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Big pharma and the ridiculous, sinful prices of psychiatric medication


NokturnalBoredom

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I had to switch medications because I gained 10" worth of waist on Aripiprazole (generic Abilify) in a year. My doctor switched me to a brand name medication called Vraylar that has far less of a weight gain profile. I have insurance through Obamacare that I currently pay $0 a month for due to some law that Biden passed a few months ago.

The cost of the Aripiprazole was bad enough ($678/30 3mg tablets) but the Vraylar is a god damned sin ($1228.55/30 3mg capsules). I seriously have no bloody idea how anyone without insurance is ever supposed to be able to pay for psychiatric medication, especially when the majority of severely mentally ill people are living under every god damn bridge in every city in this country and nobody gives a fraction of a shit about them. I feel legitimately bad for my insurance company and I am paranoid now that they are going to drop me over this even though they had representatives talk to my doctor and they agreed to cover the cost of the medication through a different pharmacy. The cost of these pills breaks down to $40.55 per pill, and it cannot cost that much to manufacture each one of them because the manufacturer has to be making a profit, so that means that they're effectively trying to say that these pills cost $20.25 to produce a unit of, and I don't believe that shit for one minute.

How the hell is a normal mentally ill person, who may not have insurance, supposed to pay for that shit? That's more than my best friend's mortgage! That's the cost of a rental in Florida right now and is about the money I make in a month at my job (after taxes come out). To make matters worse, the patent on this Vraylar doesn't expire for another 8 years or so. So what happens if someone desperately needs this drug and doesn't have insurance or $1228.55 to drop on it every single month? What the fuck is wrong with America and the pharmaceutical companies that operate here? Does Martin Shkreli personally own the trademark to Vraylar? I am absolutely fucking outraged that my insurance is being billed $1228.55 for 30 days worth of psychiatric medicine, that I seriously need, when boner pills for old men are maybe $60 a month... if that.

There's something fundamentally wrong with our healthcare system when medicines that people need are $1228/mo. Christ forbid I ever have to go to the hospital, I cannot imagine the cost of a week in a hospital bed when meds cost this much.

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Price of drugs in the USA has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of manufacturing pills, which can be anywhere from less than 1 cent to $1.45 per unit with the majority coming in toward the low end of that range. Big Pharma claims it costs a billion or two on average to develop, test and bring a new drug to market which is why they have to charge so much. But the real reason of course is your beloved unregulated free market capitalism. They charge what the market will bear and the uninsured are free to fuck off and die. Pharmecutical companies have a window of 20 years to develop and patent a drug and bring it to market where they can charge whatever the fuck they want until the patent expires at which time generic manufacturers can then start churning out the same drugs and sell them for pennies.

When my wife had cancer 4 years ago (melanoma that matastasized to her liver) the new wonder drug they wanted to put her on (Keytruda) was $10,000 a dose to be administered intravenously every 3 weeks which assuming you live that long would add up to $170k per year. Being uninsured (I had quit my job in NY 2 years prior to take care of her and my then 18 month old son full time) and not having her green card long enough to qualify for Medicaid she opted to go back to Auckland NZ where she had her surgery (hospital in Denver had quoted me $216k, told me I could just pay half but they wanted all of it up front) which along with her 4 week hospital stay and the Keytruda were all free of charge for her as a NZ citizen. Unfortunately the cancer came right back after her surgery and the drug failed so they only managed to get two doses into her.

Few weeks after the funeral when I got back home to the states I still had to pay off her 20 hour ER stay and some MRI's and CT scans 'n shit which all came to about $30k (including the $1,500 ambulance bill from the time they took her from the 2nd floor doctor's office downstairs to the ER) Ironically I did actually receive a Medicaid card with her name on it in the mail in January '18 three months after her death.

So yeah there's something fundamentally wrong with our healthcare system and no one gives a fuck to fix it because they're making too much money to care.

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3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So yeah there's something fundamentally wrong with our healthcare system and no one gives a fuck to fix it because they're making too much money to care.

