Free Market and Medical Technology

I forgot to mention that, Doc! But you are absolutely right. I see patients every day that I refer to our social workers for medication programs. They can get long term meds for things like heart conditions, or simple courses of antibiotics. And here's another interesting point about that:

IT IS DONE THROUGH THE FREE MARKET, NOT A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM.

The drug companies use it for tax write off, of course, at some accounting level. But I'd rather take a pharmaceutical company handout any day than relying on a government program to decide what meds I qualify for.

That's just one of those icky "fact" things that never get brought up when leftist ideology is discussed.

In your article, you mention a new method of visualizing veins. Were you referring to Veinviewer, manufactured by Luminetx (Memphis, TN)?

If so, it is a really interesting technology - one of those ideas that is so brilliantly simple that I wish I had thought of it!

So you've heard of it? I guess I should have pointed out that the procedure doesn't cost $25,000, only the machine does. After the hospital purchases the machine, it can do thousands of procedures...

It is an interesting technology, and since I didn't think of it, I'm going to do the next best thing: buy stock in it. Its hitting the market by the third quarter this year, rumor has it...

I could be wrong, but I don't think that it is a public company (yet). If you find out that it is public, please let me know, I too would like to buy stock.

The reason that I know of it is that I work in the field of Life Sciences & had an oppty to be tangentially involved with this company's technology last year - although from a distance.

To say any more (of my involvement) would compromise the anonymity that we enjoy in this forum!

the government will control all of it. Unfortunately that seems to be the way we are headed. Then all of us will have to wait months for a hip replacement or heart surgery, but we will get our medicine free and we can go to the doctor free if we have a cold.

...not the product, which is already on the market. I heard around the 3rd quarter it will go public, meaning the IPO for stocks...

I will be on the lookout for their IPO and I'll keep you posted. Be sure to do the same on my blog if you hear about it.

Doctors of all people to belittle the price of work and intelligence forged by years of study and research. Those who use their time efficiently (efficiency, antonym to watching 'Dancing with the Stars') deserve the merits of not only begrudged praise but also financial recompensation.
Take insulin as an example, life sustaining medication for millions. Sure a bottle costs shy of a hundred dollars and only lasts a month, but isn't cynical criticism of the companies that make it devaluing their time compared to our own. When in reality, considering the number of people and hours it takes to process and qualify insulin, that hundred dollars barely breaks down to a cent per person per days worth of work.
And again, I cringe when I hear people objectively personifying groups, such as pharmacuetical corporations. It's a group of everyday people like ourselves trying to make a living and as a side product curbing the effects of many common plagues. It's not like they have secret handshakes and shady meetings on how to pinch every cent from pill popping grannys. Yet so many are so quick to label them 'evil.' Seriously, they're not Satan worshipers, or Enron execs, or... Al Sharpton!
It all comes down to the price we'll pay for things. Both Truman Madsen and Jeffrey Holland have expounded infinitly on the value of individuals and their efforts. Why are some eager to deminish researchers work by expecting to recompensate them for less than that which they would give to the burger flipper at Wendy's. Don't they see that it's these researchers trying to repair all the damage done by large-mouthed, heart clogging, shovel-handing slobs. Thank the Lord for prescriptions,... as long as their cheap.
Loss of perspective.
Here's a personal shock. My mentally lacking sibling started begging for money for diapers for her baby while a bucket of KFC sat in the background. The general public has lost all sense of money. In my opinion, we should go back to the barter system. 'Sure I'll make and give you a day's worth of Lipitor, if you feed my family today... Just think what one could get in a trade for Viagra!

Hey Libertybob, another weirdo Mormon here, ha ha!

I just want to say thanks, it's nice to have other sane people out there.

Seriously, I'm no genius, but why are these basic concepts so misunderstood and ignored? How can I, a mere humanities major, understand this whole economics and market stuff?

Maybe it's true that Marxism/Socialism really has infiltrated the media and schools, from pre-K to B.A. How ironic that education has actually made people pretty dang stupid!

I think the idea that government will take care of us and make all our decisions is very seductive to people. Even my own mother, a lifelong Mormon, readily throws her free agency to the trashbin in favor of a greater daddy-state. Money grows on trees, anyway, if the government manages it, right? Those evil rich people creating jobs and inventing or discovering wonderful, new things to make our quality of life better -- dang it, they OWE us lazy shlubs!

How nice to never have to make the effort, worry about anything. Just seems weird for another LDS to want that, ya know?

May we never ever ever experience Hillarycare in this country!

"Seriously, I'm no genius, but why are these basic concepts so misunderstood and ignored? How can I, a mere humanities major, understand this whole economics and market stuff?"

-- I don't know why leftists don't seem to understand. Its not stupidity, because some of the most vehement supporters of socialism are "intellectuals." Just go to any college campus. I think it based on intellectual dishonesty.

Try reading my blog post "The Lure of Liberalism" where I attempt to explain why.