Funny events in anti-woke world

[The Rogue Wolf]

Ok sure. "go woke, sale more" is a terrible catchphrase tho. Needs workshopping.

Go woke, sales stoked?

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Hmm, bold. Trumpistas taking this well. Also, does it understand what administration it is going to be part of?

The funny thing is, I do in some degree agree with him, but if he thought this was going to go over well with Joe Six-Pack, he's an idiot.

Also, watching the corn-fed crowd turn on the techbros as if this whole "well, we can't get rid of all the brown people because Americans are lazy fucks who won't work 80 hours a week" viewpoint wasn't something they've been shouting from the rooftops for years... I'mma need to stock up on popcorn.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

There's nothing in that video that substantially challenges what I'm saying. The CEO claims the PBMs are wholly responsible for the high price... as the PBMs claim the price set by Nordisk is too high. So what? I've been criticising the role of insurance companies and PBMs myself-- they're a feature of the system I'm condemning. But that doesn't somehow disprove that Novo Nordisk is charging high prices in America. And they're both just blaming each other.



Not quite: it's to maximise profit. If they make more money from a prescription than it costs, then they have a motive to approve. If it costs them more than they make, they have a motive to deny.



Because they make money on it. Whereas they'd lose money on Ozempic prescriptions.

Ozempic doesn't cost close to your claim or the claim of Bernie Sanders (which is in the ballpark of yours), that's what the hearing was about. The CEO said they lowered the price of one of their other drugs and the insurance companies stopped covering it, they want the prices higher.

They only make money off what people pay into it.

 

[Silvanus]

Ozempic doesn't cost close to your claim or the claim of Bernie Sanders (which is in the ballpark of yours), that's what the hearing was about. The CEO said they lowered the price of one of their other drugs and the insurance companies stopped covering it, they want the prices higher.

I know it's what the hearing is about. Yet there's nothing substantial there to actually prove your point. Just a CEO claiming PBMs are responsible for the high cost... while the PBMs claim the company is responsible.

Both are responsible. As I've been saying for a long while. You think I'll just blindly believe that the company has no responsibility for the price of their own drug because their CEO said so?

They only make money off what people pay into it.

...obviously. What point are you trying to make there?

 

[Gergar12]

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Hmm, bold. Trumpistas taking this well. Also, does it understand what administration it is going to be part of?

Funny enough, I wrote a whole rant(again) explaining how the US and the West have Systemic problems and will win the next World War but possibly lose the next Cold War. I won't post it here to spare you guys, but everyone here is wrong.

We cannot be a country mainly composed of engineers, as Elon, Obama, and even Trump want. We didn't win the Cold War just by building more shit than the other side we won it because it was worth living in the West vs the East. Due to things like we didn't put you in jail as often for wrongthink, to bigger diets, etc. Yet it's likely we will get as larger military budget, and more STEM grads killing part of what made America great by then: Hollywood, Art, food, and general wellbeing.

However, we do need engineers, more STEM grads, and slightly fewer liberal arts due to the world being more dangerous from climate change, drones, cyber-terrorism, and deepfake AI. But it's America it will be overdone since America either underestimated or overestimated a need(underestimated the need for public transit, overestimated the need for highways). As for the immigration nonsense of course you will get more smart people from the world population than from just the 340 million in the US. It's pure statistics. As for more schools, it could help but supply, and demand are still at the helm here. If you convert those liberal arts colleges into easier STEM, and engineering schools vs. traditional research, and private universities and colleges there will be an oversupply and a lack of US soft power which I am guessing would lead to movement in the other direction.

 

[Chimpzy]

palpatinedoit.gif

 

[Casual Shinji]

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Hmm, bold. Trumpistas taking this well. Also, does it understand what administration it is going to be part of?

'White Americans are too stupid and mediocre to make America great' I love it.

Ramaswamy seems to understand a huge problem in America is lack of education and keeping the public dumb. Good thing he joined the Republi- oh.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I know it's what the hearing is about. Yet there's nothing substantial there to actually prove your point. Just a CEO claiming PBMs are responsible for the high cost... while the PBMs claim the company is responsible.

Both are responsible. As I've been saying for a long while. You think I'll just blindly believe that the company has no responsibility for the price of their own drug because their CEO said so?