I'll be fair here and mention that my sister now lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and says that their healthcare system is garbage. She has these benign tumors on her pinkie toes that she wanted to get removed before her wedding this December and since Canada does not consider podiatrists as "real doctors", she's had to pay out of pocket to get them looked at and the podiatrist gave her attitude and said "there's nothing I can do, it's likely from the way you walk" which is bullshit because she doesn't walk any differently than anyone else (she developed the tumors when she was loading her gear into a gig and her cabinet fell on her feet). She has also told me that when her and my brother in law went to get their COVID19 vaccines, they had to go get them at 2am because that was the "only time that the nurses could give them". So it sounds like healthcare is all screwed up in the Western hemisphere in general (save for Mexico, they supposedly have great doctors and cheap meds if you can afford them, but most Mexicans can't. My ex's parents used to do really risky shit and bring prescription drugs back from Mexico when they would go to visit family. I will say that Mexican penicillin completely knocks out an infection in about 24 hours, but you get tired from taking one of their giant horse-pills of it for some reason).

What gets me about $1228.55 for 30 capsules, is that with psychiatric meds at least, people who need them need them. It's not optional and that's why you have mentally ill people living on the street and under bridges in every city in this country. Nobody besides the obscenely wealthy can afford a rent payment for 30 capsules a month and yes, the uninsured are left to fuck off and die which is pathetic when you consider all of the propaganda Americans hear about it being The Greatest Country on Earth™. There's nothing great about $10k/dose cancer medication and I cry bullshit on the claims of drug companies that it costs them "billions" to develop, test, and get a new drug approved; especially since I watched the last Adam Curtis documentary and he went into the history of the abominable piece of shit Sackler family and how they marketed Valium to everyone in the 70s and then OxyContin in the 2000s basically to get people's minds off of the fact that their jobs were being imported overseas and factories were closing down, then once people are literally addicted to OxyContin, the doctor shuts off the supply and these people "graduate" to street Heroin (which is never actually Heroin anymore, but Fentanyl and that's why so many people are dying of overdose deaths)

What's especially pathetic and unforgivable is that America, The Greatest Country on Earth™ is the only country in the first world that has no national healthcare system and every time people talk about setting one up, the piece of shit pharmaceutical CEOs lobby and screech about how it's "unfair to them" and will "cost the country too much". Which I find to be nothing but propaganda because most European countries have a lower GDP than America does and they seem to be able to set up national healthcare systems just fine. Jesus christ, even fucking broke-ass communist Cuba has a national healthcare system and Cuban doctors are supposedly some of the best doctors on the planet because they have to work with what they can get due to the US still having a hard-on for Cuba even though it's not 1960 anymore.

 

 

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I still had to pay off her 20 hour ER stay and some MRI's and CT scans 'n shit which all came to about $30k (including the $1,500 ambulance bill from the time they took her from the 2nd floor doctor's office downstairs to the ER)

That's fucking preposterous. There's no reason why a 20 hour ER stay along with MRIs and CT scans should cost the price of a new car. Something is horrendously wrong with our priorities in this country. I remember back in 2011 when I was hospitalized for two weeks after my initial mental breakdown and was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder that the hospital bill was like $70k but as it was in New York state, Medicaid paid for almost all of it and all I had to pay was $1600. Had I gotten sick in Florida, I would have been fucked for the rest of my life (not like I am doing so well, because I don't make that much money as I work in fast food).

Every time someone tries to fix the ridiculously broken healthcare system, the usual suspects start bitching and moaning about it because like you said, they're making too much money to even give a shit. My question is: how are we supposed to be The Greatest Nation on Earth™ if sick people can't even afford to get treatment? They want everyone to get the COVID19 vaccine now and I see through that for what it really is: big pharma figuring out a way, through govt mandates, to suck massive amounts of taxpayer money out of the system by making the govt pay for the vaccines rather than charging people for them. The worst part is that the current vaccines on the market (Pfizer, J&J, and Moderna) apparently don't do much good, as you can still catch COVID19 and die from it even with the vaccines. I rushed out and got the Pfizer vaccine when it was still thought that the vaccine would prevent you from catching, spreading, or getting sick from the virus... 5 months later I'm being told "Well you can still catch it and spread it, but you might not get that sick... if you're lucky" when fully vaccinated people are still dropping dead from the shit. I'm patiently awaiting the Novavax product and I hope that it's safe to get if you've already had say, Pfizer because the Novavax product supposedly actually works... which is why there is drama about it being approved in the US currently.

