US needs an open market for generic medications. The fact that insulin, discovered 100 years ago and without patent, can be subjected to price changes like those described in this video is only possible because there is an oligopoly with limited companies supplying the goods. The fact that these three companies agree on increasing and reducing the prices as they want, is a sign that this is not an open market. Insulin should be widely available at low prices... same as you can get aspirin and acetaminophen.
The insulin that is available now is an improvement on the insulin that was available 100 years ago, significantly so. But I agree, there needs to be an actual free market system. The extension of patents that drug companies are allowed should be removed from the books.
Actually this raises a good point, why exactly can you not buy insulin over the counter like aspirin? It's not addictive and taking it when you shouldn't has about the same risks as taking many other things.
@@setcheck67 It's a very dangerous medication if used incorrectly. Diabetes isn't a treat yourself at home condition. If it isn't monitored by doctors, the disease and mortality rate would be absolutely catastrophic. There's no issue with it being prescription only, not over the counter. The only issue is the scripted price. There's no reason scripted medicines need to be super expensive.
It is a cartel, yes, an economic cartel. All parties are involved, the government does not regulate them because of "LOBBYING" the formal way of saying corruption.
but funnily other countries have so much cheaper than the us. So does us have a secret formula, that other countries don't.??. like most developed countries insulin price is below 10 usd .@@dovh49
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India🎉🎉
We could also stand to remove certain regulations, like import restrictions that lessen competition. If insulin (of equivalent quality) is being sold in Canada/Europe/etc. for 1/10th the price, it's illegal to import it.
Canada doesn't allow for the export of drugs to other countries if it would cause a shortage to Canada or cause re-sell by another at a higher price, and the US systems has lots of go-betweens to the customer. Plus, Canada's supply is much too small to supply the USA>
@@silverbird425 Then those regulations should go as well. I'm sure there'd be Canadians willing to sell at (for example) 300% their market price if an American on the other end were to pay 15% of theirs.
The Canadian government is the buyer and get a price for the amount of drugs according to the contract at the lower price. Buying beyond the contract is at a much higher price if Canada can get it at all. Anyone else in Canada will also not be guaranteed lower price or supply
Of course, the US leads the way. How can the pharmaceutical board members and investors afford their yachts and private jets without high medication prices? I mean, yachts and private jets are more important and should be prioritized than the lives of the lower and middle classes, right?
@@muriloscarpa284Capitalism involves a free market. There is no free market when these folks are the only ones allowed by law to sell and distribute drugs.
Things ARE changing, although gradually, like the video mentioned at the end. Many drugs' prices have already been and are being negotiated w/governmental regulation, especially the common, old ones that the companies keep using the patent extension tactics on.
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India❤🎉
@@tibiademon9157 Health in the US is a luxury. Get people addicted to sugar, give them diabetes, sell the yearly supply of the medication at 5x the average yearly wage
When i used to work in the insurance company I saw hiw the PBM decide on the prices and how the patients had suffer. One day the guardian of a patient told me that if she doesn't get the drug her husband will die and it was not covered under the plan she did appeal as well. I felt really bad, I tried to reach out to my sups but no one listened to me. Incidents such as these shook me and left the job. Although I am jobless now but I atleast feel less guilty.
I’m honestly worried that when my brother who has bipolar turns 26 will not have insurance and/or the money to buy the medication that keeps him sane. I’m worried for my sister who doesn’t have insurance and can’t afford to get the medication for her health issues. I’m worried that when I turn 26 I won’t have insurance and won’t be able to afford my necessary medications too. This system is so messed up. We need universal healthcare
@butter-biscuit2248 I'm guessing you live in the US like I do. Without insurance, the cheapest prescription prices I've found are through Walmart's $4/month pills (certain drugs only, but their list includes mental health drugs) and using GoodRx. Options for health insurance include state-provided insurance, Medicaid, and Obamacare/Health Insurance Marketplace. There are also sliding scale health clinics (often run by non-profits) that might include pharmacies. For anyone outside the US reading this: The US system is complicated and horrific on purpose. :-(
I work for a hospital pharmacy at one of the main hospital systems in northeastern US and this sounds like what I hear on a daily basis, especially bc I work in the specialty med sector🤦🏾♀️😭. When patients call and say they can’t afford their medications, I feel for them bc these prices are outrageous
@@DudesWithACamera all countries have drawbacks but healthcare should be a human right so even though SA has multiple issues it's a decent place to live
@@chickfila7nugget The gdp per capita is less than 10k is south africa. The U.S. GPD/Capita in the poorest state in the U.S. is conservatively 5x that. Its not all about money, but south africa in a myriad of ways is a borderline failed state with pockets of wealth hiring private military to protect themselves. This is all a google search away.
@@AtlanticZoo well i guess you’re right on economics sure money is omnipresent in our daily lives but my main point is that healthcare should be a human right and that everyone should have access to it the US is the biggest economic powerhouse but it has the most expensive healthcare, so many your run-of-the-mill Americans can’t afford it. I think you’ve heard the term “medical tourism” before
I remember when it was not legal to advertise a medication. I feel that prices increased after this law was ended in the 1990s. I curious how this has affecteded the price of drugs and insurance.
