China Is Striving for the World’s Best, Cheapest Healthcare

[Chhatrapati]

American health care system is day light robbery..... No point in comparing with them....

Very costly....

Chinese have made rapid strides in health care sector especially in last decade.
We hear it from img's in India
Nevertheless it's not as cheap as in india

That's why you need insurance in US. It is although expensive but their median income is higher. So, it's not a huge issue. India maybe cheap for Americans, but not for Indians.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

That's why you need insurance in US. It is although expensive but their median income is higher. So, it's not a huge issue. India maybe cheap for Americans, but not for Indians.

most Americans can't even afford an emergency $500 bill. but the insane Republicans think that's not a big deal. 3.2 million Americans don't even meet UN global absolute poverty standards of $2 per day. but insane Republicans also think that's not a big deal.

can you imagine an Indian government saying that poverty alleviation is not a big deal??

 

[Kaniska]

To me, that's the ultimate human rights, taking care of the well being of one fifth of the humanity, over 1.4 billion souls.

that is true..Due to their expensive cost of living, Healthcare patients and products are always an expensive affair for Asian people

 

[Mista]

Actually Americans are essentially subsidizing the rest of the world’s medical research by paying out really high prices. 17.8% out of $20.5T, that's around $3.7T and it's almost half of the world's healthcare spending ($7.7T), thanks to their fragmented market which increases prices. No country comes near to the US healthcare market, even though the US makes up only 25% of the world's GDP and around 5% of the world's population.

For drugs, they have very high research costs (fixed costs) and low marginal cost to produce. It takes a lot of money, time, effort to come up with new drugs, and even so it may not get the approval. But once it's approved, it's actually quite cheap to produce.

The first drug pill costs a billion dollars to produce, and the second pill onward costs a dollar. So what is the cost on average for producing 2 pills? 3 pills? 1 million pills? 1 billion pills?

As the US makes up almost half of the world's market, they shoulder most of the medical R&D costs in the world. Many of US pharmaceutical companies may then venture overseas, but really their main market is the US.

If the US bulk buys and brings down prices (which for ethical reasons I think they should), it's good for Americans but the global healthcare industry is going to take a beating. This means lesser profits and thus lesser future R&D capital and monetary incentives to innovate, and unless the rest of the world is willing to pay more for healthcare, medical innovations may slow down in the future.

So it's a dilemma. Cheaper prices now (for Americans) or more medical innovations, which is better?

This is a central dilemma in drug pricing policy: Should we trade off some innovation for some access?

Every policy decision comes with trade-offs, and that’s true of regulating drug prices. If the United States began to price regulate drugs, medications would become cheaper. That would mean Americans have more access to drugs but could also expect a decline in research and development of new drugs.

We might have fewer biotech firms starting up, or companies deciding it’s worth bringing a new drug to market.

That might be okay: We might decide as a society that we are willing to trade some level of innovative to lower drug prices and make medication more financially accessible to those who need them right now.

It’s a hard question to think about: Do we want to lower the price of the hepatitis C cure that hit the market for $84,000 — knowing that price controls might lead to less investment in pursuing other cures in the future?

“If you have hepatitis C today, you probably want to have the drug for a cheaper price,” Garthwaite says. “If you have pancreatic cancer today, you probably want to do everything you can to get more money put into the research and development pipeline to cure that disease.”

He adds, “This isn’t an easy question to think about, how much innovation we’re comfortable paying for — or the idea that we might be spending too much on innovation.”

But it’s a conversation that America’s exceptionally high drug prices are forcing us to consider, as drug prices skyrocket — and one in four Americans report trouble paying for their prescription drugs.

Are we, as a country, comfortable paying higher prices for drugs to get more innovation? Or would we trade some of that innovation to make our drugs more accessible to those of all income levels?

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/sc...0/12945756/prescription-drug-prices-explained

One thing for sure, an expanding global economic pie is great for everyone, even if it's other countries which are growing. It's a globalized world, and other countries' growing purchasing power can bring down fixed costs such as R&D, not just for healthcare but for many other areas as well.

And for that, it's good that China with more a billion people is integrating into the global pharmaceutical markets which will bring down fixed costs and benefit everyone, including millions of Americans and Chinese. It's a win-win, and we should be gracious and wish them well.

 

[Dungeness]

Now it sounds like China is tossing away thousands of years of all-natural Traditional Medicine and replacing it with the West's synthetic pill-popping solutions. Yet another vestige of "old" China heading into oblivion in exchange for a Western way of life.

It seems you can always find an angle to badmouth whatever China does, good or bad.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

It seems you can always find an angle to badmouth whatever China does, good or bad.

