It's why the health care is still too damn expensive:
“Lucentis is Avastin---it’s the same damn molecule with a few cosmetic changes,” said J. Gregory Rosenthal, a Toledo ophthalmologist who, outraged by the price, co-founded a group called Physicians for Clinical Responsibility to protest its use. “Yet Americans are paying a billion dollars every year for no good reason---unless you count making Genentech rich.”The story of Genentech’s two drugs, Lucentis and Avastin, began with a scientific marvel---a breakthrough in biology that, thanks to the vast budgets of U.S. entitlement programs, has produced enormous financial returns.
Those profits have yielded benefits. By paying for such drugs without regard to cost, the Medicare system has helped stimulate investment in medical research that contributes to the development of more lifesaving technologies.
But the flow of cash also pushes up the health-care costs that are projected to deplete federal budgets. For while Genentech has aggressively marketed the more expensive drug and sought to restrict the use of the cheaper one, critics say, Medicare has been powerless to do anything but pay up.
It should be duly noted---once again!---that the Goldberg Act does absolutely nothing to rectify this since the profiteers and middlemen who extract billions of dollars from our health-care system were permitted to write the law. This sure was worth losing the House of Representatives over, now, wasn't it.
The fact remains: You want to drive down health-care costs, you drive down health-care costs. Anything other approach only invites never-ending ransom payments to a pharmaceutical extortion racket.
---Baron V
Comments