I ask the pharmacy to run my meds against coupons. I have a couple of prescriptions that the insurance company doesn't cover as well as others. On more than half of them, I save money, and every bit helps.
A large amount of this is due to the way insurance works. I know someone who is a sibling of a doctor and when asked how they decide how much to charge for their services and drugs, they replied with saying that they simply charge a little bit more than last time and keep doing so until insurance pushes back. This means that insurance actually causes the base price to go up and they have to charge the regular person that is not insured. Roughly that amount or else insurance will complain because they're not actually giving their clients a discount at that point
Instead of ranting about issues that don't concern most Americans, politicians should run on issues like this, which can determine the health, life and death of many people in the US
They won't because pharmaceutical companies donate generously to both political parties. It's why I always find it amusing when Americans argue vehemently to vote for one party over the other, when every election cycle important issues like these are completely neglected.
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India
It's done by ignoring patents, which basically means stealing off the people who spent billions developing the drug. That's a reasonable reaction to the cases where the companies have already had a return on their investment but is unjust otherwise
Coming from someone with severe asthma since I was a kid, I have always held a deeply seated hatred and disgust for the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The cost of asthma control medications, that without make life miserable and extremely limited, is outrageous and always has been. Advair is over $500 a month, the generic version that came out much, much later is around $100 a month. So many people suffer because they can't afford a product that cost it's manufacturer's significantly less. Sickening.
You never were. You've just never bothered to see what other countries do. You're too busy shopping in the mall while drinking your unnecesarily gigantic and sugar-loaded starbucks "coffee", if one can call that coffee at all.
It’s called Greed. That’s why it’s expensive. Companies, They are Not your friends, they don’t care about people or their health. It’s all about Money.
The claim about the us "sees the most drug development" does not have a source. But most statistics that claim it include the "developments" of changing a small part of it in order to extend patents. For many medical corporations in the us, it's a large part if not even a majority of their "development" budget. So it is slightly misleading
I would like to provide constructive feedback for TedEd: I love your videos and rarely miss one. But sometimes (and this video is a good example of it), you prefer to make visuals that are dynamic and engaging instead of making them clear and helpful for the audience. In contrast, when you submit Riddles, it's the opposite: the visuals are more static and organized, making complex concepts easier to understand. Not every piece needs to move around, transform, and zoom in and out. Maybe a Vein diagram doesn't need to be reshaped and rotated several times. Maybe a graph could just sit on screen for a couple of seconds while people understand it. Thank you for considering my feedback, and please keep those videos coming!
Hey, I love yall's video. I just got recommanded some of your old riddle videos and thought that they were great. Maybe yall ought to make a new riddle video ?
It’s nice to have anti competition regulations, and release of old versions of products because that would no longer be patented and cannot sue on similarity
2 หลายเดือนก่อน
In my country Vietnam, some people believe that all pharmacy companies agreeded to limit the cancer curing medicine in order to keep the price high. So where are all cancer medicines now, my ignorance people?
Madness. Thanks to these industrial moves, here in Brazil we live in a dilemma, with the devaluation of our currency, the import of medicine to save 1 life costs the equivalent of the lives of 100 other families, thanks to the exorbitant prices. The dilemma is that sometimes, the government fails to feed 100 families, in favor of 1 baby with "bone disease"~😔
Here in Brazil, the general outlook is better. We have the SUS, Unified Health System, which has shortcomings but is completely free and even covers expensive procedures. On the medication side, there are more problems. We have Anvisa, a government agency that should supervise the sector. The problem is that it was quickly captured by market agents. In short, it is quite ineffective in its mission. For expensive medicines, laboratories have developed a "promotional" practice. If the buyer responds to a questionnaire, or not even that, they receive a discount of up to 50% compared to the full price. The cat's leap: this is a liberality of the laboratory. If they ask for a price increase and Anvisa does not grant it, they cancel the promotion. This way they are always guaranteed the next raise. Conclusion: the biggest drug traffickers live in Switzerland...
@@LoraLoibu , em português: Sistema Único de Saúde. As siglas de nomes em inglês também são diferentes em português. NATO é OTAN, por exemplo. Questão simples.
@@LoraLoibu SUS means Sitema Único de Saúde, this is a great deal on paper, unfortunately, in reality has many flaws. Our governement is corrupted, as well as the population in general. Countries like that are doomed to fail. I am Brazilian, but I understand English too.
three reason why medicines get expensive there in america are: private medicines trading businesses are labled as illegal drug smuggling and they are seized by government, more deaths means less people to pay, finally lot of high skilled workers immigrate from other countries
It's not about profit.. it's about insatiable greed.. let's get that right and accurate.. Nothing wrong about earning profit because every business needs profit to continue operating... The biggest problem in US is the INSATIABLE GREED in these corporations that ruined the lives of Americans..