...obviously. What point are you trying to make there?

Why do you think lowering ozempic would be a good thing?

“We lowered the list price by 65%...just to realize that after we dropped the price of Levemir, the PBMs dropped coverage,” Jørgensen said. “It went from being on 90% of insurance schemes to being only on some 35%.” This shift in coverage led to a dramatic decrease in production volume, which impacted the company’s ability to manufacture the product. These manufacturing issues led to Novo Nordisk announcing on November 8, 2023, that the company would begin phasing out, then permanently discontinue, Levemir in the US as of December 31, 2024. In addition to manufacturing constraints and formulary losses, the company cited the availability of alternative options. One of those alternative options, Novo Nordisk’s insulin degludec (Tresiba), was not among the insulin products included in the company’s price lowering plans.

---

So how do they make money on colonoscopies but not ozempic as you claimed?

 

[Agema]

'White Americans are too stupid and mediocre to make America great' I love it.

I think it's more "White Americans expect to have employent rights, work contractual hours and get paid for them".

Immigrants on visas can be worked like dogs, because if they don't they might lose their jobs, visa, and they probably don't have much of a financial safety net either. Essentially, they are vulnerable, and thus much easier to exploit by business owners. Unsurprisingly, business leaders don't like to express it in those terms.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think it's more "White Americans expect to have employent rights, work contractual hours and get paid for them".

No, but that's how it's going to come across to the MAGA crowd.

 

[Silvanus]

Why do you think lowering ozempic would be a good thing?

“We lowered the list price by 65%...just to realize that after we dropped the price of Levemir, the PBMs dropped coverage,” Jørgensen said. “It went from being on 90% of insurance schemes to being only on some 35%.” This shift in coverage led to a dramatic decrease in production volume, which impacted the company’s ability to manufacture the product. These manufacturing issues led to Novo Nordisk announcing on November 8, 2023, that the company would begin phasing out, then permanently discontinue, Levemir in the US as of December 31, 2024. In addition to manufacturing constraints and formulary losses, the company cited the availability of alternative options. One of those alternative options, Novo Nordisk’s insulin degludec (Tresiba), was not among the insulin products included in the company’s price lowering plans.

To clear this up: much of the list price ends up in the pocket of the PBM (sometimes up to 3/4) in the form of rebate. Hence they often favour high list prices, and aim to push people off low-cost treatments.

The solution is to cut the role of the PBM/insurance company in deciding access altogether. As I've been encouraging from the start, and which you've been arguing against. But this isn't a reason to just let the drug companies set sky-high prices for the American market and fill their trough.

So how do they make money on colonoscopies but not ozempic as you claimed?

Well, we don't know the exact price of Ozempic to the insurer, so there's an element of speculation. But why do you think they're so unwilling to cover a high-cost drug? The rebate structure isn't the same for everything; insurance companies can make money on expensive Levemir and lose money on expensive Ozempic.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

To clear this up: much of the list price ends up in the pocket of the PBM (sometimes up to 3/4) in the form of rebate. Hence they often favour high list prices, and aim to push people off low-cost treatments.

The solution is to cut the role of the PBM/insurance company in deciding access altogether. As I've been encouraging from the start, and which you've been arguing against. But this isn't a reason to just let the drug companies set sky-high prices for the American market and fill their trough.



Well, we don't know the exact price of Ozempic to the insurer, so there's an element of speculation. But why do you think they're so unwilling to cover a high-cost drug? The rebate structure isn't the same for everything; insurance companies can make money on expensive Levemir and lose money on expensive Ozempic.

If the PBM is paying for it, then getting a rebate back, it's just means it's essentially a discount on the price. It's the same as a mail-in rebate.

All the players are broken, that is what I've been saying.

