I have provided plenty of explanations about the health care industry in the past, and I will do so in the future. After a certain point, however, one has to acknowledge that evidence simply doesn't matter to people.
If it did, people would take the national (international, really) drug shortage more seriously. Sure, you can blame it on evil profiteering, but the economic fact of the matter is that if regulations and legislation make pharmaceuticals an unprofitable industry, then companies will shut their doors and entrepreneurs will seek other means to make money.
Indeed, if evidence mattered, then people would simply be forced to acknowledge that the ObamaCare legislation has failed miserably in its promise to reduce the cost of health insurance.
If proof and facts were important to anyone, then my descriptions of the many failures of Canadian single-payer health care to provide me with any health care at all would move people to acknowledge the truth.
BUT CULTS DON'T CARE ABOUT EVIDENCE.
I am tired of people telling me that my experiences didn't happen. I am tired of people telling me that my evidence is beside the point. I am tired of people telling me that this failed god of government medicine really does work, and that I am merely imagining the failures. I am tired of my American readers assuming that doctors offices and hospitals in Canada look exactly the same as they do in the USA without any evidence to support this assumption. I am tired of my Canadian readers assuming that health care looks the same all over the world as it does in Canada. I am tired of people making theoretical comparisons and ignoring the words of people like myself, who have consumed health care for more than one reason, in more than one country, under more than one system.
If I am wrong, then show me the evidence, don't just give me some half-baked Cracker Jacks theory about how the poor would implode if private health care were introduced in Canada or that cancer will swallow the entire American nation unless a single-payer system is introduced.
Don't waste my time with a fantasy. I don't believe in your cult.
Members of cults believe whatever they think they are supposed to believe, regardless of evidence. There is no evidence against private, unregulated health care. There is only the belief that "some people" would die.
"Some people" are already dying. Looks like your god hasn't managed to solve that problem.
But it doesn't matter, does it? You can't speak out against god.
If it did, people would take the national (international, really) drug shortage more seriously. Sure, you can blame it on evil profiteering, but the economic fact of the matter is that if regulations and legislation make pharmaceuticals an unprofitable industry, then companies will shut their doors and entrepreneurs will seek other means to make money.
Indeed, if evidence mattered, then people would simply be forced to acknowledge that the ObamaCare legislation has failed miserably in its promise to reduce the cost of health insurance.
If proof and facts were important to anyone, then my descriptions of the many failures of Canadian single-payer health care to provide me with any health care at all would move people to acknowledge the truth.
BUT CULTS DON'T CARE ABOUT EVIDENCE.
I am tired of people telling me that my experiences didn't happen. I am tired of people telling me that my evidence is beside the point. I am tired of people telling me that this failed god of government medicine really does work, and that I am merely imagining the failures. I am tired of my American readers assuming that doctors offices and hospitals in Canada look exactly the same as they do in the USA without any evidence to support this assumption. I am tired of my Canadian readers assuming that health care looks the same all over the world as it does in Canada. I am tired of people making theoretical comparisons and ignoring the words of people like myself, who have consumed health care for more than one reason, in more than one country, under more than one system.
If I am wrong, then show me the evidence, don't just give me some half-baked Cracker Jacks theory about how the poor would implode if private health care were introduced in Canada or that cancer will swallow the entire American nation unless a single-payer system is introduced.
Don't waste my time with a fantasy. I don't believe in your cult.
Members of cults believe whatever they think they are supposed to believe, regardless of evidence. There is no evidence against private, unregulated health care. There is only the belief that "some people" would die.
"Some people" are already dying. Looks like your god hasn't managed to solve that problem.
But it doesn't matter, does it? You can't speak out against god.
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ReplyDeleteThis has little to do you with your post except that science may be showing that pharma is withholding negative trial data. We can only assume that this is to make their drugs look better than they are, but there may be other motivations. That is indeed evil if it is true.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html
You point is correct. Evidence does always matter. How do we enforce trial data to be available to doctors, patients and independant groups? Is transparency the best answer?
His interpretation of funnel plots may be flawed. Also, he provides no evidence for his claim that 76% of trial data was withheld. He just claims it....
http://www.cochrane-net.org/openlearning/HTML/mod15-3.htm
Interesting.
The trial data is available, Phil, they publish the results. Why? Because every positive trial result is important product advertising for the pharmaceutical companies!
ReplyDeleteThe game in the pharmaceutical industry is to simply come up with BS "models" and "studies" that meet the bare minimum governmental criteria. The government isn't watch-dogging this crap, they encourage the pharmaceutical industry to publish misleading documents so that the regulators can justify their "product approvals" with some number, any number. The regulators publish RFPs and recommendations that teach the pharmacoeconomists how to do it.
I know this because I've participated in it. Cronyism, 100% You create an institutional watchdog and then observe how everyone turns the watchdog into a game. No watchdog = no game.
The only criterion by which a drug should be evaluated is: does it work better than other alternatives in the patient's opinion? If yes, then it should be purchased; if no, then it should not. The consumer is the master. Let the money-grubbers find inventive ways to satisfy our needs, and watch the corruption disappear overnight. But give them an institutional method by which to game the system, and that is exactly what will happen.
All this watch-dogging and regulating is nothing more than cultish fear. The idea that someone once lied is not an argument for the strangulation of an entire industry. Competition cleans out all of these ills by ruthlessly depriving all evil-doers of profits until they have been devastated and can no longer keep their doors open. What protects the evil-doers in this day and age are patent laws and the pharmacoeconomic evaluations of the regulators.