Corporations don’t obey consumer demand in situations where they have market power, like when they hold patents and a possible alternative of skipping their product is death.
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Please forgive me if it’s already been posted, but
a GWP of 3320 is massive.
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If some people really understood what it’s like to be in perpetual respiratory distress, they might be more understanding.
This time last year, I was slipping steadily into acute bronchitis (almost suffocated) because my Advair disc wasn’t delivering properly, and if it were possible to absorb lifeforce from other humans as if I were a space vampire, you know I’d have been doing it.
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Oh no! I too am causing global warming by using my “emergency” inhaler. Of course my Advair inhaler which has no propellant costs my insurance almost $500/yr…
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Yes, there are DPI albuterol inhalers that already exist.
You appear to know absolutely nothing about how health care functions. And even less about asthma. Perhaps you are being sarcastic? Here’s a glimpse:
My patient needs a daily steroidal inhaler. The Pharma companies recently changed their propellants (NOT the actual medications) and were granted new patents for medications that have been around since the 1980s, thereby removing generics from the option list. The pt’s MD writes them a prescription for a steroid inhaler. it costs 280$ per month WITH their insurance coverage. They can’t afford it. They are not given choices, but it doesn’t matter, bc ALL the daily medications cost about that much with their insurance. They can’t price shop before they get their RX. Many pharmacies can’t tell them the price of something until they have the Rx. Insurance companies will tell them to get a different Rx bc the one they were given isn’t on their “preferred list.” And when they change it they still have to pay 280$ out of pocket.
Ther’e no price transparency. There’s no actual competition. There’s no generic option. And the consumer has no control.
So what happens? Every day, I meet people who don’t take their asthma medications because of cost.
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Here is a weird thing: Under a social insurance system like the NHS healthcare is pretty much a monopsony with only one or a very limited number of buyers that supply most if not all of the market.
This is one of the reasons why healthcare in such systems is cheap, the buyers are large institutes that can demand a price. By that same logic the healthcare system can set regulations on environmental impact. Mind you, end users cannot and under the NHS they even have no choice of suplier.
So it is really the UK government that is lacking here.
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Yep! The conversations i’ve had with my pharmacist over this fuckery are many. It is a load of bullshit. Of course, an inhaler is far cheaper in the UK.
Before the change I paid $7 per inhaler with insurance. After, they cost $60 each. My current plan cost is $40. Generics are now (finally) being made but…surprise! Most insurance companies don’t have them in their formulary because of the deals they cut with drug manufacturers. So we’re stuck paying exhorbitant costs.
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hmmm no. especially not in the case of inhalers in the US. see the anecdotes from myself and others. Let’s please also remember that we’re not talking about buying a car, we’re talking about a life-saving medication.
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Yes! And during all those years when I could barely afford a rescue inhaler and couldn’t afford a controller medication (apart from Singulair, which is cheap-ish as a generic now but only really helps during allergy season, guessing it’s only helping with the allergic component) my asthma kept getting worse and worse. If I didn’t have better insurance now, there’s no way I’d be able to afford to pay out of pocket at $360 a pop for my combination LABA/ICS inhaler. And there are so many people still in the same boat I was in before this year.
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This may be off topic, but another contribution to global warming is cow farts. Cow farts can be reduced by feeding cows seaweed.
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It seems to me that with Climate Change, we don’t have much time. Patents eat into that time.
A climate friendly asthma medicine, while necessary, will be extraordinarily expensive because of monopoly rents.
You’re obviously not from this timeline. How did you get here?
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