What about if i don't live in a third world country like America, where healthcare is free and i dont need to remortgage my house if someone calls me an ambulance?
I can’t talk for other pharma companies, but the one I work for has a good reason for its price of plasma based medicines. It costs so much from my own point of view of taking the separated plasma and then refining it down to a usable form with all the water, energy, and specific materials used to make ~240L per batch. That doesn’t include the donation workers, the area that separates the plasma, the sterile filling areas, or the shipping costs. Almost makes sense why it’s $60,000 a Liter
But it would be lower if there weren't shareholders to reward. Imagine if national health services, government agencies etc. researched, manufactured and distributed medicine? They'd need to cover costs and that's it. Health and capitalism really shouldn't mix.
This video REALLY downplays the role of the government in the high drug prices in the US. The patent system is broken, and is easily manipulated by tweaking medications slightly so that they fall under a new patent, and so the protection period is extended, and so is the corporation’s monopoly on it’s distribution. The government’s largest health care organization (Medicare) is FORBIDDEN to negotiate for better prices for its drugs (and insurance company’s follow their example). The problem is not capitalism, but the lack of it by corporations “being in bed with” the government when it is to their benefit. Too often, problems like this are met with calls for MORE government regulation, but that only has the effect of further restricting who can distribute the drugs, driving prices up even more. Markets should be opened up (including importing from foreign countries) to increase competition, and the patent system should be reformed so that insignificant changes to a drug result in a totally new patent (and protection period).
I am pewtty sure tweakes already result in a new patent not extending the old. And inporting meditation wouldnt help. Simple cuz the sellers. Benefit for the current system. And a normal person cannot really buy drug in other contries And ship it, even if the us allow it. Most other control would not allow it. The solution most countries to this problem is some firm og legitimation sorry.
@@martinkalum910 Nobody expects individual consumers to buy medication from other countries. The point is that if restrictions are loosened, it would allow for companies to import medication in bulk and thus sell it at lower prices.
2 great institutions to make a great profit in the US: education and healthcare. And I don't mean teachers, nurses, therapists... etc. I mean starting a business in both fields.
I feel like cheaper medication would benefit many at the cost of reduced R&D efforts. How much do countries with affordable medication spend on R&D and how often do they develop newer more effective drugs? If we make medication cheap and widely available by making the government negotiate and force companies to keep prices down, at what cost to research will that be?
R&D is mostly funded by the taxpayers, and most of the cost isn't even going to the manufacturers anymore. It's going to intermediaries who didn't do anything to develop the drug.
living in malaysia where we are not a rich country but I get my highly regulated, expensive medications basically for free. If you're sick here, you can go to the normal government clinic for RM1 (0.25 USD) and get consultation+medicines. Want to get more details from specialist? pay RM5 (1.15 USD) for government hospital, you can get consultation from experts and medicines as well. No, we don't need health insurance to get all these benefits. God bless our healthcare.
@@m136dalie and by underlying issue you mean artificially inflated price, because the drug companies have a cartel agreement about it? and regarding your earlier statement, in the corporate world, the PR matters only if it affects the bottom line, which is almost always the only thing that drives decisions, the exception being government regulations
Interesting how you use words like "ideally" and "theoretically". I am not saying reform does not need to occur, but their is a reason why more innovation takes place in USA (your words not mine) than anywhere else as most companies re-invest profits into R&D. Rather than advocating for more government control, how about simply decreasing the lengths and ability to manipulate dosages to extend patents? That would allow for more competition and still foster competition. Competition will lead to lower prices and better products. I love how people think government is the entity that just has money to burn. Where do you think they would get the money to subsidize drug costs and research? It is probably through taxes. In addition, increasing the government oversight would likely just increase the amount of people bouncing between the private and public sector in that sector and taking care of those that take care of them. Open the market up more to generics and competition, don't regulate it. We do not need more bureaucracy.
They are busy working: developing better treatments to prevent and treat cancers. Cancer is more like saying auto-immune disease - it is not one condition but hundreds. We have HPV vaccines which will reduce cervical & other cancers, we have leukaemia treatments that have massively increased survival rates for teenage leukaemia, we have new immunotherapy drugs curing people who would have been terminal a few years ago ...
US is regarded as one of the top countries that values democracy the most, then why can't citizens say to politicians enough is enough, if you are not going to do something to reduce medicine price then you are not going to get their vote. In a thrid world country that may not have any impact but this is US!!!
