Healthcare/Health Insurance: what is the actual problem?

[mchammer]

If anyone wonders why large numbers of Americans won't go along with nationalized medicine or any large government decision-making power in healthcare issues, stories like this are a big part of the problem.

We have hospitals and courts rolling over the parents' wishes and trying to pull the plug on this baby. There are really two related but ultimately different issues here. First, should the hospital be required to keep treating the child to keep him alive? Obviously they've decided not to, and that's a debatable point. Second, should the child essentially be incarcerated in the hospital to ensure that when treatment is removed, his parents can't try to keep him alive? That's a big leap, and if courts can do this, that's very disturbing. If the parents want to take him out of the UK and bring him to Italy where hellh continue to get care, what the hell business of it is the hospital's or the Court's?

Why have Nuns pay for sexual-related health care expenses? To make an example of people. ******* autocrats.

 

[Musburger1]

There are a lot of financial incentives to not only keep costs highs, but also to not develop cures.

In this article (Is curing patients a sustainable business model) a Goldman Sachs analyst makes the following point.

The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies... While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.
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For a real-world example, Goldman pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company’s hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year.

“[Gilead]’s rapid rise and fall of its hepatitis C franchise highlights one of the dynamics of an effective drug that permanently cures a disease, resulting in a gradual exhaustion of the prevalent pool of patients,” the analysts wrote. The report noted that diseases such as common cancers—where the “incident pool remains stable”—are less risky for business.

“In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients. …”
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Man, that would really hurt the bottom line.

 

[Mr. Deez]

There are a lot of financial incentives to not only keep costs highs, but also to not develop cures.

In this article (Is curing patients a sustainable business model) a Goldman Sachs analyst makes the following point.

The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies... While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.
​

For a real-world example, Goldman pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company’s hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year.

“[Gilead]’s rapid rise and fall of its hepatitis C franchise highlights one of the dynamics of an effective drug that permanently cures a disease, resulting in a gradual exhaustion of the prevalent pool of patients,” the analysts wrote. The report noted that diseases such as common cancers—where the “incident pool remains stable”—are less risky for business.

“In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients. …”
​

Man, that would really hurt the bottom line.

Chris Rock was right.