People are dumb and will do anything when they have money

Never will I be surprised at what those with money think it entitles them to.

It would be so great if anyone making such offers not only gets denied, but pushed to the back of the line.

Not surprising at all. I can imagine business owners and rich people who want to travel and do other things probably would be willing to pay to have that privilege. I would be upset if they were allowed to do it, but I can’t blame them for asking.

@SergeantQueen What is dumb about trying to get a vaccine that can change your life?

@Smashley The reason we were able to develop, test, approve and manufacture TWO vaccines in NINE months was MONEY! Vaccines (like cures) are not something that the Pharma industry loves for understandable reasons. So they work on those types of products reluctantly, if at all. Whatever the Left thinks about money, it is crucially important in everything. Would you blame a hospital or a clinic for accepting tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, of dollars or more, for easily disguised nefarious activity?

@cookieman Please read my answer to @Smashley.

@jca2 Good answer. In every country in the world, you get what you pay for.

If someone put up a good deal of the funding for a vaccine or can offer incentives that benefit a larger group in some way then I can see them skipping the line. It’s not surprising at all that some would simply flash cash to get it early.

@AYKM Whether the funding was prospective or retrospective makes no difference to me. Obviously the amount required will change.

Why are the entitled to it before everyone else? Thats dumb. “Oh I am rich so I deserve life more than you”

I’m sorry… isn’t that how the US health system works? If you have money you have access to healthcare. If you don’t you have the opportunity to bankrupt yourself trying to get access to the sort of care that citizens in third world counties take for granted. LOL. Why would anybody be surprised it’s any different now.

@crazyguy: “Whatever the Left thinks about money, it is crucially important in everything.”

Can you imagine typing this and not having just performed a lobotomy on yourself with an ice pick?

Obviously if you have money, you have access. But I am talking about early access before everyone else as if they are all better than us. Not getting access the same time as us.

Let’s have a discussion on the concept of “better than us”. After all, isn’t that the bottom line to the very meaning of wealth. $ = priority

I don’t agree with it but I get why it happens.

That’s the beauty of it. None of us will admit to acceptance of it, but apparently, EVERYTHING can be bought and sold.

Ok @crazyguy, because taxpayer money was used to accelerate a process of vaccine discovery and approval, and you think that gives the rich a moral right to jump the queue for vaccines? Give me a break. Money is crucially important, but it doesn’t entitle those who have it to as much as they would have you believe. They are 32000 calories of meat, just like the rest of us.

No. Not surprised at all. Anticipated it.

@crazyguy “Vaccines (like cures) are not something that the Pharma industry loves for understandable reasons. So they work on those types of products reluctantly, if at all.”

Nonsense. An oncologist could cure every patient he has today with a magic little pill. Tomorrow there will be more patients. As long as there are people there will be illness. As long as there is illness there will be profit to be made.

Not surprising at all.

@Lightlyseared Do you even have a concept of “the sort of care that citizens in third world counties take for granted.” Well, I do; first-hand. I would not wish that on anybody.

@SergeantQueen I did not say they are entitled to it. However, that is just how the cookie crumbles. Just imagine, hard as that may be, that you own a widget that is suddenly very popular. Might you be tempted to sell it to the highest bidder?

@_____ Perhaps you need a lobotomy to point out an obvious fact; I sure do not.

@SergeantQueen The CDC defines Group 1a as Frontline healthcare workers and long term care facility residents. There are about 23 million people covered by this characterization. Do you think there may be some perfectly legal jockeying for position among the 23 million?

@Smashley As far as I know Pfizer did not accept any Government funding for development of the vaccine. They did receive US Government funds for a certain number of doses. I have no idea what the specified priority order is, but Pfizer owns 100% rights to any doses produced over and above what the US Government contracted for. Why can’t a rich person have access to the unsold doses?

@crazyguy: Maybe Pfizer might do that and then maybe the stock price would go down when people get pissed off.

@jca2 I see your understanding of the stock market is as stellar as your knowledge of everything else.

