The way to damage non-stick surfaces is to use sharp metal tools. I leave the rest to your imagination.
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Because it just costs so much to research new ways to package drugs whose patents should have expired decades ago. And because America enjoys the True Blessings of Capitalism which makes everything Efficient
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It will never happen. She’ll introduce the Bill, but the House is controlled by the Democratic Party right now. This is the same Party that banned drug re-importation during the dealing over the ACA, wrote in language that forbids the government from using its leverage to negotiate lower drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid, and a few other things. The DNC has its tongue a foot and a half up Pharma’s cloaca and thinks it’s the most delicious thing ever. By the bye Booker crossed Party lines and voted with the Greedy Old Pedophiles to make sure drug re-importation stayed illegal.
Even if Pelosi gave it a hearing and didn’t kill it and it passed the House McConnell would kill it on arrival in the Senate.
So don’t give AOC any crap about this.
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Big Bang Theory had a kind of running gag about that where Bernadette is constantly having to invent new diseases for her companies drugs to cure. Restless Eye Syndrome was at least one that pops to mind. Accompanied by “Cha-ching!”
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In which I wouldn’t trust Pelosi as far as I could throw her. She’s like corporate middle-management, with Casual Friday and the occasional pizza party from petty cash, but who still helps the bosses by rationalizing why the peons don’t deserve a living wage when the performance review comes around.
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*her
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I love the idea of turning this around on anti-vaxxers, since their views (and those of alternative medicine in general) often rely on medical conspiracy-for-profit with anyone who disagrees with them being a mindless sheep or a paid shill. I don’t believe it’s true, but it actually makes MORE sense when slotted into that paranoid worldview than their own ideas do.
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You force me.
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In general the US pays more than Canada or Europe for drugs because of their single payer health care system, they negotiate a firm price on each drug. Now in some cases, one could say the US consumer is actually subsadizing these other countries. This is probably true on some medications. But it’s probably more fair to say the US consumer is being price gouged on most of them by comparison.
The one down side of the UK system is: If their system doesn’t approve of and pay for a certain drug, then it isn’t avaiable there. So you end up with some newer drugs being unavaialbe, even though some people may benefit from them.
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Xenazine is the US trade name for Tetrabenazine. It’s an out of patent drug, developed more than fifty years ago.
In Australia, it was $38.80 per 112 pill bottle for me (a two-month supply). Were I on any sort of government support, it’d be $6.30/bottle. The government pays the drug company $338.60/bottle.
In the USA:
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Looks like the “market solution” isn’t working here.
Basically every libertarian I know would then state here that this is a reason in favor of dismantling the FDA.
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OK, putting aside these patent shenanigans momentarily:
Truvada isn’t a novel drug — instead it’s a 2-in-1 combo pill made from existing medications: tenofovir disoproxil and emtricitabine.
Both of these individual drugs are available as generics.
So, why not just take two pills, instead of one?
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Obviously people who aren’t willing to pay $24K just don’t value their lives enough. If they did they’d stop being poor and buy the pills.
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That kinda was the plan. 
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In the electronics industry there is a concept called “second source”, where a company (e.g. Intel) will license a chip design to a competing company (e.g. AMD), allowing them to manufacture it, too. This isn’t something they prefer, but rather is forced on them because the customers for those chips (e.g. HP, Dell) don’t want to be held to the risks, and whims, of one manufacturer, and thus won’t buy a chip unless it has a second source.
This encourages price competition, and helps avoid a situation where a sole source abuses their exclusivity and holds the purchaser hostage to price gouging.
In the case of drugs, individual consumers don’t have the buying power to force second sourcing, or even the choice not to buy a drug if their lives are at stake. They need an advocate with clout to protect their interests.
I wonder if the government could impose a second source regulation for drug manufacturing that would ensure a competitive market for drugs such as this one. I think that would create price competition and force prices down. A national health plan with large group buying power would also be able to do it, but in the absence of that, a regulatory enforcement could work.
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Thanks for the clarification and extra detail, it was very helpful!
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None of them are named Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego?
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Here’s the Australian PBS entry for one strength of this drug. Note that things aren’t quite what AOC says. The government pays $169 for it, and the patient pays $40, unless they are on a health care card were they pay about $8.
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Still, $40 is a helluva lot closer to $8 than it is to $169. Her argument still has teeth.
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