For Discussion: Q: How To Cut Costs and Improve Medical Care. A: Symptom amelioration drugs should never be given patent protection and should never be paid by insurance or government.
Posted by freedomforall 1 year, 9 months ago to Ask the Gulch
Big Pharma gets most profits for drugs (paid for by government and insurance) that deal with symptoms. The industry appears to avoid cures at all costs (possibly because profits are lower.)
How to change the rules to encourage Big Pharma and the Medical Care Industry To Provide Cures, Not Just Treat Symptoms?
Symptom amelioration drugs should never be given patent protection and should never be paid by insurance or government. Only treatments that are proven cures (without side effects) should have patent protection and increased profit incentives.
That might force pharma to find cures to get big profits, and would put the lowered costs of symptom treatment directly on the patient.
Any other ideas?
How to change the rules to encourage Big Pharma and the Medical Care Industry To Provide Cures, Not Just Treat Symptoms?
Symptom amelioration drugs should never be given patent protection and should never be paid by insurance or government. Only treatments that are proven cures (without side effects) should have patent protection and increased profit incentives.
That might force pharma to find cures to get big profits, and would put the lowered costs of symptom treatment directly on the patient.
Any other ideas?
Pharma will take a drug molecule which treats some symptoms fairly well, and then move a methyl group on the 4 position of a ring to the 5 position of the ring. Why? New molecule, new patent. Slightly different side-effect profile, efficacy more or less the same. They keep the product pipeline full of "new" drugs so that every two years another drug hits the market. All of that time and money spent could have been spent on truly novel cures or treatments.
I don't hate Pharma corporations for earning money and offering a valuable service. However they do view human beings as nothing but a pink tube with a wallet to steal. Tablets in, money out. Fill the bottle again. Repeat. Stuff the profits into the next analogue of the same damn drug.
I suppose regulations and tax structures put in place by Con-gress to encourage innovation and reduce wasteful copies of the same drug might help. But I see Danneger setting his oil wells on fire. (coal mines?) They have the medicines that we need to live. They are basically saying, pay or die. Which is their right in a free system, cruel as it is. I feel like a Democrat saying that we must regulate their business model. I can see Pharma saying "FU, no drugs for you, let's go to India or France or wherever. The government is squeezing us to be better corporate citizens so let's just bug out of here."
What kind of society are we if we pass laws, or directives haha, that you can't leave? You will produce cures, or you will go to jail. Are we just talking about human greed? Is greed good? Does greed fit into an Objectivist Capitalist model? For sure, if people said, I will do the right thing and the kind thing, instead of the thing that makes me the most profitable, then life would be much better. Share a little. Put your quest for more profits aside and think about your fellow people. But now I sound like a Democrat!!!
Doesn't the current patent model encourage inventors to ignore that responsibility to their patients?
The current model exists because of government protection of big Pharma from the 'greed' of others,
yet it encourages Big Pharma to place their 'greed' over the health of their patients.
Again government has created the problem by bad law.
Here's what Big Pharma does with their political power in the existing model:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/big-pha...
Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements
This is another example of Big Pharma using government to protect them from competition
at the expense of the health of their patients.
The (corrupt) American government is being used by Big Pharma against the People
that government is supposed to serve.
CMBurton is correct in this respect:
Corporations "are not individuals and are not entitled to the same rights as individuals."
In fact, Big Pharma corporations are being given rights greater than the rights of the
People that government was created to protect.
I think we made a huge mistake when we began to think of corporations as people. They are not individuals and are not entitled to the same rights as individuals. They should not be allowed to contribute financially to candidates for office. Medicine wasn’t always seen as a for-profit system and it shouldn’t be. The ideal of “first do no harm” should be more than aspirational. It should be a standard they are held to.
Based on my observation and experience, those in positions
of power only mean well for their own power and wealth.
That would adversely affect Big Pharma's rent-seeking business model.
As usual, government created a problem.
Removing (or greatly limiting) the patent protection in this area can make that business
model less profitable and make investing in cures the favorable choice - since it's obvious
that the industry won't change to be ethical without some encouragement.
Eliminate the looters is step one.
How would you encourage the industry to research cures instead of symptom amelioration that enslaves the customer forever?
The medical care system in its present form does not deliver better care; it delivers never ending high costs and never ending sickness.
if a cure is not possible, then you view has some validity
if a cure may be possible, then treating symptoms is also valid until such time as a cure is possible
the goal is that medicine should not just be another form of cosmetics, just keep buying that wrinkle cream....