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No, the Covid vaccines can't completely prevent someone from ever getting Covid just like the flu vaccines can't completely prevent people from getting the flu. But if you look into the numbers you'll see it helps a LOT. This was a study done in King County Washington.

 

https://publichealthinsider.com/2021/09/03/new-data-dashboard-tracks-covid-19-risk-for-unvaccinated-people-compared-to-vaccinated-people/

 

in the month leading up to August 26, unvaccinated people in King County were:  

  • 7 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than vaccinated people  
  • 49 times more likely to be hospitalized than vaccinated people  
  • 32 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccinated people.  

 

 

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-by-the-numbers-vaccinated-continue-to-be-protected

If you actually take the time to seek out the numbers (and there are dozens if not hundreds of articles to be found all over the internet) you will see that the number of breakthrough cases among the fully vaccinated is comparatively very very low relative to new cases among the unvaccinated. More importantly, fatal cases among the vaccinated are either very low or virtually nonexistent in 48 states. In my current state of New Jersey for examle 6 of the 9 million residents have been vaccinated (65.88%) and 99.91% of the people that have died from covid related reasons (up until the time the article was written 2 months ago) were unvaccinated. Nothing's ever 100% effective but those odds look pretty damn good to me.

So yes, it can and has happened that a person could be fully vaccinated and then still get Covid and even die from it. There are always exceptions to the rule. But that's no reason to suggest that the Covid vaccine is pointless or provides little to no protection. The numbers are crystal clear, it's actually extremely effective. 95% efficacy vs the average flu shot efficacy of 86%. Your annecdotal claim of "the current vaccines...apparently don't do much good" is factually incorrect.

 

https://theconversation.com/vaccines-for-covid-are-much-more-effective-than-for-flu-and-reminding-people-could-drive-down-hesitancy-164426

 

 

 

 

 

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Another part of the problem here is the cultural pressure we have against sharing things and money in a way that actually helps everyone. Various manifestations of this have been with us since before the country was even founded. The more I learn about the history I wasn't taught in school, the more I realize it's rich, rent-seeking bastards all the way down. 

The vaccines are about as effective as they could possibly be, though. A lot more effective than the flu shot, for instance. Breakthrough infections are getting more common with the advent of delta, but they still very rarely result in hospitalization. I can't remember the exact stats I read a couple weeks ago but it was something like 90% or more of the people who are getting hospitalized and dying are unvaccinated. Another thing to keep in mind is that their effectiveness drops in older age groups - still protective, still worth getting, but not a magic bullet. It's easy to see how a relative handful of bad outcomes could be sensationalized, but there's good information to be had out there. I'm sure some other folks here would be able to share better information more coherently than I can.

Edit - looks like @GoatmasterGeneral already did.

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If the percentage of people who get devastating or fatal side effects from vaccinations are so small, why can't the victims or their families be compensated? I refuse all vaccines on principle, I disagree with the suppression of accountability. I am perfectly fine with catching covid 19 and dying from it, my intention is to not be tested and not to seek any medical assistance. 

In nature big things eat small things. There are different ways of eating things, especially when it comes to humans, any form of exploitation is a form of humans eating humans. The biggest financial entities own and control not just big pharma but everything, all social media, mainstream media, most of the alternative media, all the biggest companies, all forms of opposition, it's the biggest thing there is so it is definitely eating people. 

Governments are puppets and the international corporation is pulling the strings, the information is manipulated and controlled, I don't trust any of it. 

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Wow that's insane amount of cash for meds.

 

Problem like everything else in the world is unregulated capitalism and a growing culture of "user pays" mentality (and one that was always a core component of American values).

 

One thing that was good in the 1950s-60s was that social democracy was becoming a real thing and governments were working to improve living standards and not enrich already rich arseholes like today.

