http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blog...-kid-market-set-drug-004745384--abc-news.html Rick Santorum Tells Sick Kid Market Should Should Set Drug Prices WOODLAND PARK, Colo. - GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies. Santorum, himself the father of a child with a rare genetic disorder, compared buying drugs to buying an iPad, and said demand would determine the cost of medical therapies. "People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad," Santorum said, "but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with - it keeps you alive. Why? Because you've been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it." The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year. Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs. "You have that drug, and maybe you're alive today because people have a profit motive to make that drug," Santorum said. "There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: 'You drug companies are greedy and bad, you can't make a return on your money,' then we will freeze innovation." Santorum told a large Tea Party crowd here that he sympathized with the boy's case, but he also believed in the marketplace. "He's alive today because drug companies provide care," Santorum said. "And if they didn't think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn't be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. ⦠I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don't have incentives, they won't make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don't."
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No. You can't turn away people at the emergency room either. In thailand they will literally deny treatment if you can't pay. It isn't civilized. It has to be seen to be believed. So, you decide that sick people must be treated no matter what. Then the next step is that you realize that can only be done with insurance. When you try to setup that insurance you realize that it can only be affordable if everyone participates so that the costs are distributed. But then some people don't want to participate so you have to mandate that they obtain insurance or face some penalty. The next thing you know you have Obamacare. I don't think that Obamacare itself is what pissed everyone off. Universal healthcare insurance is inevitable in a civilized society. It is the way that the legislation was run through congress that enraged people. They hate the way Pelosi and Reid gloated about it and used it as a political football. Instead of just getting it done they used it to try to enshrine Barrack Obama as some kind of God. Also people think it should not be run by the government but should be private insurance companies that are regulated by the government. They want everyone to pay the same premiums. They don't want any means testing. They don't want the government to tell doctors how much they can charge for services. I disagree with the republicans about means testing. I'm sure you'll say something stupid and snarky because I posted a serious answer so fuck you in advance.
Solid post,as well as your post in the birther thread.Starting this post I will continue to be civil to all who are civil to me.I will be civil to republicans politicians like Congressmen West and President Bush and hope conservatives can be civil to President Obama.I just edited the sarcasm towards Romney in the Afgan pull out thread and posted my opposition to Romneys plan in a civil way
Lucky for Ricky he has government heath-care to pay for his own sick kid. You're welcome Rick, the taxpayer doesn't mind picking up the tab for you and yours.
I hope we agree that the only person who got the solid point across is the kid. Friedman is full of it. He posed the question, what if Ford had to pay $200 million to repair the defect, what then? The key word is defect. The fact that the car had a defect makes it inappropriate to knowingly market regardless of the cost/benefit. Ford subjected their customers to risks that they were aware of but that the customers were not. There is nothing "subtle" about that, whatever Uncle Milty may think. Why does capitalism mean that they have to sell crap and it's only a question of how much they'll have to pay to victims? Does Friedman not know the managerial accounting concept of sunk cost? What about other cars on the road at the time that did not have such a known (to the manufacturer) defect? How did they manage to get produced? Why could Ford just not go back to the drawing board and compete with other comparatively safe cars being produced? Ford fucked up and tried to get away with it, and here's Milton, posing as their front man. Products with known and potentially dangerous defects are now recalled as a matter of course, as they should be, rather than companies playing "Shh! Let's see what happens." Otherwise, there is genuine hell to pay, again, as it should be. Friedman made so many bullshit strawman arguments it was hard to keep track. Friedman is full of Rand.