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
I used to work for a government program that penalized cost-cutting measures by taking back any money that was left over at the end of the fiscal year AND deducting that amount from the next year's budget (you didn't spend it this year, so you must not need it next year either). I always thought a better system would have been to leave the budget alone and maybe give a small percentage of any money saved as a bonus for efficiency at the end of the year, providing certain standards of performance were met (thus rewarding meeting high performance standards while saving money). But government is not known for appreciating efficiency.
Anyway, it would seem like some sort of monetary reward for breakthroughs in research would be a reasonable replacement for patents. You still get money and prestige for results, but the medicines and techniques developed belong in the public domain.
I don't know. I'm not a doctor or a researcher, but it seems like there has to be a better way.
But the challenge is in the model. Gov't overall, should be OUT of health care.
But I have changed my mind a bit...
I believe ALL EMERGENCY CARE should be free to our citizens! Nobody should need insurance because they had an accident. Stuff Happens. But this DOES NOT COVER LIFESTYLE issues and diseases!
So, if you are morbidly obese and have a heart-attack. That's on you. And if you need LIFESTYLE Insurance, that should be on you as well. Nobody needed Insurance to stay healthy, until the Food Industry and the Medical Complex fell into Cahoots.
Lets separate those. Allow the insurance companies to charge whatever they want to insure people for NON EMERGENCY Care (lifestyle). And QUICKLY the free market will come to ALL of the right conclusions. Because you may require someone be in ketosis, if they want your coverage, and they have a specific risk profile.
Simply letting people understand that their HEALTH has been their LIFESTYLE is 90% of the problem.
You get in a car accident. Let's fix you up. you need to lose a foot because you are an UNCONTROLLED Type II Diabetic. Well, I hope you have insurance. And if you can't afford insurance, then you have more money to spend on WHOLE FOODS, which typically reverses Type II diabetes, and can prevent needing those future surgeries.
Show me the incentive... I will show you the result! The current incentive is to allow SICK people to get SICKER and have others pay for it! Imagine where that leads... "Right where we are".
The savings we would have as a country with a Free Market, LifeStyle driven approach. Which Doctor you going to see... The one who has you on 7 diabetes medicines, or the one who helped you brother lose the weight, and get off of all of his medicines?
I harp on Diabetes, because it is THE driver in our health care. #1 cause of Blindness in America. #1 Cause of Amputations, and the BIGGEST Cause of Cardiovascular Disease. TOTALLY Caused by our diets! [And the numbers have been there. During WWII when food was not available, cases of Diabetes Dropped significantly... Imagine That!]
I don't see why the AMA couldn't become something similar. Set the standards for medical schools and hospitals, where the training goes on, then let individual states license and monitor the practice of medicine.
Just a thought.
We need to learn and move on. Don't get me wrong, a license is NO guarantee of quality.
And they are CURRENTLY USED to keep competition away.
But I've been to Alternative Medicine Doctors for a long time, trying different ones. It's very hit or miss.
But it's my choice. I think YELP like systems would help. More doable in todays world.
Worse... BTW... Look at what they are doing to the FLCC (Pierre Kory, etc) doctors who have it CORRECT!
yes, Competition among the players.
And the court issue is why children are getting the jab. So the Drug Companies don't have liability!
As an aside, hospitals are picky about using materials they feel are unsafe or dont have some sort of watchdog approval. If the FDA were closed up, other free market watchdogs would spring up because hospitals would require in short order that someone knowledgeable tested and approved the items.
With electrical approvals, there is UL and ETL in competition. When I was making electrically powered items for hospitals, they required one or the other approval. UL was arrogant and bureaucratic, so we went with ETL. FDA would have competition right away I think if they didnt have monopoly power.
And corporations should have only the same rights and responsibilities as any other form of business organization. There should be no legal double standard.
The ONLY way to do that is to REQUIRE that payments come from the patient/buyer. ALL Insurance $ to patient, ALL decisions from patient, ALL payments from patient. NO insurance network deals. Insurance pays same, regardless of patient choice...even is no service is selected. Want to set your own broken bone, or skip other service, fine. Pocket the money. NOTHING free. People seeing and paying the actual costs can make their own decisions, and will drive the market.