 

3 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

I'll be fair here and mention that my sister now lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and says that their healthcare system is garbage. She has these benign tumors on her pinkie toes that she wanted to get removed before her wedding this December and since Canada does not consider podiatrists as "real doctors", she's had to pay out of pocket to get them looked at and the podiatrist gave her attitude and said "there's nothing I can do, it's likely from the way you walk" which is bullshit because she doesn't walk any differently than anyone else (she developed the tumors when she was loading her gear into a gig and her cabinet fell on her feet). She has also told me that when her and my brother in law went to get their COVID19 vaccines, they had to go get them at 2am because that was the "only time that the nurses could give them". So it sounds like healthcare is all screwed up in the Western hemisphere in general (save for Mexico, they supposedly have great doctors and cheap meds if you can afford them, but most Mexicans can't. My ex's parents used to do really risky shit and bring prescription drugs back from Mexico when they would go to visit family. I will say that Mexican penicillin completely knocks out an infection in about 24 hours, but you get tired from taking one of their giant horse-pills of it for some reason).
 

It's kind of hilarious that  progressive Americans regard that Canada has a much better system than America but even it is pretty shit when compared to Europe!

 

I was shocked recently when I  read that Canada's prescription scheme isn't terrible with states/territories administering their own schemes to various degrees or none at all and Canadians have the second highest cost for pharmaceuticals after Americans and millions of Canadians are not covered or poorly covered.

 

 

 

Here in Australia there's at least the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which covers most medications.  Poor people pay like $5 per script and the rest of us seldom more than $30 though there are exceptions.

 

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3 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Here in Australia there's at least the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which covers most medications.  Poor people pay like $5 per script and the rest of us seldom more than $30 though there are exceptions.

With Vraylar, you have to start out with a 1.5mg pill, so that pill alone cost me $20.25 that I actually had to pay to the pharmacy dispensing it. That's obscene because even when I didn't have insurance, the two medications I took monthly were like $35. Like I previously said, I know damn well that it doesn't cost the manufacturer $10 to make it so as the other user said, they justify this by saying that it costs "billions to develop, test, and get a new drug approved" which at least to me, says that the government is focusing on the wrong priorities when it comes to approving drugs. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the Polio vaccine, never patented it but Christ forbid someone decide to forego a patent on a medicine in today's world.

Canada's system is garbage though according to my sister. You have to wait for certain procedures and appointments with specialists, some specialists aren't considered to be "real" doctors but are considered the way that say chiropractors are considered in the US. I feel like the Western Hemisphere just has a problem with establishing good healthcare services but again, I've been told that if you can afford to go to Mexico for treatment, it's oftentimes better and less expensive treatment than you can get in the US although there are generally immigration problems when people seek to do that (because Big Pharma doesn't want Americans going to Mexico for prescriptions or healthcare).

 

 

5 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

The vaccines are about as effective as they could possibly be, though. A lot more effective than the flu shot, for instance.

I don't get the flu shot because it's pointless for me. Every time I have gotten the flu shot, I have ended up getting the flu and being laid up for a week anyway so now I roll the dice. At least I am allowed to wear a mask at work now, so the chances of catching the flu are substantially reduced (if you believe the claims surrounding the mask thing).

I was one of the first people in line for the Pfizer vaccine when they opened it up to my age group because I figured that, like a normal vaccine, it would prevent me from catching the virus. Obviously this is not the case as we can now see and if I do end up catching COVID19, I'm going to be extremely pissed off because the vaccine is essentially worthless at that point. Like I previously stated, I am interested in the Novavax product because it supposedly has better track records in testing than either the Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J ones; I'm just not sure if it's safe to receive if you've already had one of those three brands but I hope that it is because I'll go out and get that one.

 

 

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So yes, it can and has happened that a person could be fully vaccinated and then still get Covid and even die from it.

I know. A prominent writer for TV/Hollywood just dropped dead from it like two weeks ago (Someone who I neither remember nor care about because I do not watch TV or movies). Surprise surprise, he was fully vaccinated. He's not the only one either, but I suppose it's to be expected when motorcycle accidents and overdose deaths are being reported as "COVID19 deaths" in order to sell the population on taking the precious vaccine which I guarantee if tax dollars were not going into the pockets of Big Pharma, nobody would give a shit if people were choosing not to get the precious vaccine or not. The entire thing is a big bullshit scam by the elites to empower themselves and enrich the utter shitbags that control them. If it wasn't, the "COVID19 Relief" packages would have actually done something for normal, working people instead of transferring trillions of dollars upwards to people who already have billions of dollars.