This is an important subject, but the animations often detracted from the message. I turned the screen away so I could follow the narration more easily. My wife was prescribed a generic medication by her doctor to help her with the expense, but the insurance company refused to cover it, and switched the medication before the prescription arrived at the pharmacy, which also affected the dose (but they tried to sell us the new medication with the doctor's original dosage). Stuff like that can literally kill people, and the leaders of pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies should be charged with attempted murder every time they do that. We ended up buying the generic drug without using our insurance because it was cheaper... but then why tf do we pay for insurance? What a scam.
honestly, if it costs $6 to make a vile of insulin, why dont they charge say $8.50 for a pack of 12 or somthing as if they did that they still would probably make more than enough of a profit to stay in business sidenote: IF OUT TAX MONEY IS GOING INTO THE DRUGS IN SOME WAY, WE SHOULD NOT LET THEM DO THIS INHUMANE BS, just has to make that abundently clear
A vial costs about 9 dollars to the NHS in the UK, so that's a good estimate of the appropriate price in this case. It must be said that for rarer drugs (which would have a smaller distribution) they might need a bigger profit margin to justify research and development (which won't necessarily change price)
thank goodness these companies aren’t allowed to give money to the government so that they don’t create legislation that lowers the costs of their drugs!
That's why, we need to have a healthy lifestyle to avoid paying such high costs. Whole food, exercise and sleep, just paying attention to these three will guarantee you less medical bill. God bless!
It's simple. People either pay up whatever they say, or die. It's like robbing a bank, you demand 100k and they give it to you no problem because they don't have a choice, so you say you actually want 200k, and they either pay or die. Same situation, same crime, in my eyes at least.
This is where lifestyle medicine comes in to rescue. I am, along with many physicians, studying functional nutrition so that we DO NOT have to depend on medication for non-communicable diseases. Let food be thy medicine!
Kudos to the narrator for staying calm and not explode in anger while narrating this.
US needs an open market for generic medications. The fact that insulin, discovered 100 years ago and without patent, can be subjected to price changes like those described in this video is only possible because there is an oligopoly with limited companies supplying the goods. The fact that these three companies agree on increasing and reducing the prices as they want, is a sign that this is not an open market. Insulin should be widely available at low prices... same as you can get aspirin and acetaminophen.
The insulin that is available now is an improvement on the insulin that was available 100 years ago, significantly so. But I agree, there needs to be an actual free market system. The extension of patents that drug companies are allowed should be removed from the books.
Actually this raises a good point, why exactly can you not buy insulin over the counter like aspirin? It's not addictive and taking it when you shouldn't has about the same risks as taking many other things.
@@setcheck67 It's a very dangerous medication if used incorrectly. Diabetes isn't a treat yourself at home condition. If it isn't monitored by doctors, the disease and mortality rate would be absolutely catastrophic. There's no issue with it being prescription only, not over the counter. The only issue is the scripted price. There's no reason scripted medicines need to be super expensive.
It is a cartel, yes, an economic cartel.
All parties are involved, the government does not regulate them because of "LOBBYING" the formal way of saying corruption.
but funnily other countries have so much cheaper than the us. So does us have a secret formula, that other countries don't.??. like most developed countries insulin price is below 10 usd
.@@dovh49
Short answer: Profits
Long answer: 0:00 - 5:20
Short answer: capitalism.
Long answer: capitalism.
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India🎉🎉
It's all about the money...always.
and to indoctrinate them into thinking anything other than capitalism is horrible while looting them using the same system lmao
Americans should lose some ego and learn from other countries for their own good.
Well that’s pure capitalism for you
AND GREED. GREEDY EXECUTIVES WHO WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH
in this case not mere money, but profit
We could also stand to remove certain regulations, like import restrictions that lessen competition. If insulin (of equivalent quality) is being sold in Canada/Europe/etc. for 1/10th the price, it's illegal to import it.
Canada doesn't allow for the export of drugs to other countries if it would cause a shortage to Canada or cause re-sell by another at a higher price, and the US systems has lots of go-betweens to the customer. Plus, Canada's supply is much too small to supply the USA>
@@silverbird425 Then those regulations should go as well. I'm sure there'd be Canadians willing to sell at (for example) 300% their market price if an American on the other end were to pay 15% of theirs.
The Canadian government is the buyer and get a price for the amount of drugs according to the contract at the lower price. Buying beyond the contract is at a much higher price if Canada can get it at all. Anyone else in Canada will also not be guaranteed lower price or supply
Of course, the US leads the way. How can the pharmaceutical board members and investors afford their yachts and private jets without high medication prices? I mean, yachts and private jets are more important and should be prioritized than the lives of the lower and middle classes, right?
Welcome to capitalism
God, I love America
@@muriloscarpa284 but there are other capitalist countries that dont have this problem.
@@josephmoffett8459yeah but they explore or have explored others that do have this problem
@@muriloscarpa284Capitalism involves a free market. There is no free market when these folks are the only ones allowed by law to sell and distribute drugs.
I like how we have been on this topic for over 20 years yet here we are with nothing changed.
There has been change. Price caps on insulin for seniors on Medicare in the US were brought into effect last year. It's a start.
@@DuchessofEarlGreyYes, thanks to the democrats, thank to the Senator I voted for here in Georgia.
@@austinhernandez2716 More can be done. Vote blue.