They don't make money on any of them. They make money from people paying for insurance, that's where all the revenue comes from. If I buy a laptop for $500 and it has a $50 mail-in rebate, I paid $450 for it, I didn't make any money. The reason they dropped Levemir from coverage when the price dropped is because the insurance companies know X amount of people have the condition that requires that drug so they planned their premiums for that. When the drug got cheaper, they don't want the spending for it to go down because they can only make 20% profit on revenue. If revenue goes down, profit goes down; hence, they dropped Levenir for a drug with similar cost that didn't drop in price. Whereas ozempic cost (for weight loss) isn't planned via premiums so they don't wanna cover that because they are then paying for more things than expected and that will eat into their 20% profit margin. Whereas if they adjust the premiums and plan for that added cost, then they will gladly cover it.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

 

[Trunkage]

Musk forgot the golden rule of Twitter. If you use the word racist, 2/3s of the white population will assume you are talking about them and send the cancellers in

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

​

Trump's rank-and-file supporters don't care about his backtracking. He can tell them two opposite things directly to their faces and they'll believe both, because they're in a cult.

 

[Kwak]

I mean, it's pretty weird.

There's nothing inconsistent about being against mass migration and for skilled worker migration. I mean, unless your country needs one hell of a lot of skilled workers.

Especially if you're against investing in the education and training of the local population.

 

[Agema]

Musk forgot the golden rule of Twitter. If you use the word racist, 2/3s of the white population will assume you are talking about them and send the cancellers in

It is perhaps little surprise that Musk fell in with Trump. Birds of a feather and all that.

But Musk does expose a problem with the Trump movement. Although one can fairly say that the Democratic Party is the party of the US establishment, the Republicans are still the party of business. Except the Trump wing exposes the fact that the modern Republican Party voter base have some extremely business-hostile policy ideas. This is a schism we're going to see play out over the coming years. The Trump administration might hold it together - perhaps concessions on either side to leave each feeling they came away with something, or simply buying out the public with bread and circuses whilst they carry on serving the usual masters. There is likely to be a meltdown eventually, but there's a fair chance it will be post-Trump.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Trump's rank-and-file supporters don't care about his backtracking. He can tell them two opposite things directly to their faces and they'll believe both, because they're in a cult.

 

[Silvanus]

If the PBM is paying for it, then getting a rebate back, it's just means it's essentially a discount on the price. It's the same as a mail-in rebate.

It can function as essentially a discount. But for whom? The PBM is negotiating on behalf of the insurer, not out-of-pocket. The PBM negotiates a price that the insurer will pay, then the rebate comes back-- and the PBM passes some of it back to the insurer, and retains some of it as profit for themselves. That's how they make much of their money.

You see? A rebate and a discount are accounted differently-- Rebates allow the PBM to profit directly in a way that discounts would not (discounts would rely on the insurer then passing a chunk of the savings back to the PBM, whereas with a rebate they can just keep a chunk of it).

All the players are broken, that is what I've been saying.

Lol, the chutzpah! You haven't been saying that at all. You've been endlessly defending the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the insurers, even while both of those 'players' have been blaming one another-- you've been here arguing they don't profit from inflated prices at all and there's no benefit to reducing the price.

I've been the one saying they're both broken. And now, now that your position has become untenable (as it always does), you're going to forget what you've been arguing for the last several pages.

They don't make money on any of them. They make money from people paying for insurance, that's where all the revenue comes from. If I buy a laptop for $500 and it has a $50 mail-in rebate, I paid $450 for it, I didn't make any money. The reason they dropped Levemir from coverage when the price dropped is because the insurance companies know X amount of people have the condition that requires that drug so they planned their premiums for that. When the drug got cheaper, they don't want the spending for it to go down because they can only make 20% profit on revenue. If revenue goes down, profit goes down; hence, they dropped Levenir for a drug with similar cost that didn't drop in price. Whereas ozempic cost (for weight loss) isn't planned via premiums so they don't wanna cover that because they are then paying for more things than expected and that will eat into their 20% profit margin. Whereas if they adjust the premiums and plan for that added cost, then they will gladly cover it.

This is a very muddled and confused paragraph. When you say "when the drug got cheaper, they don't want the spending for it to go down because they can only make 20% profit on revenue"-- Revenue on what? You've just told me that all their revenue comes from insurance premiums. So how exactly would Novo Nordisk charging an insurance company less for Levemir cause revenue from insurance premiums to drop? They can still charge the same premiums. Its only their own expenditure that would drop! Unless you're arguing they want to maximise their own outgoings?

 

[BrawlMan]

Trump's rank-and-file supporters don't care about his backtracking. He can tell them two opposite things directly to their faces and they'll believe both, because they're in a cult.

Which is why they can continually go fuck themselves.