Hmm...really...then I guess we can chock it up to some poor Chinese role models on here with bad manners who do the same all day. It just naturally rubs off. I can have you added to some persistent Pakistani mod chats that I've been invited into to give my opinion...Mr. Oblivious

View attachment 585481

Actually Americans are essentially subsidizing the rest of the world’s medical research by paying out really high prices. 17.8% out of $20.5T, that's around $3.7T and it's almost half of the world's healthcare spending ($7.7T), thanks to their fragmented market which increases prices. No country comes near to the US healthcare market, even though the US makes up only 25% of the world's GDP and around 5% of the world's population.

For drugs, they have very high research costs (fixed costs) and low marginal cost to produce. It takes a lot of money, time, effort to come up with new drugs, and even so it may not get the approval. But once it's approved, it's actually quite cheap to produce.

The first drug pill costs a billion dollars to produce, and the second pill onward costs a dollar. So what is the cost on average for producing 2 pills? 3 pills? 1 million pills? 1 billion pills?

As the US makes up almost half of the world's market, they shoulder most of the medical R&D costs in the world. Many of US pharmaceutical companies may then venture overseas, but really their main market is the US.

If the US bulk buys and brings down prices (which for ethical reasons I think they should), it's good for Americans but the global healthcare industry is going to take a beating. This means lesser profits and thus lesser future R&D capital and monetary incentives to innovate, and unless the rest of the world is willing to pay more for healthcare, medical innovations may slow down in the future.

So it's a dilemma. Cheaper prices now (for Americans) or more medical innovations, which is better?


https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/sc...0/12945756/prescription-drug-prices-explained

One thing for sure, an expanding global economic pie is great for everyone, even if it's other countries which are growing. It's a globalized world, and other countries' growing purchasing power can bring down fixed costs such as R&D, not just for healthcare but for many other areas as well.

And for that, it's good that China with more a billion people is integrating into the global pharmaceutical markets which will bring down fixed costs and benefit everyone, including millions of Americans and Chinese. It's a win-win, and we should be gracious and wish them well.

Well that certainly is true. The drug costs here are astronomical to pay for current and future R&D. The drugs are then sold overseas at much lower prices. We are also the "test" subjects (although I wouldn't be shocked if they have secret trials in some poor corner of the world too).

 

[8888888888888]

The medical equipment and medicine have to be made in China in order for it to be reliable and cheap.

 

[beijingwalker]

US , India and the whole world now are highly dependent on Chinese drugs.

U.S. officials worried about Chinese control of American drug supply
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-worried-about-chinese-control-american-drug-supply-n1052376

 

[Dungeness]

Hmm...really...then I guess we can chock it up to some poor Chinese role models on here with bad manners who do the same all day. It just naturally rubs off. I can have you added to some persistent Pakistani mod chats that I've been invited into to give my opinion...Mr. Oblivious



Well that certainly is true. The drug costs here are astronomical to pay for current and future R&D. The drugs are then sold overseas at much lower prices. We are also the "test" subjects (although I wouldn't be shocked if they have secret trials in some poor corner of the world too).

I wouldn't follow the "poor role models with bad manners" if I were considered "elite" enough to be invited to chat with some mod, or Mr. Ron Vara.

 

[kris]

That's why you need insurance in US. It is although expensive but their median income is higher. So, it's not a huge issue. India maybe cheap for Americans, but not for Indians.

Lol dude, even for Americans health care is costly.. that too with insurance because some are co-pay
It's true that many indians couldn't afford modern health care is because of no insurance and poor economic status

 

[casual]

Now it sounds like China is tossing away thousands of years of all-natural Traditional Medicine and replacing it with the West's synthetic pill-popping solutions. Yet another vestige of "old" China heading into oblivion in exchange for a Western way of life.

superstition has no place in modern society. prove effectiveness of treatment with clinical tests or gtfo.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

View attachment 585481

Actually Americans are essentially subsidizing the rest of the world’s medical research by paying out really high prices.

most medical "research" is a scam because too many doctors and biological researchers are ignorant people (ignorant as in these guys don't even know what an integral is) and much of biological research can't be replicated.

the overall effectiveness of all that spending, amounts to little. Even if all these drugs didn't exist, I doubt there would be much effect on global average life expectancy.

the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries overall are extremely backwards in terms of effectiveness. simply no excuses.

most increase in lifespan over the 20th century has been from civil engineers and superior sanitation. medicine is still stuck in the trial and error age. better than plague doctors with scarecrow hats - but just barely.

 

[Mohrenn]

China is doing the right thing for the people, unlike the US which has a hilariously broken healthcare system.