Santorum Tells Sick Kid Market Should Set Drug Prices

**Yuri-G** · 2012-02-02 03:34

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs...-abc-news.html

WOODLAND PARK, Colo. - GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies.

Santorum, himself the father of a child with a rare genetic disorder, compared buying drugs to buying an iPad, and said demand would determine the cost of medical therapies.

"People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad," Santorum said, "but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with - it keeps you alive. Why? Because you've been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it."

The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.

Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs.

"You have that drug, and maybe you're alive today because people have a profit motive to make that drug," Santorum said. "There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: 'You drug companies are greedy and bad, you can't make a return on your money,' then we will freeze innovation."

Santorum told a large Tea Party crowd here that he sympathized with the boy's case, but he also believed in the marketplace.

"He's alive today because drug companies provide care," Santorum said. "And if they didn't think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn't be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don't have incentives, they won't make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don't."

**Yuri-G** · 2012-02-02 03:38

love the "if drug companies can't rape your wallet they'll stop making drugs" logic. guess I'm weird for believing that saving lives and making history should be good enough motivators on their own? yeah, the drug companies have to make money to stay afloat, but that hardly means they need to make as much of a profit as possible regardless of the human impact.

**solanis** · 2012-02-02 03:41

of course it isn't enough. money doesn't have emotions, it doesn't care. very few people are willing to slave their way through med school etc etc for a life of glorious middle classdom.

**test123** · 2012-02-02 03:43

Drugs are just another product. Nothing but free market. But if you want cheap drugs the law needs to allow knock-off drugs to enter earlier and faster to the market.

**Yuri-G** · 2012-02-02 03:47

Originally Posted by solanis

of course it isn't enough. money doesn't have emotions, it doesn't care. very few people are willing to slave their way through med school etc etc for a life of glorious middle classdom.

there is a vast gap between what the drug companies are currently making and middle classdom.

**Byrthnoth** · 2012-02-02 03:47

Originally Posted by test123

Drugs are just another product. Nothing but free market. But if you want cheap drugs the law needs to allow knock-off drugs to enter earlier and faster to the market.

In the long term this has the same effect as mandating lower prices. You give the company less time to profit from their overinflated drug prices, and as a result they either charge more for the time they have (not really, because they already charge the most they can while they have a government mandated monopoly) or do slower/less R&D.

**Churchill** · 2012-02-02 05:40

Do you have an iPad?

**Elvis** · 2012-02-02 05:44

Originally Posted by solanis

of course it isn't enough. money doesn't have emotions, it doesn't care. very few people are willing to slave their way through med school etc etc for a life of glorious middle classdom.

Coming from a family of doctors (Aunt, OBGY; cousins, pediatrics, ER, cardiologist, radiologist, plastic surgeon; dad, psychiatrist, etc.) I don't know how accurate that statement is. My dad is unusual because AFAIK, psychiatrists don't make much money but there's a demand for them too.. We moved up from crappy apartment in NYC (when he was doing his residency) to 2 homes in a gated community (one is 700K, the other is 1m-ish). There's an age when you start making a lot of money when you're a doctor. My dad didn't start making lots of money until he turned 45 (he's in his mid 50s now). In Northeast Ohio, he's kind of a big deal.

Depending on how you get into med school (6 years after HS, or the traditional route after college, in which case you ARE 'slaving your way'), and depending on your field, I wouldn't really say you're going to end up middle class.

It's the choices you make in the end.

That being said, I think what you do is going to make you much more money at comparable ages.

**Elvis** · 2012-02-02 05:45

Originally Posted by Churchill

Do you have an iPad?

Truth. Ipad is a sign of aristocracy. No really, I feel weird having one in class. I get all these questions like, what is that (fucking Ipad you ape!). Master race only uses Notes Plus btw.

**Churchill** · 2012-02-02 05:50

From what I understand, OneNote is incredibly useful.

But I was more or less getting at that Santorum had a good point. People are fine paying large sums of money for shit they don't need and are appalled at paying money for healthcare.

I'm not arguing that drug companies aren't raking in millions due to their monopoly, but nationalizing their industry and making everything dirt cheap is hardly the correct answer. Sometimes people get sick and you don't get to be better.

**Elvis** · 2012-02-02 06:10

Notes Plus is the best note-taking app IMO. I've been using it for a year and a half.

Spoiler: show

**test123** · 2012-02-02 06:15

Originally Posted by Byrthnoth

In the long term this has the same effect as mandating lower prices. You give the company less time to profit from their overinflated drug prices, and as a result they either charge more for the time they have (not really, because they already charge the most they can while they have a government mandated monopoly) or do slower/less R&D.

Good point. But unless the Gov buy the drug companies and take no dividends (socialism) the only other option would be to encourage competition among drug companies, i.e rid the system of patent laws. Why does only one company get to research a set of genes?

I bet you if some chemist were given free access to research and sell what he/she wanted you would see a lot of cheap drugs.