 

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12 minutes ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

 

 

I don't get the flu shot because it's pointless for me. Every time I have gotten the flu shot, I have ended up getting the flu and being laid up for a week anyway so now I roll the dice. At least I am allowed to wear a mask at work now, so the chances of catching the flu are substantially reduced (if you believe the claims surrounding the mask thing).

I was one of the first people in line for the Pfizer vaccine when they opened it up to my age group because I figured that, like a normal vaccine, it would prevent me from catching the virus. Obviously this is not the case as we can now see and if I do end up catching COVID19, I'm going to be extremely pissed off because the vaccine is essentially worthless at that point. Like I previously stated, I am interested in the Novavax product because it supposedly has better track records in testing than either the Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J ones; I'm just not sure if it's safe to receive if you've already had one of those three brands but I hope that it is because I'll go out and get that one.

 

 

 

100% prevention isn't what the vaccines were designed for. Your body will have an easier time fighting the virus off. Your case will very likely be more mild than it would have been otherwise. There's some evidence that you're less likely to transmit it. So no, it's not "essentially worthless", it's still a good thing both for you and for the people around you. Masks obviously help too. 

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7 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

I had to switch medications because I gained 10" worth of waist on Aripiprazole (generic Abilify) in a year. My doctor switched me to a brand name medication called Vraylar that has far less of a weight gain profile. I have insurance through Obamacare that I currently pay $0 a month for due to some law that Biden passed a few months ago.

The cost of the Aripiprazole was bad enough ($678/30 3mg tablets) but the Vraylar is a god damned sin ($1228.55/30 3mg capsules). I seriously have no bloody idea how anyone without insurance is ever supposed to be able to pay for psychiatric medication, especially when the majority of severely mentally ill people are living under every god damn bridge in every city in this country and nobody gives a fraction of a shit about them. I feel legitimately bad for my insurance company and I am paranoid now that they are going to drop me over this even though they had representatives talk to my doctor and they agreed to cover the cost of the medication through a different pharmacy. The cost of these pills breaks down to $40.55 per pill, and it cannot cost that much to manufacture each one of them because the manufacturer has to be making a profit, so that means that they're effectively trying to say that these pills cost $20.25 to produce a unit of, and I don't believe that shit for one minute.

How the hell is a normal mentally ill person, who may not have insurance, supposed to pay for that shit? That's more than my best friend's mortgage! That's the cost of a rental in Florida right now and is about the money I make in a month at my job (after taxes come out). To make matters worse, the patent on this Vraylar doesn't expire for another 8 years or so. So what happens if someone desperately needs this drug and doesn't have insurance or $1228.55 to drop on it every single month? What the fuck is wrong with America and the pharmaceutical companies that operate here? Does Martin Shkreli personally own the trademark to Vraylar? I am absolutely fucking outraged that my insurance is being billed $1228.55 for 30 days worth of psychiatric medicine, that I seriously need, when boner pills for old men are maybe $60 a month... if that.

There's something fundamentally wrong with our healthcare system when medicines that people need are $1228/mo. Christ forbid I ever have to go to the hospital, I cannot imagine the cost of a week in a hospital bed when meds cost this much.

That's rubbish for you nokturnal. Your system imo sucks as it can be so expensive. I know of a person with good insurance who  had a c section in United States  hospital and the bill was just shockingly high even with good insurance. In the UK same procedure is free on our nhs😔 

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24 minutes ago, NokturnalBoredom said:


Canada's system is garbage though according to my sister. You have to wait for certain procedures and appointments with specialists, some specialists aren't considered to be "real" doctors but are considered the way that say chiropractors are considered in the US.

Canadian here. You're sister isn't wrong, per se, but there's a boatload of context being left out here. Canada's heath care isn't exactly the same nationwide and can vary greatly province to province, even hospital to hospital. You're sister's in Toronto? I'm not surprised to hear she's had negative experiences there, but that isn't necessarily indictive of health care Canada-wide. 

I personally have never had any experiences that resemble what you've described, I've never seen a specialist that wasn't a real doctor and I've never had an overly long wait for a surgery or an appointment. Truth is, If you were to ask 100 different Canadians about health care in Canada you'd probably get 100 different answers.