Things ARE changing, although gradually, like the video mentioned at the end. Many drugs' prices have already been and are being negotiated w/governmental regulation, especially the common, old ones that the companies keep using the patent extension tactics on.
Nov 6th. Well. So much for all that. Well done, America. You are determined to swan dive into oblivion.
Medication shouldn't be a Luxury, it should be basic human right
Healthcare should be a basic human right.
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India❤🎉
Well we just voted against that
“They are doing it because they can”
i see you are using your channel's reach to actually change the world into a better place and raise awareness for real problems. thank you!
Ignorance, Greed, and Cruelty, those are the three reasons.
Those exist in every country, only in the US is medicine so expensive
@@tibiademon9157 Health in the US is a luxury. Get people addicted to sugar, give them diabetes, sell the yearly supply of the medication at 5x the average yearly wage
Capitalism
those are not the three reasons
@@bilalsalameh440 Yea the three reasons are Red scare, red scare, red scare
When i used to work in the insurance company I saw hiw the PBM decide on the prices and how the patients had suffer. One day the guardian of a patient told me that if she doesn't get the drug her husband will die and it was not covered under the plan she did appeal as well. I felt really bad, I tried to reach out to my sups but no one listened to me. Incidents such as these shook me and left the job. Although I am jobless now but I atleast feel less guilty.
Canadian physician: Here! take this for $1 my new invention
USA Big Pharma: that will be $2,550 plus taxes
I’m honestly worried that when my brother who has bipolar turns 26 will not have insurance and/or the money to buy the medication that keeps him sane. I’m worried for my sister who doesn’t have insurance and can’t afford to get the medication for her health issues. I’m worried that when I turn 26 I won’t have insurance and won’t be able to afford my necessary medications too.
This system is so messed up. We need universal healthcare
God help and Bless all of You, Amen In Jesus Christ Our Lord name Bro ❤️🙏🙌🤲🤲⛪🤲❤️🙌🙏😍
Try medical tourism… india might have cheaper alternatives
@butter-biscuit2248
I'm guessing you live in the US like I do. Without insurance, the cheapest prescription prices I've found are through Walmart's $4/month pills (certain drugs only, but their list includes mental health drugs) and using GoodRx. Options for health insurance include state-provided insurance, Medicaid, and Obamacare/Health Insurance Marketplace. There are also sliding scale health clinics (often run by non-profits) that might include pharmacies. For anyone outside the US reading this: The US system is complicated and horrific on purpose. :-(
The United States is a giant circus.
I work for a hospital pharmacy at one of the main hospital systems in northeastern US and this sounds like what I hear on a daily basis, especially bc I work in the specialty med sector🤦🏾♀️😭. When patients call and say they can’t afford their medications, I feel for them bc these prices are outrageous
We need to raise more awareness about this. Great video!
Gotta say, great animation on this one. Kudos to you Irem Usta! 👏
grateful to live in South Africa, we have issues, but quality healthcare is affordable!
Except the high crime and racism so yeah great place haha
@@DudesWithACamera that's literally the U.S you're describing
@@DudesWithACamera all countries have drawbacks
but healthcare should be a human right so even though SA has multiple issues it's a decent place to live
@@chickfila7nugget The gdp per capita is less than 10k is south africa. The U.S. GPD/Capita in the poorest state in the U.S. is conservatively 5x that. Its not all about money, but south africa in a myriad of ways is a borderline failed state with pockets of wealth hiring private military to protect themselves. This is all a google search away.
@@AtlanticZoo well i guess you’re right on economics
sure money is omnipresent in our daily lives but my main point is that healthcare should be a human right and that everyone should have access to it
the US is the biggest economic powerhouse but it has the most expensive healthcare, so many your run-of-the-mill Americans can’t afford it. I think you’ve heard the term “medical tourism” before
I remember when it was not legal to advertise a medication. I feel that prices increased after this law was ended in the 1990s. I curious how this has affecteded the price of drugs and insurance.
I ask the pharmacy to run my meds against coupons. I have a couple of prescriptions that the insurance company doesn't cover as well as others. On more than half of them, I save money, and every bit helps.
A large amount of this is due to the way insurance works. I know someone who is a sibling of a doctor and when asked how they decide how much to charge for their services and drugs, they replied with saying that they simply charge a little bit more than last time and keep doing so until insurance pushes back. This means that insurance actually causes the base price to go up and they have to charge the regular person that is not insured. Roughly that amount or else insurance will complain because they're not actually giving their clients a discount at that point
medication pricing and the constant drug advertisements we are bombarded with in the US are really despicable
Instead of ranting about issues that don't concern most Americans, politicians should run on issues like this, which can determine the health, life and death of many people in the US
They won't because pharmaceutical companies donate generously to both political parties. It's why I always find it amusing when Americans argue vehemently to vote for one party over the other, when every election cycle important issues like these are completely neglected.
@@m136dalier/enlightenedcentrism
as someone who just started working in pharmaceuticals, im livid at the prices that people are forced to pay to feel better
The world should thank India for reducing the prices of all these drugs by making generic versions. And in forums like WTO, the pharma backed US govt fights against India
You Indian?