@crazyguy: I’m not surprised to hear such a comment from you.

What determines stock price?

@jca2 Typically a stock is priced as the present value of its earnings stream over the next 10 years or so. As you can see people getting pissed off has no impact unless they start boycotting Pfizer drugs. That is even more unlikely than people boycotting China.

@crazyguy: If a company does something untoward, or unethical, people may boycott as they do and have for many products and companies in recent history. Two examples are Goya and SeaWorld (SeaWorld after the movie “Blackfish” came out, Goya after the CEO praising Trump).

I saw some guy high up at Pfizer yesterday say that he was willing to risk the financial loss if they failed at developing a viable vaccine. When asked how much he estimated that might be he said maybe $2billion, but he knew that would not take down the company. So, all I could think was $2BILLION and there is enough other money being made that it doesn’t take down the company.

Sorry, more proof they are making too much money. BILLIONS. Making millions wouldn’t be enough?

@JLeslie What’s wrong with making a lot of money as long as it’s done legally?

@gondwanalon Because it’s gouging. It’s capitalizing on people who are victims of disaster. It lacks integrity shows disregard for the golden rule, and from my POV is unethical and illegal. People don’t really have choice. It’s not a luxury item or an extravagance. Health care is a necessity.

Who would they physically bribe? Their doctor?

@gondwanalon Because people like this asshole will steal every penny you have if we let them.

@jca2 When most recipients have no idea whose vaccine they are getting after waiting for two months, how are they going to do a boycott?

@JLeslie I watched the same interview. The $2 billion, and the nonchalant way he said it, did jar me a bit. But then I remembered Pfizer’s market cap, which today was $207 BILLION! So $2 billion is indeed a drop in the bucket. Why did Pfizer not accept government funding for R&D? Because, once you get in bed with the government, you become a slave. Especially with a Biden taking over.

@JLeslie Gouging? Does Uber gouge? They do charge whatever the market will bear. Remember surge pricing?

@AYKM Pfizer and Moderna know, better than most of us what they can get away with legally, and in terms of customer goodwill. They will not knowingly cross the line.

@crazyguy does uber gouge? Or are they having you pay for the miles the driver drove plus gas, which the driver pays for on their own? Seems resonable.

People say UberEats gouges but you are literally paying for the delivery miles and tipping the driver. They don’t just add random shit to make it cost more, it seems like relevant charges for the service provided.

Not much of a gouge

@crazyguy Uber actually has competition, they have normal market forces to deal with. Pharma has patent protection and people who will be in pain, unable to function, or die, at their mercy. Pharma and healthcare systems collude or have monopolies all too often and they have power over people who have zero choice. Acutely ill people cannot shop around. Chronically ill people might have only one drug that can help. An injured person might only have one doctor in the area that can do the necessary surgery. It is nothing like buying a dress or catching a taxi. People keep trying to say healthcare works ok in a capitalist model, but it doesn’t. Many capitalist countries still have socialized medicine, you can have both, you can have sectors that function differently than other sectors for humane reasons.

@SergeantQueen Have you heard of surge pricing?

@JLeslie For the most part, doctors and hospitals do have competition. And their pricing is subject to acceptance or rejection by insurance companies and Medicare. The monopolistic Pharma companies can and do get away with murder, but even their prices are visible to insurance companies and Medicare. Our elected reps will not let Medicare negotiate prices with Big Pharma, but, the prices they charge are well known. If we had more transparency, Big Pharma would learn to behave.

As far as buying a dress or catching a taxi goes, remember the old adage of supply and demand. If you can get Meghan Markle to wear your design, you can basically charge whatever pleases you. The same way, try catching a taxi in a big rain.

@crazyguy I recommend you see Lesley Stahl’s episode on a hospital system in California from a couple weeks ago on 60 minutes. Here’s a link. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/california-sutter-health-hospital-chain-high-prices-lawsuit-60-minutes-2020-12-13/ They won a lawsuit that might make things better.