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3 hours ago, zackflag said:

HEY WHOA we got a badass over here - Watch out we got a badass over here -  quickmeme

I could choose to chain smoke until I die, wouldn't make me a tough guy. I've had nasty flues that felt like death, struggling to breath for days. Death kills weaklings, there is nothing tough about accepting that I might get sick and die, could happen too anyone. Of course something will eventually kill all of us. I am not claiming that I would be cool as a cucumber in a fire fight or that I am willing to die defending my honor (I most definitely won't), just when I catch the flu I don't go to the doctor. 

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4 hours ago, zackflag said:

Canadian here. You're sister isn't wrong, per se, but there's a boatload of context being left out here. Canada's heath care isn't exactly the same nationwide and can vary greatly province to province, even hospital to hospital. You're sister's in Toronto? I'm not surprised to hear she's had negative experiences there, but that isn't necessarily indictive of health care Canada-wide. 

I personally have never had any experiences that resemble what you've described, I've never seen a specialist that wasn't a real doctor and I've never had an overly long wait for a surgery or an appointment. Truth is, If you were to ask 100 different Canadians about health care in Canada you'd probably get 100 different answers.

She has these benign tumors on her pinkie toes that developed after she crushed her feet with her speaker cabinet as she was loading her stuff in for a gig one night. She wants to get them removed before the wedding in December but the doctors told her that she had to see a podiatrist and apparently in Canada they are not considered "real doctors" for whatever reason. So she had to pay out of pocket to see a podiatrist and he essentially said that it's "no big deal" and is from "the way she walks". She's already had to get a pinkie toenail permanently removed and when her and her fiancee went to get their C19 vaccines, they apparently had to go to the facility at 2am because that was the "only time they could fit them in" or whatever.

She has a bunch of stories about how shitty her healthcare experience has been up there. This is far from the first but I wondered as well if it was because she is in Toronto, Ontario and not somewhere like Calgary, Alberta or B.C. because a lot of Canadian snowbirds I know say that they have no problems with the healthcare system up there (even though they do come here to have a lot of procedures done because apparently in Canada, you have to wait for certain procedures unlike in US&A where if you can pay for it, they can get you in and out that day)

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7 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Here in Australia there's at least the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which covers most medications.  Poor people pay like $5 per script and the rest of us seldom more than $30 though there are exceptions.

 

It's when you hear about drugs like the breast cancer drug that was added to the PBS over the weekend which last week cost over $8000 a dose but now only costs something like $30 you realise how many people are effected by non-PBS drugs.

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Just a word of caution on "free healthcare", it doesn't mean inequalities don't exist and it doesn't mean that drugs on the NHS always come for a prescription charge; cancer treatment in particular can involve thousands of pounds being paid out by the patient even under a system were all working people pay National Insurance contributions towards healthcare.

The NHS was never intended to be a service that cared for every ailment, it was at it's core setup to treat emergencies in the main. Over the years the scope of it has increased to the point of unsustainability which is why private hospitals enjoy such an extensive footprint (even before COVID).  Humans are high-maintenance and are not getting any less so.

Now, I am not saying here that any of the illnesses in this thread should not be treated.  Equally, I am not defending the reprehensible actions of pharmaceutical companies, some of the numbers quoted here do not add up at all and are clearly geared more towards profit than development.  I genuinely believe however that in order to control the sustainability of any national, publicly funded healthcare system there needs to be a strong private sector to support the wider need, and I say this as a former NHS employee. Right now there are so many people presenting at hospital with illness that is in such an advanced state due to COVID keeping most people at home unwilling to risk going to hospital that it will take 5 years or more for the NHS to "catch-up" just to hit its previously unsustainable state (there's nearly 6 million people on waiting lists in the UK right now for NHS treatment - before COVID it was just above 4 million from memory).

I will also second the sentiment here that vaccines are not some magic potion that make you immune from dying by whatever disease the vaccine is administered against.  In the past month, two people I know have died who were double jabbed but they also had underlying health conditions which determined that when they caught COVID they were always on the back foot.  There's still some life choices people have to make once vaccinated.  Getting 2 injections of a vaccine does not mean we can all "go back to normality" (thank fuck).  Human beings are dirty by nature; full of germs, viruses, bacteria that all thrive by virtue of the fact we are so on top of each other all the time.  I have masks with me everywhere I go still, I touch elbows only when greeting people and I only go out if I have to (barring work of course).  Herd immunity can just fuck right off.

