Big Pharma - Gambling with people's lives?

[TenEightyOne]

79.4% of statistics in discussions such as these are made up on the spot.

I'm pretty sure it's 82, but the citation's from Vic Reeves so might take a while to track down

 

[Danoff]

No, Pfizer will amalgamate and overlay. They are the "consuming" party in the takeover, it isn't a merger remember. That's how business takeovers work. Again I can cite the example of my own employer that buys very large businesses, as much as possible is done to help "acquired" staff but ultimately consumption of their company is undertaken to facilitate our own company's growth and maintain its world standing.

Pfizer won't destroy any product development or future income, it's just that some things will never happen. Who knows what we don't know?

I'm a little late to figure this out, but apparently Pfizer was looking to acquire AstraZeneca to pull of an inversion. It was a direct result of fleeing Obamacare regulations and US taxes. Medtronic is currently in the same process.

 

[Danoff]

I'm a little late to figure this out, but apparently Pfizer was looking to acquire AstraZeneca to pull of an inversion. It was a direct result of fleeing Obamacare regulations and US taxes. Medtronic is currently in the same process.

Deal is done. Medtronic bought Covidien to obtain an Ireland base. A note to all US voters, this is what companies do when you try to saddle them with taxes and regulation. Wake up folks.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Deal is done. Medtronic bought Covidien to obtain an Ireland base. A note to all US voters, this is what companies do when you try to saddle them with taxes and regulation. Wake up folks.

Yup, it's in their nature to take the path of least (fiscal) resistance. Slightly off-topic that's the same reason I'm against the idea of taxing the wealthiest the highest proportion, you can end up gaining less because that population can afford to up-sticks and move their money elsewhere.

In the same vein, and back on-topic, for governments to maintain a country's businesses correctly they have to understand the nature of those businesses and the all-important bottom line.

 

[KSaiyu]

With stories such as this, is it any wonder US healthcare is still lagging behind other developed nations?

 

[FoolKiller]

With stories such as this, is it any wonder US healthcare is still lagging behind other developed nations?

Oh look, the government, who we are told to expect excellent, cheap care from, is causing a problem that is costing more money. There's a shocker. So glad that healthcare act went through and these guys have even more power.

This can't be right. A country that makes it illegal for a patient to be denied access to care, no matter their ability to pay, cannot rank worst in access for any reason other than doctor availability. Everyone has access.

Oh wait, I see. I just checked their source data. They are using pre-Affordable Care Act data produced by a group who has a former Obama campaign health care advisor and later appointed a National Chief Health Information Technology Coordinator, where he developed the foundations for a national health database, which laid the ground work for the ACA, as their CEO.

In fact, a quick scan of their entire board shows a group of pro-government run health care individuals. Their non-partisan claims seem laughable. I'll be interested to see how much they show America's score going up in their 2014 data.

 

[Danoff]

With stories such as this, is it any wonder US healthcare is still lagging behind other developed nations?

Hmmm... there is a big one not on the list, innovation.

Let's see, quality care is:

Effective? Yes.
Safe? Not always.
Coordinated? No idea why this matters as long as it's effective.
Patient-Centered? Totally beside the point.
Where's timeliness? That's part of quality.

So the US ranks "3rd" in "effective" care behind the UK which is number 1. Given that they sandbagged "quality care" with a bunch of meaningless crap, I have no faith in their ability to determine what "effective" really is. If it's "the patient never came back", for example, effective could be killing them at their first appointment.

Ok, so access:

First of all, why do we care? What are we really trying to figure out when it comes to "access". You're trying to figure out whether it is available to people, or how many people it's available to. In the US it's available to everyone, so we should be tied for number 1 with lots of other nations.

Cost-Related Problem: Buh? If it has a cost it's a problem? That's an odd thing to assume.
Timeliness of Care: Since I can get just about anything done on any given day, I'm shocked that the US at least tied at number 1. The only possible reason is to assume a bunch of nonsense in this category. And I can think of nonsense to assume that might allow you to score the US lower than appropriate.


Efficiency: What the hell?
Equity: What the hell?
Healthy Lives: Kinda pointless considering the UK column right? I mean you can score #1 down the board but clearly whether or not people lead healthy lives isn't actually correlated with any of that. Which means why is it in there?


Cost: Seems like there's a huge disparity here. That must be fore a reason. What could it be... I'm scratching my head to think of it. Perhaps it's in the first sentence of this post.