Gilead is charging $3,000 for a COVID medicine that costs $10 to produce — and that the American public already paid for

Your Money, or Your Life.

More evidence we need Single payer, Universal Health Care in this country also.

Including Pain and Suffering,

Life and Death.

Neoliberalism = Submission to the Market, and those that own it.

Not right in the moral or ethical or humanist sense of the word, but right as in, “Oh, right. Same old shit.”

Even Giliad doesn’t claim that it cures anything. Because it doesn’t.

Important point in the article:

Clinton admin rescinded a rule that made pharmacorps charge ‘reasonable prices’ for medicines developed at government expense. Rs & Ds joined up to keep the rescindment everytime anyone tried to reinstate it.  Obama admin refused when some Ds pressured for using existing laws to force down costs; Rs blocked bills that would have enabled Medicare to use its purchasing power to pressure for lower costs.

IOW, the rot is wide and bipartisan.  Its been a perennial point that the public pays a lot of the costs of pharma;  so many articles and op eds that you’d think everyone knew it by now, what a racket they’ve got going.  You pay twice or even 3 times for your medicine.

This is why I don’t give to cancer charities anymore. Ask yourself two simple questions and ponder why they are mutually exclusive.

How much charitable money has been raised for cancer research?

How much are you charged for cancer treatment?

Anyone else see the disconnect? Charities contribute toward the research while drug companies create intentional shortages to keep prices high.

@polecathollerer

Yep – and it makes me wonder – when there actually is a vaccine or even a cure… what will they charge for it?  No doubt there will be some talk about the cost being determined by the market… as there already has been – but I can’t help but wonder what the makes of a working vaccine would charge.  They could probably get away with charging quite a lot – those who could easily pay for it probably would, those of us who would take it but don’t have thousands to pay for it, well…

That is not even counting the many people who say that they will not take a vaccine if it does become available.

warned me about Bernie Sanders socialism.  I told her I was more worried about Predatory Capitalism!  That shut up her right wing mouth pretty quick!

69% of Americans have less than one thousand dollars in savings.  So, for those who’s insurance won’t cover the gilead treatment, they are going to take the debt.  A lot of hospitals will be forced to simply eat the cost or refuse treatment – I do not know what the particulars there are, for public hospitals, on what they can and can’t do.  Can a public hospital refuse treatment due to a patient’s inability to pay?  Yes, they can.  The exception is if patients go to the ER – the law states that anyone who goes to an emergency room must be treated – typically, this means that the task of the ER staff is to stabilize the patient before deciding on what, if any further action.

That said, you will still get the bill if you either lack health insurance, or your health insurance doesn’t cover it.  There are a lot of particulars to this – and as we see tens of thousands of new cases per day, a percentage will require longer term care, ICU treatment and so on.  The costs for that, in some cases, is going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars…

So what happens to the many patients who can’t pay?  Well, in my experience, given the years that I went without health insurance – I did have a general physician of some sort, typically, for the medications I’ve been taking since I was a young teen.  They were extremely reluctant to order testing, because testing costs money – a lot of money.  An MRI or CT scan will cost in the thousands of dollars – and there was no way in hell I could pay for it, I had no insurance – and this meant that the bill would have to be covered by the hospital’s charity care program – or simply added to my other medical debt.

In time, medical debt will ruin your credit – in my case, it ruined it before I even had a chance to gain any.  Applying for loans for pretty much anything was out of the question.  When I lived on my own, if I needed something, I either went to second hand stores, catholic charities stores, or, on occasion, rent-a-center (in retrospect, that last one was dumb).

Anyhow, my point is that your quality of care still has much to do with how much you can pay, or how much your insurance can pay.  In situations in which a lot of people require a specific drug/treatment, there will be determinations made – those most able to pay will be those most likely to be given the treatment, if it is limited – and chances are it will be.

Gilead will make a whole lot of money from this – but the intent is not to help or save everyone.  It is to help and/or save those who can pay.  Capitalism.

And the so called president’s headline for today “the president does nothing as the cases rise.”

@DavidtheGnome

Gilead will make a whole lot of money from this – but the intent is not to help or save everyone. It is to help and/or save those who can pay make a profit. Capitalism.

that we expect and are directing the Congress to set the cost of the medicine and vaccines as soon as they return from summer break.  And they are to keep their constituents posted.  They will send out posts campaigning for themselves and others anyway.

Sleepy Joe needs to be fully awake on this one, being shaken by We the People on a daily bases.  What is that 3…….  phone number again?  Part of the Movement is to keep it ringing or twittering 24/7.

Even if by some miracle they tried, the Senate or Trump would stop them.  There are billions to be made here – by the same billionaires that fund political campaigns.  It is all a show.  These fuckers will go hide in their mansions for most of the summer anyway.