I also recommend you see her episode from a few years ago about Sloan Kettering oncologists talking about outrageous prices for a new cancer drugs and old cancer drugs raising prices when the new ones come to market and see they are getting the money. Collusion. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

I have had more than one incident where my insurance negotiated price was much higher than if I paid out of pocket. People don’t know because they don’t usually ask the self pay price if they have insurance.

It’s thievery. It’s preying on people. We all pay. All of society pay the higher prices. We pay the higher premiums, we pay for people who can’t afford care, we pay for the profits, it’s a racket.

@JLeslie Being a fan of 60 Minutes, I have seen both of the episodes you linked to. It is indeed a disgusting state of affairs which Obamacare did nothing to address.

It is surprising that the self pay price was lower than the insurance negotiated price. I always thought it is the other way around. In fact, I think you may have found the exceptions that prove the rule.

I would agree that healthcare in this country is thievery. I think the only solution is full transparency, and consumers sharing some of the burden. Otherwise, who will police the providers?

@crazyguy I agree about full transparency, although when the patient only pays a small amount they often still don’t pay attention. HMO’s had that. Pay $20 copay and most patients ignored the rest.

We need a watchdog really watching pricing, and laws to cap pricing. I don’t see another way.

It is common practice to greatly increase prices billed to insurance. The patient usually pays less, because they only pay a portion of the billed amount usually, but if you have a high deductible the patient becomes aware of the high price. I have MANY examples that have happened to me personally that insurance was more expensive. Sometimes even with the higher price it was cheaper for me and sometimes it was more expensive.

Ask friends of yours who work in imaging centers how much they charge for an MRI with insurance or without. The scam is usually huge in those places.

My guess is you always had good insurance and now Medicare and you never bothered to ask about a self pay price.

The problem with self pay when you have insurance is it does go towards your deductible then. I’ve twice run into doctors’ offices and once at an imaging center that they wouldn’t let me pay self pay because they “know I have insurance.” Like a threat!

The system is terrible and it was terrible before Obamacare too. People who hate Obama seem to forget we got Obamacare because healthcare already sucked and prices were already through the roof.

@JLeslie I agree that the system was terrible before Obamacare. I think what I earnestly believe is that Obamacare, instead of improving the system as initially stated, ended up making it even worse.

1. Like you said, “It is common practice to greatly increase prices billed to insurance.” Therefore, the more people that have insurance, the higher the costs.

2. Obamacare did nothing to make healthcare ‘affordable’ – it just switched the payor.

3. It forced young healthy people to buy comprehensive insurance just so premiums for the elderly and sick could be held down.

@crazyguy The elderly are in a separate system, they are in Medicare. The billing for insurance being higher than self pay started way way before Obamacare. I agree that Obamacare did not address the price of healthcare enough. All it really did is give the same crappy system to more people and help subsidize it.

I think everyone should be paying into the system and costs need to be held down. Right now, if you pay for insurance for ten years and your young and healthy and barely use the system and then your company closes and you lose insurance, everything you paid in means nothing for you. If you paid into one system, on day that money will be helping you when you need it or a loved one.

@JLeslie I have posted about healthcare systems in other countries. I don’t have the energy right now to dig up my old posts. However, as I recall, the bottom line is that the best systems are those that define “basic” very clearly, and limit the “free” healthcare to basic. For everything else there is either supplemental insurance, or self-pay.

The downside of such a system is that it gives providers a second bite of the apple, and, given the greed in free enterprise, there would, doubtless, be attempts made to double-dip.

@crazyguy That’s fine, no need to look up former information you have posted. I don’t think we are too far apart about healthcare anyway. Basically, we both agree something has to change and there are multiple pitfalls with the types of healthcare systems most Americans talk about on both sides of the political spectrum. What is discussed by the average American regarding healthcare doesn’t really think through all the various possible consequences of the proposals. I realize I myself don’t know all the pitfalls and possibilities also, I’m just saying on average most people don’t think about all of the details. Like people who think ACA is the best thing since sliced bread. No it’s not.

@crazyguy… What did you thing the ACA was supposed to achieve?