It looks like the American healthcare system is at a tipping point, both exhausted and fed up with extraneous costs associated with financing large r&d projects for big Pharma, which is geographically exclusive to a nation paying upwards of $1,700 per mo for family healthcare insurance.
Others might argue that America has the best healthcare in the world. While debatable, that doesn’t mean the standards at NYU Langone are the same at Brookdale in Brooklyn. There is a vast ocean in quality standards associated with socio economic backdrops in this country, with the elite getting consieur, cash only, services, while the middle class gets stuck with the ham and egger script writers.
Rant over.
GILD is feeling the bern. Pricing pressures are hitting them on every front.
Gilead’s total product sales rose 4 percent to $7.7 billion. Sales of hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni, the company’s second generation hepatitis treatment, totaled $4.29 billion, which was short of the $4.63 billion average Wall Street estimate, as compiled by ISI Evercore.
“The hep C numbers are a little light in the USA and that could be due to higher rebating and more competition,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee.
Gilead Chief Financial Officer Robin Washington said on a conference call that U.S. Harvoni sales declined due to an “increase in discounts required to open up access to patients with lower (liver) fibrosis scores,” as well as a modest shift in sales to deeply-discounted government payers, including the Department of Veterans Affairs.
As such, the stock is getting clown punched today.
We’re seeing this across the board in Pharma, from GILD to VRX to BMRN to VRTX to CELG. Gone are the days when ENDP or MNK can buy a drug and mark it up 500%.
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$ICPT holding up better, considering the carnage today.
Sadly, the U.S. has far from the best healthcare even though it spends more per capita than any other nation. By pretty much any metric – life expectancy, wellness, obesity – you name it and the U.S. ranks low among advanced industrialized countries. Much of the healthcare budget is chewed up by astronomical spending in the last few weeks of life and by high branded pharma prices. Those high prices fund R&D so there’s that. The spending at the end is a value choice.
I recall a health problem I had that sent me to the emergency room three times in two years. My doctor and the hospitals failed to diagnose the problem after over $30,000 in tests and hospital stays.
On a vacation to Spain I had another bout of symptoms. I went to a local doctor there, just a GP, who correctly diagnosed me in less than 10 minutes with no tests. Total cost: $10. When I returned to the U.S. my doctor was able to confirm the diagnosis now that he was told the answer. No problems since.
Excellent points.
Our health care system definitely needs to change. It’s an embarrassment to our nation, and an expensive one at that.
There is a quote from an Englishman who says “Americans think death is optional”, by way of explanation for all of this end of life spending on artificial means to keep a person alive at the end.
Feel the Bern.
It seems as though the doctors, in general, are not good at diagnosing problems. They have all of this information about the body memorized but that is it. How to use the information in troubleshooting a problem is mostly beyond them. Unless of course they have lots and lots of tests. And then, they just read a technician’s report. That is what happens when the med school sort applicants for memory rather than critical thinking skills.
So lame the health care costs in the US.
Astonishing the drag on lower and middle class family spending. A wall around that would be much more effective.
Does Trump have an answer? – serious question as I am not American but am spending more and more time here.
Does Trump have an answer? – serious question as I am not American but am spending more and more time here.
Trump’s answer is “something”.
“I would end Obamacare and replace it with something terrific, for far less money for the country and for the people”
http://www.kcci.com/politics/2-potential-candidates-visit-iowa-today/32253026
“We are going to repeal Obamacare. We are going to repeal Obamacare. We are going to replace Obamacare with something so much better”
http://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/six-year-anniversary-of-the-affordable-care-act/
“I want to get rid of Obamacare and get you something great”
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/10/new_hampshire_and_obamacare_what_donald_trumps_victory_says_about_gop_healthcare_priorities/
On his official website, he offers some more specific policies, but they, like most of the other GOP proposals, largely return the health insurance situation to what existed prior to Obamacare. That situation was pretty good if you had a decent group health insurance offered by and subsidized by your employer. If you didn’t have a group plan, the situation was pretty bad if you had a pre-existing condition or if you were unlucky enough to require expensive treatment for illness, injury, or genetic condition. The situation also was good if you opted not to get coverage and were both healthy and lucky enough to have healthcare expenses lower than the cost of insurance coverage.
Most of the 20 million or so people who now have coverage largely due to Obamacare will be unable to afford continued coverage. Young and healthy people would drop out of the insured pools.
Well said.
If you get sick and need an expensive operation, check out going to Singapore and having it there. They have American trained doctors, excellent overall medical care for about a third of the cost.
Thanks, Stoksleuth. To give such information is a public service. Medical tourism is very important, and is necessary for many people in the U.S. where the costs of medical care for serious illnesses and of surgeries can be quite outrageous. And deductibles can be quite high, even for people who have insurance.
deflation is coming everywhere, CB’s have givin up.
My parents are looking into traveling to India to get Sovaldi… would save them $80k, it’s kind of a no brainier.
The US subsidizing the rest of the world needs to stop. Change the ban on reimporting medicine to allow imports from “safe” countries we trust to at least stop some of the subsidizing.
Trump’s plan calls for allowing imported drugs to lower costs. He would have to fight his own party on this. A majority of Democrats would support such legislation.
America has the best healthcare. It just so happens (literally) 99% of the country can’t afford it and are stuck getting mediocre treatment at many levels.
Thanks for all the wicked good comments. I bought $GILD today at 87.95, ignoring all your negativity and trashing of our healthcare system. Ungrateful spoiled children!
Ha!