Tonights Presidential Debate

Kronia wrote:

DISAYA wrote:

The problems with regulating what drug companies earn is that you really DO want them to make a profit. Let me explain. If they spend millions of dollars to create a drug, then the gov't tells them they can only make hundreds of thousands on it before their patent runs out, then that would deter them from creating all of those live saving drugs in the first place. The patent for a drug is about 15 years, most of which it is in research and clinical trials. I have no problem with drug companies making a profit. The reason they are so cheap in Canada is because they don't do the research and development. American drug companies do . They invest all this money into drugs and their ideas are given to other countries. This is true for technology as well.  The world depends on us to create these machines that do it all. If you take away people's drive, which is profit, to create these things, they will just not create it. Then what happens to the cancer patient that doesn't get this new wonderful drug? Or the next generation of CT or U/S?

That's true, but I don't think anyone in politics wants to make the drug companies not make a profit (the insurance companies are another story).  And what stormy nights was saying was that the insurance companies are raising their prices beyond what the drugs cost and the doctors cost...that the insurance companies are the problem with the healthcare industry, and not the drug companies.  So while what you said is true, it isn't really relevant because neither obama nor mccain are saying that drug companies shouldn't be for-profit; only possibly that insurance companies shouldn't (and they waffled so much it was hard to tell if that was really even what they were saying).  Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think regulations on drug companies are part of either candidate's health care plan...

I know. I think Hilary brought it up in her windfall profits plan along with the drug companies, but I could be wrong. The insurance companies are ridiculous. I just had a patient that was prescribed Diovan HCT, a angiotensin II antagonist and a very common drug. The ins refused to pay for it because he hadn't first tried an ace inhibitor! I was floored. I see the insurance companies dictating what patients receive what treatment and it makes me sick. The doctor, nurse, and patient are the only ones that should be able to make that decision. They are SO wildly out of control. It is hard to know where to even start!

And I live in a state that gave more delegates to Clinton than Obama, so, just to cover my butt:  It's not my fault that we don't have Hilary as an option!