This. This right here (headline: $1,000-a-day miracle drug shocks U.S. health care system).
The perfect example of why the healthcare system is broken, and why all the insurance reform in the world (because really, ACA is just insurance reform) is not going to solve the problem long term. As long as you can develop a drug or medical solution and with a straight face trot it out at an outlandish price... yeah, a society of have and have-nots where the rich are healthy with long lifespans and the poor? Well, yeah, who cared about them anyway?...
Today it is a cure for Hep C. Tomorrow, the holy grail of a pill to prevent cancer. Then drops to fix blindness, treatments to live for 300 years,.... it will not stop. But only the privileged will be able to afford them.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
No line in any document of liberty and freedom means more to me. None.
I cannot fathom how any free, civilized society with aspirations that grow from this ideal can pretend that Life and Happiness should be gated behind the profit motive. Healthcare is not an equitable system of supply and demand meeting in an open market. It is Infinite Demand behind tightly rationed supply.
Is a solution easy? No. Do I know what it is? No. The system does certainly spur a lot of wonderful advances, such as the cure listed above. But, there remain serious structural failures in that system that make me worried about what is coming. And we cannot even agree on tackling the insurance system without hand wringing and ridiculous political combat. I have little hope on the real issues being addressed.
Capitalism over helping your fellow human its just sad. I know a company is suppose to make money but jeez... I can see that a drug like this took years and lots of money (salary equipment, etc) to make but the over head cant be that much and if they are selling it per-capita income based It just seems greedy. They should have a base cost to recoup money used in creating it, with profit and money for future development of other drugs. Unfortunately it just seems like a crazy price without knowing all the info; especially compared to other life saving medications like aids treatments which are around $100-$200 a day.
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