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California considers selling its own generic prescription drugs:
California could become the first state to introduce its own brand of generic prescription drugs in an effort to drag down stratospheric healthcare costs. The plan for state-branded drugs is part of California Gov. Gavin Newsom's budget proposal, which he is expected to unveil Friday, January 10.
"A trip to the doctor's office, pharmacy or hospital shouldn't cost a month's pay," Newsom said in a statement. "The cost of healthcare is just too damn high, and California is fighting back." A plan for California to sell its own drugs would "take the power out of the hands of greedy pharmaceutical companies," Newsom said, according to the Associated Press.
Under the plan, the state would contract with one or more generic drug companies, which would manufacture select prescription drugs under a state-owned label, according to an overview of the plan reported by the Los Angeles Times. Those state generics would presumably be offered to Californians at a lower price than current generics, which could spark more competitive pricing in the market overall.
So far, much of the plan's details are unclear, though, including which drugs might be sold and how much money they could save residents and the state.
The conceptual plan so far has garnered both praise and skepticism from health industry experts.
Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Health Access California, told the Associated Press that "Consumers would directly benefit if California contracted on its own to manufacture much-needed generic medications like insulin—a drug that has been around for a century yet the price has gone up over tenfold in the last few decades."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 14 2020, @04:40AM (2 children)
There's some interesting considerations here.
Jeff Bezos was at over $150 billion but he took a hit from the divorce. Bill Gates is still above $100 billion. He hasn't tossed it all into B&MG, but the major reason is that Microsoft's stock price has tripled since 2016.
If you adjust for inflation, you can find historical figures who had "more worth":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures [wikipedia.org]
I had never seen this list before. John D. Rockefeller is estimated to have been worth around $350 billion in 2017 dollars, Jakob Fugger is estimated at $400 billion (lived from 1459–1525).
There are sketchier estimates, such as $4.6 trillion for Augustus, and "inconceivable" for Mansa Musa [bbc.com]. It's not fair to compare these kings/emperors to modern businessmen, so let's ignore them.
If you look at Rockefeller or that other Fugger, the inflation adjustment doesn't account for the indescribably better stuff that is obtainable by a current day billionaire. Fugger couldn't buy a personal jet, driverless sports car, HVAC, etc. despite having "$0.4 trillion". Today's $100 computers, even if you disregard the networking aspects, have capabilities far out of reach of those people. A poor American, while having more financial uncertainty and less raw resources, land, and manpower than an ancient king, can nevertheless live better than that king in various ways. The poor American without health insurance can probably game the system and get access to better health care, simply because of the vast increase in knowledge, effective drugs, and safer surgery over the centuries. These things are also true if comparing someone in 1950 to someone in 2020. Since the 1970s, productivity has increased while wages have stagnated, but you can have a supercomputer in your pocket and have a better chance of surviving cancer.
There has been speculation about when the first "trillionaire" will appear. I would like to make it harder to achieve this by adjusting for inflation back down to 2015 dollars or some other baseline.
When will we see the world's first trillionaire? [theguardian.com]
Bill Gates could be the world's first trillionaire by 2042 [independent.co.uk]
3 Industries That Will Probably Create the First Trillionaire [inc.com]
Interesting Plausibility that Elon Musk Could Become a Trillionaire with a City on Mars by 2040 [nextbigfuture.com]
It seems to me that the most credible way to become worth 7-10 times as much as Bezos (adjusted) would be related to asteroid mining. Don't get me wrong: turning asteroids into cash will not be easy, estimates like $1 quintillion for asteroid worth are not useful since the mineral amounts would crash the prices, and an asteroid tycoon would probably have to safely get the material to Earth's surface (where most people live and will continue to want to live) to become a trillionaire. I also don't think the Musky One will become a trillionaire.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:43AM
Showing just how irrational the stock market really is: Microsoft forces Windows 10 on the world at gunpoint and their stock price triples.
And yeah, I know, Azure, but there are a bunch of other cloud services that offer the same thing so it's not that special.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 14 2020, @12:31PM
> A poor American, while having more financial uncertainty and less raw resources, land, and manpower than an ancient king, can nevertheless live better than that king in various ways
No matter how many slaves and horses/camels that king had, there was no way to travel faster than horseback, and no way to preserve food for any time (freezing/refrigeration) or to stay cool in the summer. If you own even a small car, when you put your foot down you have a lot of horses at your command, and the ride is generally a whole lot better in a sedan than in a sedan chair. One of the first to put this in words was Bucky Fuller, he pointed out that we now have access to many "energy slaves".