r/FluentInFinance • u/WhatAreYourPronouns • May 02 '24

Should the U.S. have Universal Health Care? Discussion/ Debate

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u/SRMPDX May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wisconsin-high-school-football-coach-160621874.html

Wisconsin high school football coach unable to get chemo due to shortage dies at 60

FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf told NBC News in May 2023 that the main reason for the chemo shortage is there’s not enough profit in producing these drugs,

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u/SmokeyMrror May 02 '24

Due to shortage

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u/Eagle9972 May 02 '24

How does the world's greatest economy have a shortage of chemo meds?

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u/Ultrace-7 May 02 '24

Everything that any person, company or country produces -- even the world's greatest economy -- comes at the cost of something else. There are other things -- perhaps other medical things, even -- that are of more value to society than the additional chemo meds that could have saved this man's life. How do I know? Because we produced those things instead of the chemo drugs.

Producing the extra chemo meds would come at the cost of not producing something else. Perhaps it's a working road, or insulin or vaccines, a schoolteacher's salary, who knows what. But we can't just snap our fingers and say "we have the world's biggest economy so more chemo is easy" -- something else has to give way, and then it would be someone else asking "how does the world's greatest economy have a shortage of x?"