This cost is not a problem for the rich, or for those with good health insurance. But for many people worldwide, the drug is simply too expensive -- costing more than they would make in a year (even here in the United States, where the median yearly income is just slightly above $40,000).
In India, the $69,000 cost is 41 times the country's annual per capita income. That puts it out of reach for all but the wealthy in that country. But India, unlike the United States, has patent laws that allow another company to produce the drug at a more reasonable price if the drug is not available at a price most can afford -- and that is what has happened with Bayer's Nexavar. Indian patent courts are allowing another company to make the drug, and provide it for a cost of only $177 (which should give you some idea of the outrageous profit Bayer has built into their drug pricing).
This has upset Bayer, and they have been trying to appeal the patent court's decision -- so far unsuccessfully. Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers recently gave an interview to Bloomberg Businessweek, calling the Indian patent court decision "theft". Then he went further, and revealed his hard-hearted attitude toward his fellow humans. Dekkers said:
“We did not develop this medicine for Indians…we developed it for western patients who can afford it.”
I guess we should give him credit for his honesty. Like many other corporatists and right-wingers, he considers medicine and health care to just be products available for sale. And those products should only be available to those who can pay for them. For Dekkers (and other right-wingers) health care is not a right, and anyone who can't afford the inflated prices for it should just die. Although Dekkers targeted Indians in his statement, it is obvious that it would also apply to the millions in the United States who are without health insurance and too poor to purchase his product (thanks to his Republican buddies who refuse to expand Medicaid).
Most right-wingers aren't as honest as Dekkers. They also believe medicine and health care should only be provided to those who can afford to pay for it, but they hide that hideous attitude behind lies -- like no one goes without health care in the U.S., government cannot provide adequate health care, and we can't afford to provide health care for all its citizens. None of those aren't true, but they sound better than admitting you believe poor people should just die because they don't have the money to pay for expensive drugs and care.
Perhaps most amazing is that these right-wingers claim to be christians -- followers of Jesus, who commanded that the poor be provided for. But for them religion is just a cloak used to hide their real beliefs -- that their greed for money is more important than the lives of their fellow citizens (of both this country and the world). Dekkers is a vile person, but no more vile than the millions of other right-wingers willing to deny health care to others.
Dekkers is Dutch. But he appears to have adopted the views of the Nazi forefathers of his current employer when it comes to "ubermenschen" (white Caucasians) and "untermenschen" (unseemly brown people). Sad to see that kind of rank bigotry on bald display, but, alas, not too unusual in Europe, which views people of your own nationality as the own "real" humans, other Europeans as "maybe" humans, and brown people... untermenschen. So it goes.
ReplyDeleteTo their credit though, the Europeans have overcome those feelings enough to at least cover all their citizens with decent health care. But here in the United States our right-wing has blocked those efforts, so millions continue to be denied life-saving health care.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the resistance to universal health care here in the United States is white crackers who don't want their taxes going to pay for health care for N-words. Europe has very few people of color, or at least did when they passed all their universal health care systems, thus there's not that disincentive. It's the same reason why Europe has generous welfare benefits and the US doesn't. In the US, the fear amongst a large percentage of the white population is that welfare will benefit people of color at the expense of white people. I.e., there's bigotry in both cases, it's just that European bigotry about "wogs" has been more at a distance and hasn't affected their welfare and health care debates until recently.
ReplyDeleteUntil recently. British hooligans love going in for a bit of Paki-bashing for fun, but they couldn't do that if Indians and Pakistanis hadn't become so common. Same thing in France with North Africans, and Germany with Turks. So they can no longer diss wogs at a distance and are having to confront their own racist attitudes up close and personal. There's maybe change a'comin' there, but it ain't there yet.