If the idiots in government do anything, they should just provide information to the patients to aid in decision making, statistics and market pricing.
For medications, my solution is simple: New law "You can sell you meds for whatever you want, but the price in the US MUST be less than 10% higher than the lowest price ANYWHERE else, period." We will no longer subsidize the world. You can give medication away, but you can not sell it less than 90% the price in the US. This is market intrusion, but it is nationalistic, and destroys an abuse. END of ISSUE.
These two, drive all the cost out of the medical industry. It is not even complicated.
I used to be in the medical device business, but got OUT of it because of the FDA. It was a tremendous bureaucracy in 1990 and required that no one could sell anything unless it got approval from the FDA in advance. This so increased the cost of new product introductions that the only people who could afford to do a new product were the BIG companies (maybe thats why they all supported increased regulation).The only real supporter of the consumer IS competion, and government forbids competion in its regulation schemes.
making payments to limit unnecessary or excessive treatments. That is ultimately the
primary problem with the existing failed system and a failure of all insurance plans,
regardless of who pays, private for-profit companies or government.
The patient is the first judge of the quality of the treatment and in this system the patient's
dissatisfaction is rarely, if ever, allowed to interrupt the constant flow of funds that pay for poor treatment.
(The spice must flow! ;^)
This system gives a false sense of security to patients that someone with expertise is monitoring
quality of care. That function is essentially lacking and that allows the profit motive to override
quality of care as the system is currently structured.
My goal in posting this is to uncover a first step that is relatively easy to understand and has
some chance of being implemented without an armed revolution.
Forcing insurance through the patient can't happen because the idiot progressives want to relieve all responsibility from people, and the disgusting RINOs are in the pockets of insurance, big pharma and the AMA (communist totalitarian organization protecting doctor's salaries).
-Big Pharma, Big Medcare, Big Insurance, AND the Bureaucracy will oppose it.
-The left will oppose it because it meddles with Obamacare which works so well for the poor. Horrors!
-They will claim that complete overhaul of the payment system is very complex, not simple.
-The media will make it seem like it's worse than giving heroin to newborn babies. Let uninformed patients decide about drugs? Half of them have below average IQ!
QED: No chance in the world this comes out of con-gress with anything to help. Pharma and Insurance will find a way to make it an expansion of Obamacare that creates additional agencies controlled by them.
Of course, anything we suggest that affects profits for Big Pharma, Big Medcare, and Big Insurance will have many of the same issues.
And it makes sense. If you are paying the doctor directly... Exactly where would the fraud come from?
(Maybe the doctor watering down the drugs, but that is self defeating, unless an insurance company always sends you more!)
and discourages research into cures that actually improve health. This is not the free market, it is created by government.
Government should not exist that effectively causes harm to the people it serves.
Therefore, if patent law can be changed to serve the people better instead of enrishing a few at the peoples' expense,
then should it be changed to do so?
Example might be diabetes type 2. No cure, but the companies making the symptom reducers would now get a lot of more lucrative business from the patients than they do now from the insurance companies. Therefore, there would just be less research on cures than there is now.
Even the ADA website now says that a low carbohydrate diet can be used to treat T2D.
There is a cure. Dr. Jason Fung (The Fasting Method), gets over 80% of T2D off all their medicine in under 1 year.
The problem is... Who profits from FASTING or EATING LESS or EATING LESS Processed Food?
Nobody! So it is under-represented as a cure.
In fact, Dr. Fung explains that he preferred an Atkins type diet, but his patients were on Government Assistance and Could not afford to eat quality whole foods that much. So... Fasting came up, and it turns out it works! Then you eat less, but only eat low-carb. And it's amazing how fast T2D starts becoming controlled.
Dr. Bernstein did it for himself, and I believe he is a T1D, who uses low carb to control his glucose levels!
https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Bernsteins-...
Almost ALL Progressive Diseases are LIFESTYLE Diseases!
There is a complete lack of "Care" in the system.
As to T2D, i think that fasting would bring down blood sugar, but its not a practical solution for people who want to stay alive... I cut carbs to about 50 grams a day (quite difficult actually), but am having a lot of trouble keeping blood sugars down. I think that there must be some genetic element to this disease also.
The trick is to be BELOW 20g of carbs per day, and to only eat TWICE in the day. No snacking, no diet drinks. Do that for 2 weeks.
Then suddenly, fasting becomes an option.
