of the Federal Government. I am not opposed to big corporations. I have nothing against Exxon or CitiBank. I have a problem with these companies writing their own regulations which is what we have in this country.

We need a strong line to be drawn between government and business in this country. I don't want to see Congress mandating anything. It usually means someone is getting rich and everyone else is picking up the tab.

[Wheatfield]

I am not opposed to regulation. Regulation is a good and necessary role of the Federal Government. I am not opposed to big corporations. I have nothing against Exxon or CitiBank. I have a problem with these companies writing their own regulations which is what we have in this country.

We need a strong line to be drawn between government and business in this country. I don't want to see Congress mandating anything. It usually means someone is getting rich and everyone else is picking up the tab.

Dude, Congress mandating stuff is what regulations are, which goes back to fix your government.