It's done by ignoring patents, which basically means stealing off the people who spent billions developing the drug. That's a reasonable reaction to the cases where the companies have already had a return on their investment but is unjust otherwise
By the way, the name is wrong in the opening quote. It's 'Jing LUO', not "Jing LOU'
Coming from someone with severe asthma since I was a kid, I have always held a deeply seated hatred and disgust for the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The cost of asthma control medications, that without make life miserable and extremely limited, is outrageous and always has been. Advair is over $500 a month, the generic version that came out much, much later is around $100 a month. So many people suffer because they can't afford a product that cost it's manufacturer's significantly less. Sickening.
Grateful for being 🇲🇾
Once again, this proves we aren’t as excellent a country as we once thought. (Not a MAGA post)
You never were. You've just never bothered to see what other countries do. You're too busy shopping in the mall while drinking your unnecesarily gigantic and sugar-loaded starbucks "coffee", if one can call that coffee at all.
You were sold American exceptionalism and you got so high that you couldn’t see the plain truth
@@samuelndara I’ve known this for years. Thanks for your unsolicited opinion
@@patrickcheesman Wait, so you can say it, but nobody else can?
@@julianblake8385We didn’t start the fire. Please listen to it. Why can’t we just stop blaming others and just get along please??
Very informative, great video!
doesn't the animation on this channel just keep getting better
It’s called Greed. That’s why it’s expensive. Companies, They are Not your friends, they don’t care about people or their health. It’s all about Money.
The claim about the us "sees the most drug development" does not have a source. But most statistics that claim it include the "developments" of changing a small part of it in order to extend patents. For many medical corporations in the us, it's a large part if not even a majority of their "development" budget. So it is slightly misleading
Great topic, I'm happy to see such an urgent theme covered here.
Thank God for Indian Policy,here companies can create cheaper alternative
Fr
indians make everything about india tears
Absolutely!
And the generic drugs provided by Jan ausadhi Kendra are game changers.
Yeah nevermind the crippling poverty and crime rates haha
Didnt Prices of 11 Meds rise by 50% here last week?
Cheaper and absolutely less scummy tactics by pharmas than US tho
I would like to provide constructive feedback for TedEd: I love your videos and rarely miss one. But sometimes (and this video is a good example of it), you prefer to make visuals that are dynamic and engaging instead of making them clear and helpful for the audience. In contrast, when you submit Riddles, it's the opposite: the visuals are more static and organized, making complex concepts easier to understand.
Not every piece needs to move around, transform, and zoom in and out. Maybe a Vein diagram doesn't need to be reshaped and rotated several times. Maybe a graph could just sit on screen for a couple of seconds while people understand it.
Thank you for considering my feedback, and please keep those videos coming!
Hey, I love yall's video. I just got recommanded some of your old riddle videos and thought that they were great. Maybe yall ought to make a new riddle video ?
It’s nice to have anti competition regulations, and release of old versions of products because that would no longer be patented and cannot sue on similarity
In my country Vietnam, some people believe that all pharmacy companies agreeded to limit the cancer curing medicine in order to keep the price high. So where are all cancer medicines now, my ignorance people?
Thanks for this video
I have type 1 diabetes and here in italy insulin is free. Stuff like this should be standard.
Madness. Thanks to these industrial moves, here in Brazil we live in a dilemma, with the devaluation of our currency, the import of medicine to save 1 life costs the equivalent of the lives of 100 other families, thanks to the exorbitant prices. The dilemma is that sometimes, the government fails to feed 100 families, in favor of 1 baby with "bone disease"~😔
2:08 we saw you put the tape on perpendicular to the slot, thanks for fixing it a few seconds after at least .w.
Here in Brazil, the general outlook is better. We have the SUS, Unified Health System, which has shortcomings but is completely free and even covers expensive procedures. On the medication side, there are more problems. We have Anvisa, a government agency that should supervise the sector. The problem is that it was quickly captured by market agents. In short, it is quite ineffective in its mission. For expensive medicines, laboratories have developed a "promotional" practice. If the buyer responds to a questionnaire, or not even that, they receive a discount of up to 50% compared to the full price. The cat's leap: this is a liberality of the laboratory. If they ask for a price increase and Anvisa does not grant it, they cancel the promotion. This way they are always guaranteed the next raise. Conclusion: the biggest drug traffickers live in Switzerland...
why is it called "SUS" WHY DOES THAT ACCURSED GAME HAVE ALLUSIONS EVERYWHERE-
btw I speak portuguese, feel free to just dump the full name on me
@@LoraLoibu , em português: Sistema Único de Saúde. As siglas de nomes em inglês também são diferentes em português. NATO é OTAN, por exemplo. Questão simples.
@@LoraLoibu SUS means Sitema Único de Saúde, this is a great deal on paper, unfortunately, in reality has many flaws. Our governement is corrupted, as well as the population in general. Countries like that are doomed to fail. I am Brazilian, but I understand English too.