**solanis** · 2012-02-02 06:16

thank you for explaining my point, elvis. that kind of income wouldn't be possible in a price-regulated environment, or at least not the type that yuri is proposing. I don't think your dad would have gone into medicine if he knew it meant he would only be able to provide a middle class life for his family. you're a rich kid? that explains a lot I guess.

**hey** · 2012-02-02 06:19

Originally Posted by Yuri-G

guess I'm weird for believing that saving lives and making history should be good enough motivators on their own?

Weird is definitely not the word i'd use.

**Thiefami** · 2012-02-02 06:21

Its easy to cite free market when you and your loved ones can afford expensive medical treatments, and drugs. Santorum doesn't really have a good point because it goes without saying he would gladly eat his words with a public plea for change if his ailing kid weren't getting the best medical attention possible.

**Elvis** · 2012-02-02 06:24

Originally Posted by solanis

thank you for explaining my point, elvis. that kind of income wouldn't be possible in a price-regulated environment, or at least not the type that yuri is proposing. I don't think your dad would have gone into medicine if he knew it meant he would only be able to provide a middle class life for his family. you're a rich kid? that explains a lot I guess.

Nigga pls. Your only problem with me is my solidarity w/ the Palestinians. I could be pro-baby seal curb-stomping and you wouldn't wince. Look at how you behave in these threads and then compare that to your hysterical, uninformed and ignorant rants (not even rants, because you've never written anything more than a sentence or two) in I-P discussions.

I don't think you're a bad guy, solanis. I think you're just pathologically narcissistic and/or brainwashed.

**hey** · 2012-02-02 06:28

Originally Posted by Thiefami

Its easy to cite free market when you and your loved ones can afford expensive medical treatments, and drugs. Santorum doesn't really have a good point because it goes without saying he would gladly eat his words with a public plea for change if his ailing kid weren't getting the best medical attention possible.

Doesn't really make him wrong. When it comes time to spend trillions of dollars to save lives, good will only goes so far.

**solanis** · 2012-02-02 06:58

Originally Posted by Elvis

Nigga pls. Your only problem with me is my solidarity w/ the Palestinians. I could be pro-baby seal curb-stomping and you wouldn't wince. Look at how you behave in these threads and then compare that to your hysterical, uninformed and ignorant rants (not even rants, because you've never written anything more than a sentence or two) in I-P discussions.

I don't think you're a bad guy, solanis. I think you're just pathologically narcissistic and/or brainwashed.

cute. I don't want to make this thread about you vs me, but I think you're just a (rich) spoiled kid with ennui looking for a cause to align yourself with. you imprinted on your fellow brown people, and so you obsess over a conflict that really has nothing to do with you. out of curiosity, what's your chosen career path?

re-reading the OP, they're saying abilify is a million dollars a year? that's... not correct. at most it would end up being 20-40k a year at bipolar disorder dosage levels. which is still expensive of course, but it's not a million dollars.

**test123** · 2012-02-02 07:07

If someone came up with a cure for cancer and charged 10M for each cure for the next 20 years, is it the Gov job to buy everyone with cancer cures? With whose money?

**Elvis** · 2012-02-02 07:09

Originally Posted by solanis

cute. I don't want to make this thread about you vs me, but I think you're just a (rich) spoiled kid with ennui looking for a cause to align yourself with. you imprinted on your fellow brown people, and so you obsess over a conflict that really has nothing to do with you. out of curiosity, what's your chosen career path?

re-reading the OP, abilify is a million dollars a year? that's... not correct.

Doctor. I'm interested in thoracic surgery.

The I-P conflict could have nothing to do with me and it would still not change the facts and validity of my arguments. That's cute.

Which is not to say I agree w/ your premise. I'm not spoiled, I'm well off. Being spoiled is an attitude and an obnoxious sense of entitlement. I have never looked down on those less fortunate than me. In fact, I sympathize with these kinds of people and go out of my way to help them. My family (in spite of being Republican) is involved in a lot of local charities and allows me, w/ my 'ennui', to spend money on Palestinian charities (something they don't care about at all).

Just read your own racist comments and AFAIK, you were originally banned for things you said relating to the economy. It's only incidental that I'm 'brown' and sympathizing w/ 'brown' people. I live in the US and the US is intimately involved with everything going on in the Middle East. Maybe you could say my concern for the Palestinians was borne out of a mutual ethnic identification if I was from Pluto. I don't think Pluto has any troops in the ME. It's really cold in Pluto too, so there's not much sand, camels and belly-dancing.

Being a human being, is enough reason to care about any conflict, anywhere. Except, I'm also an American. Without my country's total devotion to your racist, apartheid State, Israel could not bomb Gaza w/ white phosphorus and get away with it.

Other conflicts w/ similar logistics, like the Indonesian occupation of E. Timor have been resolved and the occupation ended. Why has the I-P conflict gone on for so long? Because the United States is the sole superpower in the world and because the organized Jewish community is Zionist and lobbying on part of these Zionists and donors, and the Christian evangelical movement have steered us in favor of a State that does not exemplify ANY OF THE VALUES we profess to possess.

I believe being an American means opposing injustice (even though it doesn't have much baring on reality). That's how I 'feel'. The end.

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