$10 preemie preventive now $1,500

[polar]

http://www.twincities.com/ci_17577745?nclick_check=1
ATLANTA — The price of preventing preterm labor is about to go through the roof.

A drug for high-risk pregnant women has cost about $10 to $20 per injection. Next week, the price of the progesterone shot, which is administered weekly, will be $1,500 a dose.

The drug known as Makena has been made cheaply for years, mixed at pharmacies that do custom-compound treatments. But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St. Louis won government approval to sell the drug exclusively.

Many obstetricians supported the switch for the sake of consistent quality. But no one anticipated the dramatic price hike, especially since the cost for development was shouldered by others in the past.

'That's a huge increase for something that can't be costing them that much to make. For crying out loud, this is about making money,' said Dr. Roger Snow at Massachusetts' Medicaid program.

'I've never seen anything as outrageous as this,' said Dr. Arnold Cohen, an obstetrician at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.

[dman1991]

This is ridiculous, a government supported monopoly. Basically it sounds like they bought out competition with government approval then skyrocketed the price, and people in the field supported the move? ridiculous.

[sunnyp]

Why hit sex workers in the pocket? Is there a population shortage?

[polar]

this is what happens when you let the govt into healthcare.  it applies to every area, you need separation of economy and govt

[nemo]

this is what happens when you let the govt into healthcare.  it applies to every area, you need separation of economy and govt

Well, it's what happens when you let a certain type of government involvement into health care.  We get any and all medicine for free in Scotland thanks to the NHS.

[polar]

the US is the world leader in medical innovation because of the free market.  if you remove that, health care quality for everyone declines.

but that's what leftists want, they don't want things to get better, they want EVERYONE to suffer so it's fair

[nemo]

the US is the world leader in medical innovation because of the free market.  if you remove that, health care quality for everyone declines.

but that's what leftists want, they don't want things to get better, they want EVERYONE to suffer so it's fair

Yes, quite.  Everyone, all 7 billion of them.  Dragged down to the bottom to make things fair.  That's exactly what I want.

It's nothing to do with the fact that lobbying groups are running amok and making healthcare an unimaginable dream for huge swathes of the country, it's nothing to do with a privately owned company putting profit before people and charging a grotesque mark up on a product, it's nothing to do with the creation of a private monopoly.  This is clearly the fault of the left again.  Like everything else.

Just about every political argument you make is based on a ridiculous false dichotomy that you taking as being absolutely axiomatic.  It makes reasoning with your position very difficult when you say things like that.

[polar]

nemo can you please show me an example of a free market monopoly that doesn't exist without government making it a monopoly?

[nemo]

nemo can you please show me an example of a free market monopoly that doesn't exist without government making it a monopoly?

I believe governments tend to put certain checks in place to prevent this happening, for example

Out your way
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson-Patman_Act

Or in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolies_and_Mergers_Commission

I don't believe governments should ever be creating monopolies for private industry either, hence I think there's something terribly unethical about the costs of this injection procedure.  I don't have a problem with my government providing free universal healthcare though.  Especially when it's not even run as a monopoly, we have private healthcare providers out here too, I even get to use private healthcare as a benefit of the terms of my employment and my work's insurers would pay for it if I so choose.  As it is though, I'm perfectly happy with the NHS and the quality of care and treatment it provides.

[polar]

anti trust acts have 0 bearing on free market monopolies.  the only reason you can enjoy your free care is because it's built on someone elses work, which only exists because of the free market.  govt never created anything. 

nice evasion tho, i'll let you get back to me

[polar]

oh hey PS i forgot to tell you, the sherman antitrust was only passed because black ppl in the american south were coming up and taking the jobs of whites, so the democrats passed that law to create unions and give them their own monopoly

++history

[nemo]

the only reason you can enjoy your free care is because it's built on someone elses work, which only exists because of the free market.  govt never created anything. 

Can you explain what you mean by this sentence?  It seems utterly nonsensical to me; I can only assume I'm misunderstanding some part of it.  Whose work, if not that of its employees and the government, is the NHS built upon?  Unless you mean my own, in that my taxes are funding it.

And this...

anti trust acts have 0 bearing on free market monopolies.

Well, it's not a free market, is it?  Otherwise there wouldn't be any anti-trust laws in the first place.  However, were they not around you might find Microsoft, in spite of the essential crappiness of their products, would have far greater a market share and far fewer existing competitors.

How about Standard Oil?  91% of the US oil market, achieved through bribing to receive better shipping rates and price fixing, selling high in areas of no competition and selling at a loss in areas where other companies were trying to compete with them.  Was that good for consumers?

I believe we need protection from the market.
 

[polar]

How about Standard Oil?  91% of the US oil market, achieved through bribing to receive better shipping rates and price fixing, selling high in areas of no competition and selling at a loss in areas where other companies were trying to compete with them.  Was that good for consumers?

who exactly did they bribe?  wasn't only shipping companies and railroads etc, it was mostly the US govt.  google it.  your comments are absurd, how else can ANY industry start to exist without first being a monopoly.  kinda rhetorical to me. 

I believe we need protection from the market.
 

more like the market needs protection for the govt

Can you explain what you mean by this sentence?  It seems utterly nonsensical to me; I can only assume I'm misunderstanding some part of it.  Whose work, if not that of its employees and the government, is the NHS built upon?  Unless you mean my own, in that my taxes are funding it.

unless the NHS is making all these discoveries in medicine and drugs and not using what our free market system is innovating, then i guess my computer is broken and not delivering the news to me.  you're riding on the coattails of our work

And this...
Well, it's not a free market, is it?  Otherwise there wouldn't be any anti-trust laws in the first place.  However, were they not around you might find Microsoft, in spite of the essential crappiness of their products, would have far greater a market share and far fewer existing competitors.

no, we certainly have no free market any where in the world.  but let's be serious, you can't tell me that Apple and 100 linux distros and hundreds of hardware manufacturers wouldn't exist without some antitrust laws... lol

[polar]

leftists think it is the job of the government, which is a monopoly, to break up monopolies in private business. absurd. government is, by definition, a monopolist of law and order within a given territorial area and anybody who attempts to compete with the government will be forcibly shut down by the government.

a monopoly cannot exist in the free market, but can only exist when it can either use criminal violence or the force of law to create barriers to entry to keep its competitors from going into business. as long as freedom of entry remains into an industry, a monopolist cannot exist on the market. Even Standard Oil peaked at around 90% of the market in 1890, just as Microsoft peaked at around 90% market share in the late 1990s. If some company were to grow so large that it threatened to take over the world (this is impossible on the free market), it would just collapse under its own weight as businesses that get way too large suffer from the very same calculation problem that communist governments suffer from

the government should repeal its numerous restrictions and regulations that create barriers to entry and thus "protect" companies from competition. prevent the government from interfering with the invisible hand of the free market and the invisible hand will abolish monopolies