re: #193 Obdicut

I’m also for a near-total ban on pharmaceutical advertising. I’m a huge freedom of speech advocate, but dear god, the cost to the public is astonishing.

I don’t have a problem with it. Companies are free to promote their products - after all, the name brand drugs really are different from the generics, and even if they weren’t it isn’t at all unusual for companies to thrive simply by setting their product apart from others based on ephemera. There are companies that sell water, in bottles, to people, in a country with a continent-wide system of publicly available drinking water. And who charge high prices doing so.

The key is to expose consumers, in some way, to the actual costs, even if the exposure is token. It just needs to be large enough to be noticeable and people will pay attention to it. They will also pay attention to advertising, and to independent reviews and other sources of information as they attempt to sort out which drug or procedure is going to deliver the amount of bang for their buck they are willing to part with.

Letting companies participate in this process is part of that process. People are quite aware that most commercials feature turds with a cherry on top to begin with. It’s the manipulation of market when the market itself is terrifically distorted by price hiding that causes the uncontrolled runup in costs.