Drugs That Blow Your Mind

There is a complex interaction between government
intervention in the practice of medicine (tax
policies, regulations, patents, benefits, laws,
export-import policies, monetary policies and
fiscal policies, government funded R&D, etc.) and
the private sector, especially in costs, benefits and
profits. Even among groups there is constant
jockeying for advantage over others (i.e.
seniors versus young workers, biotechnology
companies versus pharmaceutical companies versus
insurance companies versus hospitals and doctors.)

Everything is higgledy-piggledy when one looks
at the situation in its entirety as a "system" (sic).
Causes and effects are difficult to distinguish
and even price versus value comparisons are
challenging:

- If a drug costs you $300 a month but keeps you
alive, is it *worth* it to you?

- If a drug costs $5,000 per year per customer
but saves the insurance company $25,000 per
patient, then is the drug cheap or expensive
(and would the insurance company just keep the
savings if government forced the drug cost down
to $100 per year?)

Nevertheless, in spite of the complications,
when medical costs consistenly rise faster
than the economy as a whole, eventually change
will be forced upon the healthcare providers,
regardless of the "fairness" of the rules of
the game. If every healthcare company plans
to increase profits by 10% a year, that won't
leave much money in the economy for living
the life that is saved! (Pfizer is already
worth $250 billion, and if they keep growing
at their long term rate, eventually the entire
planet would be converted into Viagra and
Lipitor molecules ;-)

Change will come. Believe it when you look at
this chart comparing Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly,
Johnson and Johnson, and the S&P 500 over the
last few decades:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=MRK&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=PFE%2CJNJ%2Clly&c=%5EGSPC
[ http://tinyurl.com/5y5n6 ]

Take Merck, for example. Down 50% from its high
at the end of 2000, but still up 6,000% since
1970 -- compared to the S&P 500 which is *only*
up about 1,500% in that timeframe.

There are healthcare companies that have performed
worse than Merck, but Merck, along with Pfizer and
the rest of the gang are some of the heaviest
spending lobbyists (politician bribe artists)
in Washington D.C. Naturally they are telling
the lawmakers that their businesses are in
danger from X, Y, and Z and that R&D is threatened,
blah-blah, blah. Regardless, change will be
forced on them. It is time for them to give
something back to America...

But you know what? Drug companies are not the only
price gougers in the healthcare system. EVERY
company in the food chain (feeding on US) plans
to increase profits by double-digit numbers
in perpetuity. Think about that for a minute...

Everyone wants a piece of the action, even companies
such as the Hearst Corporation which provides
data about drugs (and takes a cut off of most
prescriptions written in the U.S.)

Personally, I blame the government for building
this system. Drug companies are not "villians"
compared to other corporations (especially
compared to the heinous insurance companies!)
But they do make a nice, juicy, plump target
because the are staggerinly rich. In a sense,
they owe us. And in a very real sense, they
need us more than we need them.