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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8682)	8/25/2009 3:51:55 PM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

Plenty of incentives for new drugs exist in the European model. From the article I posted: European pharmaceutical companies are not only producing more, but doing it for less. European patented drug prices run about half the cost in the United States, yet they are sufficient to support a robust research effort. Also, since the NIH was paying for almost half of the R&D in the U.S. pharmaceutical field ($27 billion vs. $33 billion by industry in 2003) it is unlikely that research would collapse. What probably would happen is the R&D dollars would be spent more effectively. If research develops new drugs that provide effective treatments at a lower cost than existing drugs, the new drugs will be marketed. If new drugs are costly on their own but reduce hospital stays and provide treatment at lower overall cost, they will be used. If a new drug is 50% more costly than an existing drug but doubles or triples survival times it will be used. If a drug is developed that offers a five year survival for a cancer that is currently untreatable it will be used. The idea that there will be fewer incentives for discoveries is fallacious. There will always be incentives for more effective treatments. What will (and should) disappear is marketing of new drugs that provide no advantage over current drugs.