It's simple chemistry. We are such food addicts. Myself included. The best thing to do is to measure ketones and glucose. Also, fatty liver can take 72hrs of fasting to get rid of the excess fat. But OLD Crystalized Glycogen can take a long time for your body to break down. A history of Yo-Yo dieting with your weight makes it harder.
The first Resource is Dr. Ken Berry on YouTube, and then Dr. Boz The Keto Continuum.
She put her mom's cancer into remission! When you start realizing that most of our diseases all stem
from our poor diets, it blows you mind.
Fasting is easy. It's the NOT EATING part that is hard! (Because we eat out of boredom, Connection,
addiction, and numerous other reasons). Remember when you were a kid, playing outside and it was dinner time, but you didn't want to come in and eat because you were having fun? Eating was a disruption to your fun.
Nowadays, eating is the ONE pleasure we can count on (for many of us). That's SAD, and the foods are made hyper-palatable (why can't you eat just one?)...
Anyways. if you have excess body fat. Get into Ketosis. Then learn to stretch the window of time before you eat. Either by having an earlier and earlier dinner, or a later and later breakfast.
It took my brother 4 weeks of simply moving his breakfast 15 minutes later once he got comfortable with it being moved. In the first week he moved it once. Then twice, then three times. Then it was basically 30 minutes before lunch.
Good Luck. I can tell you that eating MULTIPLE times/day creates MULTIPLE insulin releases and stalls weight loss. I can eat MORE FOOD in one sitting than in 3, and lose weight, versus gain or stay the same. It took a lot of research and testing on myself to get there.
But if I needed to only eat 3 meals a week because of food shortages... I am good. I can do that without feeling like I am being tortured.
finally, Dr. Fung taught us... If you don't feel right while you are fasting, break your fast! I have broken my fast because of not feeling right tons of times. I'd rather try and fail than to not try! 7 days is my longest fast, and 3 months was my longest stretch of eating only 3 days a week!
If you are consuming diet sodas... it can block you from getting into ketosis, and makes fasting almost impossible for me...
I will be more experimentive using some of the things you talk about. Thanks
My wife is type 1, and it irks me that the two afflictions even share a name.
Now, type 1 cures are discussed. I actually know someone who was cured by accident, and they are studying her. As FFA says, the cure might erode margins too much, so it is behind artificial pancrease/full auto pumps (and insulin, and test strips and injection site kits, and and and...)
A Hungarian Doctor (Sofia Clemens) has a PKD Diet for treating (really zero carb), and very high in fat.
But she has a working theory that the Modern Milk Proteins are so distorted they are too similar to islet cells, and that milk is behind what causes the auto-immune attack on the islet cells. Interesting Theory.
Are you familiar with Dr. Bernstein?
I, too, wish that they were called distinctly different names. In fact most people don't know the difference. After my daughter was diagnosed (at 2 years old BTW), we had some extremely ignorant people ask we couldn't just adjust her diet. After about the fourth or fifth time I gave up trying to explain as most of them were only interested in giving unwanted advice and not in actually learning anything.
It is an interesting theory. The problem is that insulin doesn't target fats but carbohydrates, allowing them to pass through a cell membrane into the cell to be utilized in metabolism. I'm not really sure how fat proteins would cause an auto-immune disorder. A fat is basically a huge lipid chain with an OH on one end. The body can metabolize these chains either in whole or in part by chopping them down. Proteins are the working engines of the body: unless those fats were getting broken down into proteins and the subsequent folding of those proteins was causing a problem... Eh. I'm not seeing it initially, but if you want to post a link to the paper I'll take a look.
But it was the MUTLATED Milk Proteins from processing that triggered the immune response.
Dr. Bernstein has led the way in Type I reducing insulin to the bare minimums with carbohydrate restriction. They are now FASTING Type I's who have been over medicating at their doctors request and are showing Type II signs of insulin resistance! Amazing stuff.
Your family is lucky you Grok the science...
If you see an update on her studies, please post. I am interested!
I remember years ago that I couldnt get a knee replacement that I needed UNTIL I got my HbA1C under 7. Needless to say, I found a way and got the knee replacement. It wasnt the way the family doc suggested. I just ate one real meal a day at lunchtime which was extremely low carb (boring somewhat), and ate only broccoli for dinner for months, and I checked blood sugar at least twice a day so I could estimate what my HbA1C was going to be without waiting 3 months for the test.