You don’t think SCOTUS will rule this year?
“A quirk in the law” like GOP monsters deliberately refusing free money to provide health care to poor people.
cc: stupid media thread
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It seems unlikely. There aren’t a ton of days left on the SC calendar this year and they are backlogged with COVID cases. Dismantling ACA as the October surprise would be a GOP extinction event so doubt they would ever rule before election day. That leaves basically 3 weeks of November since I have to imagine that if you pay the Dec premium you are good.
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It makes a lot of sense for them to wait until after the election. Roberts can then decide what to do based on the political headwinds and backfill his reasoning, if he wants.
Here is a story nobody will pay attention to that is a fantastic window into the infuriating nature of faceless for profit healthcare firms in this country.
King of Prussia, Pa.-based UHS and UHS of Delaware Inc. agreed to pay $117 million to resolve allegations that UHS facilities knowingly submitted false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Federal Employee Health Benefit programs for inpatient behavioral health services, among other allegations, prosecutors said.
Wow, seems bad. You stole $100 million+ from the government via fraud. I’m sure there is hell to pay, probably jail time, right?
UHS must retain a government-selected independent monitor who will assess patient protections in the company’s behavioral health division and must undergo annual reviews of inpatient behavioral health claims to federal health care programs, prosecutors said.
Devastating. Huge deterrent. Job well done, government.
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Massive disclaimer: I was just a college student and despite all my group’s research, we obviously didn’t have the knowledge that pharma bean counters have…BUT
In college my biggest project in business school was to come up with a product for an existing company and create a marketing and financial analysis for it. It was a big deal and I had an all-star team. We did ours on a hypothetical HIV vaccine for Merck.
Again, we were just college kids, but we factored in massive global donations of the vaccine as well as widespread discounts and the company still made metric fucktons of profit.
I believe it’s pretty normal for Pharm companies to have 30% net profit margins. By comparison my industry freight brokerage is at 1.5-3%. An industry with a top line that large has no business generating those kinds of margins, and it’s only possible in spaces with very very little competition.
Maybe their executives are 10X-20Xsmarter than you?
OHHH SHIT
I laughed so don’t worry I got the joke… but this is something I see too often so I’m going to respond to it like it’s serious.
One thing you rapidly learn when you start to get really good at something is exactly how high the skill cap actually is. I can confidently say that Warren Buffett isn’t 10-20x smarter than me. That’s not because he isn’t smarter than me it’s because I’m dug deep into diminishing returns and the amount of ability/effort it takes to get a notch better is pretty nuts.
And let’s be real for a second on this particular issue our countries IP laws are the real problem. It’s a giant trough where a while bunch of true crony capitalists feed off the basic research pipeline where it leaves public funding.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/JasonCT/status/1289043428513329153
https://mobile.twitter.com/doctorow/status/1289030143906738176
Such bullshit. Love predatory healthcare!
Man this is really something else. There’s a drug produced by Jazz Pharmaceuticals, named Xyrem, which has an active ingredient which they euphemistically call “sodium oxybate”, simply another way of naming sodium gamma-hydroxybutyrate, otherwise known as the street drug GHB. GHB is a neurotransmitter found in human and animal cells. Under normal circumstances it is not permitted to patent a naturally-occurring substance, however since GHB is an illegal drug, this for some reason creates a loophole where Jazz were able to patent it. After a process of being allowed to run trials as a narcolepsy treatment and having the drug approved which I’m sure wasn’t corrupt at all, the FDA granted Jazz a patent on the drug and an exclusive license to sell it. Jazz promptly began selling this drug, which again is a naturally occurring compound in the human body and a very simple molecule which could be manufactured for cents a litre, for $5,000+ for a 180mL bottle, which is enough for 40 days of use.
Narcolepsy is a condition in which the body engages in too much REM sleep and too little deep sleep, resulting in debilitating chronic daytime tiredness. Xyrem/GHB is the only treatment which treats this underlying cause. The only other treatments are simply stimulants for sufferers to take during the day to treat the symptom of tiredness, in the manner of a painkiller.
When you’re running out of patent to sell people part of their own body’s machinery for thousands of dollars a pop, what to do? Not a problem, just engage in a spot of evergreening.
The FDA has approved Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ sleep disorder drug Xywav, to treat daytime sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy, offering a regime with less sodium than standard therapy.
Xywav (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium oxybates) is an oral solution that has been approved in patients aged seven or older with narcolepsy.
Richard Bogan, associate clinical professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and lead investigator of the phase 3 study, said: “Xywav makes it possible for patients to have a lower-sodium oxybate treatment option.
“This may help patients taking sodium oxybate better align with daily sodium intake recommendations including those by the American Heart Association.
“The average American consumes too much sodium. Excess sodium intake has been linked with increases in blood pressure, hypertension, stroke and other cardiovascular disease.”
Wow, thanks Jazz for being so mindful about the fucking sodium intake of users. How is it considered a different drug when you just switch which salt of the goddamn drug you’re using?
Just the most naked possible corruption here, a decade ago Jazz’s stock was trading at $5 and now it trades at $112, and the company exists purely as a means of extorting US consumers out of unreal sums of money for providing a drug they did not develop.
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As an aussie you can surely see the problem right here.
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HYPE!!! That’s awesome. Depressing for the reasons these people note, but that is great news for Missouri.
https://mobile.twitter.com/CarrieCabral2/status/1290964608199655424
Amazing map of Missouri showing where this measure did and did not pass.
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That is about right.
I live right outside of St Louis.
That is so preposterous. $900 a month is rent for a decent apartment in many places ($1,500/mo counting the deductible). How can people not demand better.
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