@@arnaldorentes5371 Eu sei sobe a NATO/OTAN, só não sabia da SUS pq sou português
@@LoraLoibu , sem problema.
Somebody make a copy before this gets taken down.
If so, very few people can have assess to medication
Goes back in time, “Mr Fredrick stop that sale!”
three reason why medicines get expensive there in america are: private medicines trading businesses are labled as illegal drug smuggling and they are seized by government, more deaths means less people to pay, finally lot of high skilled workers immigrate from other countries
I'm very glad that medicines for asthma in my country is relatively affordable.
It's not about profit.. it's about insatiable greed.. let's get that right and accurate..
Nothing wrong about earning profit because every business needs profit to continue operating...
The biggest problem in US is the INSATIABLE GREED in these corporations that ruined the lives of Americans..
Almost all countries know that affordable healthcare is essential for every person. I just can't understand why the USA is not one of them
Because Republicans own corporations.
Some company patented the cap so no other company could put theirs on the market and then raised prices
What about if i don't live in a third world country like America, where healthcare is free and i dont need to remortgage my house if someone calls me an ambulance?
I can’t talk for other pharma companies, but the one I work for has a good reason for its price of plasma based medicines. It costs so much from my own point of view of taking the separated plasma and then refining it down to a usable form with all the water, energy, and specific materials used to make ~240L per batch. That doesn’t include the donation workers, the area that separates the plasma, the sterile filling areas, or the shipping costs. Almost makes sense why it’s $60,000 a Liter
But it would be lower if there weren't shareholders to reward. Imagine if national health services, government agencies etc. researched, manufactured and distributed medicine? They'd need to cover costs and that's it. Health and capitalism really shouldn't mix.
@@nurserynook It wouldn't have existed
What's the name of the song in the beginning
the fact that medication to simple have a decent quality of life can cost more than college tuition is insane
Without a country as a whole negotiating the price, it's never gonna be affordable
Excellent animation
This video REALLY downplays the role of the government in the high drug prices in the US. The patent system is broken, and is easily manipulated by tweaking medications slightly so that they fall under a new patent, and so the protection period is extended, and so is the corporation’s monopoly on it’s distribution. The government’s largest health care organization (Medicare) is FORBIDDEN to negotiate for better prices for its drugs (and insurance company’s follow their example). The problem is not capitalism, but the lack of it by corporations “being in bed with” the government when it is to their benefit. Too often, problems like this are met with calls for MORE government regulation, but that only has the effect of further restricting who can distribute the drugs, driving prices up even more. Markets should be opened up (including importing from foreign countries) to increase competition, and the patent system should be reformed so that insignificant changes to a drug result in a totally new patent (and protection period).
I am pewtty sure tweakes already result in a new patent not extending the old. And inporting meditation wouldnt help. Simple cuz the sellers. Benefit for the current system. And a normal person cannot really buy drug in other contries And ship it, even if the us allow it. Most other control would not allow it. The solution most countries to this problem is some firm og legitimation sorry.
@@martinkalum910 Nobody expects individual consumers to buy medication from other countries. The point is that if restrictions are loosened, it would allow for companies to import medication in bulk and thus sell it at lower prices.
2 great institutions to make a great profit in the US: education and healthcare. And I don't mean teachers, nurses, therapists... etc. I mean starting a business in both fields.
How many times does it say drug or drugs in this vid?
I feel like cheaper medication would benefit many at the cost of reduced R&D efforts. How much do countries with affordable medication spend on R&D and how often do they develop newer more effective drugs? If we make medication cheap and widely available by making the government negotiate and force companies to keep prices down, at what cost to research will that be?
R&D is mostly funded by the taxpayers, and most of the cost isn't even going to the manufacturers anymore. It's going to intermediaries who didn't do anything to develop the drug.
living in malaysia where we are not a rich country but I get my highly regulated, expensive medications basically for free. If you're sick here, you can go to the normal government clinic for RM1 (0.25 USD) and get consultation+medicines. Want to get more details from specialist? pay RM5 (1.15 USD) for government hospital, you can get consultation from experts and medicines as well. No, we don't need health insurance to get all these benefits. God bless our healthcare.
How ted ed how do you make good animations lesson your the best ❤❤
just out of curiosity - why did "one of the largest insulin manufacturers" substantially decrease its price?
