When Dr. Jonas Salk was asked about a patent on his polio vaccine in 1955, he said, “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” When Gilead Sciences recently developed an anti-Covid drug for about $12 per treatment, they set the price at $3,200.
As Republicans and business leaders decry the word ‘social’ as anti-American, they continue to promote the free-market “winner take all” philosophy that has caused over half of our nation to try to survive without adequate health care and life savings and job opportunities. Our richest corporations are much to blame. A review of the facts should make this clear. - Nation of Change
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
The plutocrats are screwing us maybe worse than ever
Great current summary, well worth saving for reference.
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Taxpayers spent $70 Million to develop this drug yet Gilead's CEO justifies his price based on hospital savings of approx $12,000 per patient (patients treated with the drug spend less hospital time).
ReplyDeleteThe Trump Administration has ordered the bulk of Gilead’s immediate supply of 500,000 doses without negotiating a lower price ... which is crazy, since Gilead has announced that the Eurpopean COVID-19 drug remdesivir will cost $2,340 per patient.
Funny thing, we know that Trump is a golfer and knows that sometimes golfers choke ... so you would have thought he would put his "Art of the Deal" skills to work ... but remember that the Trump Administration after facing complaints of running out of ventilators, order 43,000 from Philips ... then the Dems did a little oversight and complained that they were overpaying to the tune of $550 MILLION ... so this week, the Trump Administration cancelled the rest of the contract ... but they still delivered 12,300 at the ripoff prices. Trump choked and the taxpayers are paying.
BTW ... remember Al Franken ?
Remember his Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio (MLR) provision ... well, it turns out that since people delayed medical treatments, insurance companies are making a lot of money since premiums have not changed. Some companies, such as MN Blue Cross Blue Shield are in the process of issuing rebates this year instead of waiting until next year.
Side note : While that is good news, we won't know until October what the new insurance rates will be but I expect big jumps for employer provide insurance programs ... the median allowed amount for hospitalization of a COVID-19 patient ranged from $17,219 for the 23-30 age group; to $24,012 for the 51-60 age group. Minnesota has over 6,000 people who have been hospitalized.
BTW ... if you don't have insurance, the costs are even almost double.
ICYMI ... here's where I got the hospitalization costs
https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/brief/asset/Key%20Characteristics%20of%20COVID-19%20Patients%20-%20Profiles%20Based%20on%20Analysis%20of%20Private%20Healthcare%20Claims%20-%20A%20FAIR%20Health%20Brief.pdf
I gotta wonder if the price was set recognizing the loss of other business. Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, Gilead’s hepatitis C franchise slid 42% year-over-year in Q2 to $761 million and its HIV PrEP drug Truvada declined 46% to $718 million as the company saw “reduced initiations and therapy discontinuations due to fewer people seeing their healthcare providers and social dynamics”.
ReplyDeleteBut don't worry about massive layoffs coming, since the company could generate $3.5 BILLION in sales of Veklury (aka remdesivir) over the next six months. That's despite a recent JAMA editorial that the most suitable patient population for the antiviral is still unclear, and that they're unsure how long patients should be treated.
But Trump doesn't care about how effective it is ... just that he can claim HE got a treatment ... leaving it up to the historians to determine which was a better treatment remdesivir or bleach.