Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (26418)	2/19/2010 2:52:27 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

Re: "I agree the cost is high. But, I disagree about its sustainability." Anything rising at that fast a rate of expansion, and already nosing into the range of 1/5th. of the economy... must eventually run into a wall. Thus, my belief that costs rising as fast as they have been is ultimately something that is "unsustainable". Re: "If people are willing to pay college tuitions, which rise at three times the rate of inflation, they're willing to pay for their health." That too cannot continue to rise as fast as it has been unless we are willing to accept an 'Old World' type of situation where higher education is beyond the financial reach of the vast majority of American young, and only elites are able to access it. Re: "So what specific steps should be taken to reduce the rate of growth? In your opinion." A problem as large and complicated as this one has (literally!) dozens of areas that contribute to the overall cost/effectiveness problem. MANY of these problems can be traced directly to the government... to POOR CHOICES in government policy in many different areas. For example: Patent law. (Why should a pharmaceutical company be granted an extension on their product patent if they simply change the color of the pill? Or change an inert ingredient in the pill? Why can't our government change the patent laws to give companies that actually come up with a CURE an even longer and more beneficial patent... while shortening the length of patents for derivative "me too" patent applications?) Organization and operation of the FDA. (The agency has been a 'captive' for years now... seldom does the public interest rise to the top of it's agenda anymore.) Lack of financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies to actually CURE or prevent anything, (it is ever-so-much more profitable to only devise 'treatment regimes' that require regular purchases of patented compounds....) Restraint of free trade. ('Ring fences' around our highest cost in the world American market....) Expensive and unproductive bureaucracies in both government and insurance and health care industries. Lack of modern technology driving up costs (for example, prescription errors). Byzantine paperwork and lack of standardization. Dysfunctional relationship between tort laws in the fifty states and the medical profession itself, and it's insurance carriers. (With a small fraction of medical providers accounting for the bulk of all malpractice claims and thus increasing costs for even the best practitioners in their profession, this too is an area crying out for reform and better practices / more cooperation). Etc. Etc.