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As much as pollies all seem to be tarred with the same brush of bullshit I'm glad I'm not the guy who has to make the decision as to what appears on the PBS here and what doesn't  There is lots of illness, ailments etc in this country which are relatively common but not covered by the free or discounted system. There is also lots of drugs which are similar to each other where one appears on the PBS because it's common and others don't. In cases like that it's a case of suck it up if you can't take the cheaper one, you pay and more often than not insurance wont cover the difference.

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4 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

It's funny how many outside of the country see 'free medical' and think it's something their country should aspire to. Parts of our system might be free but it's got just as many problems as other countries. Free comes at a massive price.

Except it's not free including in Australia.

Free healthcare is a myth.  Parts of it are free (eg public hospital care) , parts of it is subsidised and parts of it is not covered at all (eg oral health - I just paid $270 for a simple cap on a tooth). 

I think that's the problem - it's all bastardised systems without consistencies in what is treated and what is covered.

 

 

It doesn't help doctors and to some degree allied health are extremely money driven, like to pick and chose their clients and run very effective guild style protectionist rackets.  

 

 

Worst thing about bastardised systems is they enrich the rich and powerful service providers who gladly skim government subsidies whilst delivering minimum service.

 

Healthcare needs to be nationalised basically. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

I will also second the sentiment here that vaccines are not some magic potion that make you immune from dying by whatever disease the vaccine is administered against.

All I know is that I never caught Polio or Measles, Mumps, or Rubella; diseases I was vaccinated for as a child with vaccines that were much less "sophisticated" than the ones that are produced now. There was not even a chicken pox vaccine when I was a kid, so I ended up catching that and had a pretty shitty time with that one as I remember it.

 

 

7 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

Human beings are dirty by nature; full of germs, viruses, bacteria that all thrive by virtue of the fact we are so on top of each other all the time.

That's where I luck out. I don't have to have much contact with people if I don't want it, because I was not duped into living in a city & when I move out of Florida in another year or two, I'll probably be living in a more rural environment than the suburban sprawl that I live in now. There is no amount of money that anyone could ever pay me to live in a city and experience the unmitigated hell that is living on top of other people, constantly being a part of the "community" and having to deal with people like that. I simply do not like people that much to want to be a "part of the community" or any of that sentimental, "one world, one people" bullshit. Granted, I go out and go grocery shopping, or buy stuff that I need/want in stores, but I still own a private car and live in a single family home (with air conditioning) rather than having to experience the hell that is apartment life and the public transportation scene. As a result of that, there is not much opportunity for me to catch COVID19 & I'm grateful for that. I just want to be away from people. I do not want any of the fucked up "new ways of organizing SoCiEtY" that the usual suspects are now pushing, because that's how you wind up sick and dead to begin with-- by living on top of other people, never being able to get the fuck away from crowds, etc.

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26 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Except it's not free including in Australia.

 

I thought that was what I said. :P

Higher taxes, specific health taxes, work cover premiums, insurance premiums, $40 dollar slabs of beer and $70 packs of smokes, they all pay for our "free" medical system. A system which will see you treated if you rock up to a hospital with your arm hanging off, but may not see you treated without payment if you turn up with a mental condition. A system where you can turn up to a hospital and have a tooth pulled for free if it's deemed an emergency yet costs upwards of $280 to have done in a dentists chair. A system that says "X" drug is only $5 yet "Y" drug which does the same thing but has a different ingredient is $125.

When I had my shoulder surgery about 20 years ago it was under work cover so no blame, full cover, private hospital, they mistakenly sent one bill to me, it was the bill for the theatre, those in the theatre, the drugs etc that were associated with the 4 hour op, the total bill was $82,000. Fuck knows what it's worth today and private has always been massively high, but very few people could actually afford to pay that out of their own pocket, so the system is there, with limitations for it to happen. The only way that can happen is high taxes and more taxes slugging people for doing things deemed high risk, yet outside the country so many still think it's free.

 

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1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

Except it's not free including in Australia.

Free healthcare is a myth.  Parts of it are free (eg public hospital care) , parts of it is subsidised and parts of it is not covered at all (eg oral health - I just paid $270 for a simple cap on a tooth). 

I think that's the problem - it's all bastardised systems without consistencies in what is treated and what is covered.