Probably because it's bad PR that people in the richest country on the planet are dying from a lack of access to basic medicines
@@m136dalie are you sure it does not have anything to do with Biden's price cap on insulin? 🙂
@@palid11 Price caps are a band-aid that do nothing to solve the underlying issue
@@m136dalie and by underlying issue you mean artificially inflated price, because the drug companies have a cartel agreement about it? and regarding your earlier statement, in the corporate world, the PR matters only if it affects the bottom line, which is almost always the only thing that drives decisions, the exception being government regulations
When a system is so obscure and complicated that only the richest can pull out money from it
Interesting how you use words like "ideally" and "theoretically". I am not saying reform does not need to occur, but their is a reason why more innovation takes place in USA (your words not mine) than anywhere else as most companies re-invest profits into R&D. Rather than advocating for more government control, how about simply decreasing the lengths and ability to manipulate dosages to extend patents? That would allow for more competition and still foster competition. Competition will lead to lower prices and better products. I love how people think government is the entity that just has money to burn. Where do you think they would get the money to subsidize drug costs and research? It is probably through taxes. In addition, increasing the government oversight would likely just increase the amount of people bouncing between the private and public sector in that sector and taking care of those that take care of them. Open the market up more to generics and competition, don't regulate it. We do not need more bureaucracy.
Drug companies are ripping us off big time. I live in Mexico and the pharmaceuticals are EXTREMELY affordable.
who is jing lou?
I wonder what happened to all the people who attempted to make a cure to cancer.
Nothing. There cant be a cure, that's not how cancer works.
They are busy working: developing better treatments to prevent and treat cancers. Cancer is more like saying auto-immune disease - it is not one condition but hundreds. We have HPV vaccines which will reduce cervical & other cancers, we have leukaemia treatments that have massively increased survival rates for teenage leukaemia, we have new immunotherapy drugs curing people who would have been terminal a few years ago ...
Steve Jobs was a billionaire and if it existed he would have taken the magical cancer cure. But he didn't because that cure doesn't exist.
Very interesting
Greed greed and oh yeah greed
Someone should just make insulin in their backyard, get it FDA approved and sell for cheap. They'd get a lot more customers.
US is regarded as one of the top countries that values democracy the most, then why can't citizens say to politicians enough is enough, if you are not going to do something to reduce medicine price then you are not going to get their vote. In a thrid world country that may not have any impact but this is US!!!
This is an important subject, but the animations often detracted from the message. I turned the screen away so I could follow the narration more easily.
My wife was prescribed a generic medication by her doctor to help her with the expense, but the insurance company refused to cover it, and switched the medication before the prescription arrived at the pharmacy, which also affected the dose (but they tried to sell us the new medication with the doctor's original dosage). Stuff like that can literally kill people, and the leaders of pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies should be charged with attempted murder every time they do that. We ended up buying the generic drug without using our insurance because it was cheaper... but then why tf do we pay for insurance? What a scam.
money > lives
Supply & Demand don't equitably balance in an unregulated market. Demand is infinite because people don't wanna die
It’s really a mystery how people in the US even survive.
No wonder that Eli lily has a market cap of more than 800 billion US dollars
honestly, if it costs $6 to make a vile of insulin, why dont they charge say $8.50 for a pack of 12 or somthing as if they did that they still would probably make more than enough of a profit to stay in business
sidenote: IF OUT TAX MONEY IS GOING INTO THE DRUGS IN SOME WAY, WE SHOULD NOT LET THEM DO THIS INHUMANE BS, just has to make that abundently clear
A vial costs about 9 dollars to the NHS in the UK, so that's a good estimate of the appropriate price in this case. It must be said that for rarer drugs (which would have a smaller distribution) they might need a bigger profit margin to justify research and development (which won't necessarily change price)
wonderful
what are those high pitched sounds starting from 1:50 , that was pretty irritating
thank goodness these companies aren’t allowed to give money to the government so that they don’t create legislation that lowers the costs of their drugs!
Regulating prices but not structuring the system...
Result of lobbying corrupt politicians
they want money, simple as that.
Hmm "ideally", one of my favorite words. Somehow it always feels more like a caveat lol
Its insane that this is a normal thing in the US
That's why, we need to have a healthy lifestyle to avoid paying such high costs. Whole food, exercise and sleep, just paying attention to these three will guarantee you less medical bill. God bless!
It won't guarantee it, type 1 diabetes is genetic
The video is nicely animated but some animations are just so complex and distracting and dont help undertand at all.
I can't believe that a society built on greed treats its citizens like this
$96,000 a year 😢 most people’s income isn’t even that much and to put that aside for just your Medicine is just unfair
It's simple. People either pay up whatever they say, or die. It's like robbing a bank, you demand 100k and they give it to you no problem because they don't have a choice, so you say you actually want 200k, and they either pay or die. Same situation, same crime, in my eyes at least.
It’s understandable for new drugs but why insulin ? How on earth insulin is cheaper everywhere but 10 times in US ??
Healthcare should be nationalized, taken out of the hands of corporations whose primary consideration is profit.
This is where lifestyle medicine comes in to rescue. I am, along with many physicians, studying functional nutrition so that we DO NOT have to depend on medication for non-communicable diseases.
Let food be thy medicine!
It's just becuz dollar is one of the valuable currency of the world :)
If I ever get a chronic illness while in the U.S. I’m just gonna make my own. I’m sure there’s a wiki how.
Its all because of Insurance collude with these health conglomerate 😢😢
I couldn’t even finishes this video. I got so angry.