http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05162008/profile.html
Several comments I found on reddit on this article:
http://reddit.com/r/science/info/6jqot/comments/
"Direct to consumer advertising for the most part leads to consumer demand for unnecessary medications or new medications. This is generally harmful; e.g., the US has a much higher rate of use of newer antibiotics than most other countries and as such, faces a greater problem of antibiotic resistance."
"The psychotic cost of healthcare in the USA is because of one very simple reason - health insurance. Our grandparents, when your parents broke a bone or something, could take our parents to the hospital, get them tended to, and then pay the bill. And they were POOR. Now, no one can afford to pay cash at a hospital. And the reason is health insurance.Health insurance creates REVERSE capitalism. Consider this: There's a town with 3 or 4 doctors. Your kid breaks their arm. You need to go have it set. The various doctors all charge different prices. It's a simple service, so you would go to the cheapest doctor (that had reliable care, I'm not talking about Dr. Chaz down by the river in his van) in town. Now, what if you had health insurance? You're not paying the bill, or you're only paying a fixed co-pay. Why go to the cheaper doctor when the more 'high class' ones are available? It then becomes a LIABILITY to the doctors to not charge the most they can get away with.And it really is that simple."
"One more reason meds cost so much in the US. As a medical student, I've seen doctors put in tough spots because a patient demands a drug they've seen on a commercial but they really don't need."
No one will come up with a beverage "just like Coke, in every possible sense, including price". They might make it better, thus answering the demand for better quality or make it cheaper, thus answering the demand for smaller prices. The cases I'm referring to here are cases when demand is artificially created: the quack may say "you're feeling bad and tired because your body is full of toxins. Buy our detox medicine or detox diet book and flush bad substances out of your system".
The cases I'm referring to here are cases when demand is artificially created: the quack may say "you're feeling bad and tired because your body is full of toxins. Buy our detox medicine or detox diet book and flush bad substances out of your system".
Still doesn't "create" demand. It's up to the buyer whether to believe it or not.
The Court concluded with a sharp rebuke:"The logical end-point of Plaintiff’s burden-shifting argument would be to permit anyone with the requisite filing fee to walk into any court in any state in the Union and file a lawsuit against any business, casting the burden on that defendant to prove that it was not violating the law. Such an approach, this Court finds, would itself be unfair." The problem in this case is that QuackWatch had their own experts and the Judge concluded that they were "representing themselves" (even if they got the evidence right). Just shows that it's not as easy as one might think to sue for fraud.
The problem in this case is that QuackWatch had their own experts and the Judge concluded that they were "representing themselves" (even if they got the evidence right).
Just shows that it's not as easy as one might think to sue for fraud.
Just goes to show government courts are useless. Nothing new there.
-Jon
I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools.
Irenicus' Diaries.
Is this not creating demand?
The reason I object to the term "create" is because it implies the consumer is totally passive and inert. But whether or not they choose to believe what they're told is up to them. So you could say in a sense that the demand is created, but it's odd because it requires the compliance of the consumer.
xSFx: Get real. All adverts do is alert consumers to the existence of a product. No more than that. Unproven assertions are not an argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsedixitism This reasoning is defeated by the fact that when a new product is introduced to the market (and advertised) demand quickly rises for it, even though there was no such demand before.
Get real. All adverts do is alert consumers to the existence of a product. No more than that.
Unproven assertions are not an argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsedixitism
This reasoning is defeated by the fact that when a new product is introduced to the market (and advertised) demand quickly rises for it, even though there was no such demand before.
There can not be demand, in the economic sense, for something that does not exist. There was no demand for penicillin in the year 1600, but that does not mean that people in that year would not have benefited from it.
Get a clue.
xSFx:The cases I'm referring to here are cases when demand is artificially created: the quack may say "you're feeling bad and tired because your body is full of toxins. Buy our detox medicine or detox diet book and flush bad substances out of your system".
Products are demanded because they satisfy a want. Relief from feeling bad and tired is a want, even if no known cure exists. Once a cure is discovered then demand for the cure can exist.
No where is it required for this product to actually work. If people find the product does not satisfy their want, they will stop demanding it.
Have you ever considered that maybe people don't want you to protect them from themselves? That maybe they would be better off if you weren't such a busy body?
xSFx: It then becomes a LIABILITY to the doctors to not charge the most they can get away with.
It then becomes a LIABILITY to the doctors to not charge the most they can get away with.
It's always a liability in any industry to not charge the most you can get away with. Either in terms of what people will pay or a few dollars less than competitors. Prices are always as high as they'll ever be in order to compete. In one way or another.
Say you have to sell your Porsche in order to pay for your bone breaking (because of the evil capitalist doctors). There are 10 other models on sale in your town. All the same color with about the same number of miles. You're going to look at the the other ones sell for and sell it for slightly less than that. And if you're not willing to sell that car or the price is too low you will not sell it at all. Because you want a higher return on whatever thing you're selling.
It seems that making prescription drug commercials illegal will just make consumers less informed (they have to get it from their doctor anyway) and it will cartelize the industry against competition that results from advertisements. The products come in as a result of demand, they don't create demand. People don't demand to lose money or be sick (unless they can forego the first in order to take the services via other younger healthier tax payers).
Indeed. Often competition in advertising is also the best way to deflate the claims of a disingenuous competitor.
I'm in a discussion with an anti-capitalist and now we got to the health industry and monopoly.
He sais the only authorised distributor of drugs produced by A and B decided to only import A's version of a certain drug, which does the same thing as B's but is more expensive.
xSFx:He sais the only authorised distributor of drugs produced by A and B decided to only import A's version of a certain drug, which does the same thing as B's but is more expensive.
Then he wouldn't be the only authorised distributor for very long, would he?
A monoply on distribution is not a capitalistic concept, its a socialist one. Your friend is so saturated in socialist thought that he can't envision anything but it. He is attacking a feature of the very system he endorses!
He's the only distributor that A and B use, just like Grunding had a distributor of choice in this article: http://www.rothbard.org/story/2440
It seems to me it's an anomaly of the market. By only selling A's product in our country he's doing B a lot of harm.
Ludwig von Mises Institute | 518 West Magnolia Avenue | Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528
Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119
contact@Mises.org | webmaster | AOL-IM MainMises
Mises.org sitemap