 

It doesn't help doctors and to some degree allied health are extremely money driven, like to pick and chose their clients and run very effective guild style protectionist rackets.  

 

Worst thing about bastardised systems is they enrich the rich and powerful service providers who gladly skim government subsidies whilst delivering minimum service.

 

Healthcare needs to be nationalised basically. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all that crown would run you upwards of $1,500 over here and if you were to need a root canal as well that'll be at least another $1,000. Don't forget $100 for the X-Rays. That $2,600 US works out to $3,455 AUD. So understandably most Americans think your measly $250 AUD ($188 US) is a pretty good deal. To us that's all but free or around what our co-pay would be or the equivalent to the price of a simple 5 minute well care office visit.

It's the parts that are free for you, the hospital care that you take for granted that we Yanks envy because we pay hundreds of thousands for that shit. Unless we're insured and even then if you're not covered through your job you'll have to pay tens of thousands anually for a family insurancre plan that still leaves us thousands out of pocket if we ever actually need to use it. And a lot of employers nowadays have started taking quite bit of money out of worker's paychecks for health coverage. When I still had a real job (until July 2015) they were taking out $900 a month.

The biggest and most important difference between our American system and the rest of the civilized world is that if you have some deadly serious life threatening disease or condition they will turn their backs and let you die here unless you have good insurance or can pay the bill up front. And we're talking tens of thousands on the low side and hundreds of thousands on the high side. They only care about the money, there are no other factors or variables that enter the equation.

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The medical profession in Australia is largely privatised with very few employed by public services.  Even those in public service often have private practices or are allowed to see private patients whilst on public time.

 

I work with doctors (psychiatrists) and they are largely a bunch of rich, self entitled self serving cunts.  Many are also lazy.  We've employed numerous doctors over the years who preferred not to see clients.  For one, even 2 clients a day was two too many!

The senior consultants here are on $400,000+ per annum whilst locums are on $2500 a day ($652,500 per annum).

My wife worked in allied health as an admin and most of the allied health types were the same.  Being private it meant they could pick and chose clients - which meant high need and/or lower socio economic ones weren't provided any services.

43 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

The biggest and most important difference between our American system and the rest of the civilized world is that if you have some deadly serious life threatening disease or condition they will turn their backs and let you die here unless you have good insurance or can pay the bill up front. And we're talking tens of thousands on the low side and hundreds of thousands on the high side. They only care about the money, there are no other factors or variables that enter the equation.

 

In a way its similar here because people go on waiting lists for free public services.  So non-urgent conditions fester and become urgent at which point you get access to free emergency care and then hope you can get competent care (hospital I work for has killed over a dozen patients due to negligence but nothing changes).

Private patients (either paying themselves or with private insurance) can "skip the line".  And even if you private insurance you're still out of pocket anywhere up to $30,000.  Not as bad as US but still bad.

  

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3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

First of all that crown would run you upwards of $1,500 over here and if you were to need a root canal as well that'll be at least another $1,000. Don't forget $100 for the X-Rays. That $2,600 US works out to $3,455 AUD. So understandably most Americans think your measly $250 AUD ($188 US) is a pretty good deal. To us that's all but free or around what our co-pay would be or the equivalent to the price of a simple 5 minute well care office visit.

It's the parts that are free for you, the hospital care that you take for granted that we Yanks envy because we pay hundreds of thousands for that shit. Unless we're insured and even then if you're not covered through your job you'll have to pay tens of thousands anually for a family insurancre plan that still leaves us thousands out of pocket if we ever actually need to use it. And a lot of employers nowadays have started taking quite bit of money out of worker's paychecks for health coverage. When I still had a real job (until July 2015) they were taking out $900 a month.

The biggest and most important difference between our American system and the rest of the civilized world is that if you have some deadly serious life threatening disease or condition they will turn their backs and let you die here unless you have good insurance or can pay the bill up front. And we're talking tens of thousands on the low side and hundreds of thousands on the high side. They only care about the money, there are no other factors or variables that enter the equation.

Despite Dead's cynicism - and there are some lazy cunts in the public system and some greedy psychopaths in the private system -  our health care system is actually excellent.  No, it ain't actually free and there are gaps and anomalies but life saving care will not ruin you.

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