You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
34 points

It’s a pharmaceutical company. They’re no saints, but it’s disingenuous to compare them to people who take money and provide nothing but a rubber stamp.

permalink
report
parent
reply
28 points

Did everyone forget about scumbag Martin Shkreli who raised medication prices for no reason other than he wanted more money?

“In September 2015, Shkreli was widely criticized when Turing obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim and raised its price to insurance companies from $13.50 to $750.00 (USD) per pill.”

permalink
report
parent
reply
-1 points
*

Martin worked at Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals but mostly he was a hedge fund manager.

Got nothing to do with Parker or Mangione.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

It’s called an example of behavior.

Its a very common thing that happens in human conversation.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

Pfizer still got billions from the government and was allowed to patent Covid vaccines that we all fucking paid for.

Also their dick pills are covered by insurance while meds my wife needs to make it through perimenopause aren’t.

Pfuck them all. Drug companies are at least half the problem with US healthcare, look at what Perdue and the Sacklers did.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

people who take money and provide nothing but a rubber stamp

They don’t even do that. Their incentive is to deny coverage. They’re not healthcare insurance companies, they’re healthcare rationing companies. And we pay them.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

The providers (hospitals, clinics, labs, doctor practices), insurers/payers (whether for profit like United, nonprofit like most Blue Cross Blue Shields, or government like Medicare), and pharmaceutical/medical device companies fight each other the whole time to make the most money off of the patients/beneficiaries/taxpayers. Big Pharma runs up prices and persuades doctors to prescribe their treatments, while doctors themselves have a profit motive in running up unnecessary treatments, all while insurers try not to pay for stuff, necessary or not.

It’s a broken system, but it’s also worth pointing out that the scammers in each camp hate the other camps just as much as the public does. There are hospital execs and pharma execs basically cheering on the anger at insurers, who will turn around and rip off the same victims in a different way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Your final point I think is out of focus. The scammers, which is to say most people at upper level positions in these companies, they just don’t respect human life at all, and they’ll take money wherever they can get it. It’s not a matter of hating people. They don’t respect people to begin with, so they have no need to hate them.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

The scammers, which is to say most people at upper level positions in these companies, they just don’t respect human life at all, and they’ll take money wherever they can get it.

I think a lot of the profiteers in this space believe their positions are important and improve health outcomes, and that what’s good for the world is good for the company. Pfizer will tell their investors that inventing a life saving drug (e.g., a COVID vaccine) will be good for health, and that the shareholder therefore deserve to make a hefty profit from it.

Same with the hospital execs. They’ll pat each other on the back about how much good their hospital does, and see the very expensive billing department as an important function in their war against insurers.

And actual scammers, who bill for services not actually rendered, order unnecessary procedures, and prescribe the drugs the pretty rep is pushing, tend not to think they’re doing anything wrong or that they’re not hurting people.

People in each of these groups are saying in hushed tones that the insurance companies had it coming, and kinda sorta cheering the death of the United guy with their caveats (“well I’m not saying murder is OK but I’m not shedding tears,” etc.).

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

Yes and thats because the solution isnt to put different people in charge of the companies. The solution is to Regulate.

The corruption is because we voters built the system to enable corruption. None of us are better than the executives or vice versa

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

You are right about human nature and the need to regulate, but us voters didn’t build shit. Crony capitalism and regulatory capture built our healthcare “system.”

permalink
report
parent
reply

News

!news@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

Community stats

  • 14K

    Monthly active users

  • 11K

    Posts

  • 200K

    Comments