American Healthcare continues to go backward

[cowboyinexile]

Amazing a billionaire with such a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. We don’t want to compete with India to have a plant making 9 cent pills. We want to dominate AI. We want to make better chips. We want to create high dollar luxury items.

You notice we aren’t fighting Germany or Luxembourg for these plants. Gee, I wonder why they are in India?

So what's the endgame?

The whole cabinet isn't a bunch of idiots. Its filled with yes men and people with their own agenda, but at some point someone is going to find a way to nudge him in a halfway intelligent direction. If random people on a message board can look at this and see instantly how its a bad idea, there has to be a couple of policy advisors paid to figure this out telling him the smart move with pharmaceuticals would be literally anything else.

 

[CowboyJD]

So what's the endgame?

The whole cabinet isn't a bunch of idiots. Its filled with yes men and people with their own agenda, but at some point someone is going to find a way to nudge him in a halfway intelligent direction. If random people on a message board can look at this and see instantly how its a bad idea, there has to be a couple of policy advisors paid to figure this out telling him the smart move with pharmaceuticals would be literally anything else.

When a policy advisor tells him something like that, the policy advisor gets fired immediately.

 

[steross]

When a policy advisor tells him something like that, the policy advisor gets fired immediately.

Bingo!!

What @cowboyinexile said was true for first Trump admin. Now it is all yes men. The “How it started…” thread is full of these people saying one thing a while back when honest and saying what Trump makes them say now.

 

[RxCowboy]

Amazing a billionaire with such a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. We don’t want to compete with India to have a plant making 9 cent pills. We want to dominate AI. We want to make better chips. We want to create high dollar luxury items.

I'm a clinical guy, not a pharm administration/economics guy. But this is just so damn easy to see through. It's like the administration doesn't know a pharmacist to ask "will this work?" Or the pharmacist they asked is MAGA-brained and simply said yes because that's what's expected.

You notice we aren’t fighting Germany or Luxembourg for these plants. Gee, I wonder why they are in India?

Only one reason, and it's the same reason they are in China, because they basically have slave labor.

 

[RxCowboy]

When a policy advisor tells him something like that, the policy advisor gets fired immediately.

 

[RxCowboy]

What he wants, to shift generic drug manufacturing from India and China, can’t happen regardless of how high he makes the tariffs. New plants would have to be built and said plants would have to meet all regulatory requirements. That means the startup costs would be extremely high, for generic drugs with very small margins.

All the tariffs will do is increase the cost of generic drugs.

Let me add a P.S. to this. All China and India have to do is ride out the term. People in the U.S. will pay higher prices for generic pharmaceuticals, but in 3.5 years there will be another administration and the tariffs will be rolled back. Also, in the meantime, we can't live without the generics even if it means paying higher prices for them. Sales won't change, only costs will. Whether or not those costs will be passed on to patients, or the pharmacies get squeezed, the PBM/insurance won't pay a dime of it, they'll still make their money. Finally, when the tariffs are rolled back the prices won't be. The increase in price will likely be permanent.

And China and India will most definitely just ride it out.

 

[RxCowboy]

We already spend $600 billion annually on prescriptions via Medicare and Medicaid. So sure let’s just double and triple that w tariffs.

It’s been a week and I’m worn smooth but if I’m pharma wouldn’t I just smile and wave bc they pass the cost onto consumers and in the end the Government pays out via Medicare and Medicaid while the private insurance raise their costs to cover the tariffs plus a little.

So now pharma has more money and so does insurance w which to buy more influence.

Who in this besides us gets screwed?

Not China and India, they ride it out.

Not the PBMs/insurance companies. We already have generics that are tier 3 and prior approval. There will be even more that are tier 3 and prior approval. PBMs are evil, btw. They are middle-middle men.

Pharmacies may get squeezed. Reimbursement on generics is already so low that independent pharmacies are struggling to survive, and the few Rite Aids that were left here in the midwest are now all gone.

Who's left? Patients. They will end up holding the bag. And that really pisses me off.

For about five minutes the administration realized that we subsidize the rest of the world by paying higher prices for prescription pharmaceuticals here in the US. I've been saying this for at least 20 years. I thought that something positive might happen. But it only lasted five minutes.

 

[RxCowboy]

I've spent my entire career helping the poor, underserved, and veterans. I love my work. But this could do me in.