Commercials Cause High Cost of Health Care in America
Please tell me I am not the only person in America who objects to primetime pharmaceutical advertising? It seems every night as I watch the news before dinner I am bombarded by ads that tout cures for diarrhea, constipation, erectile dysfunction, hemorrhoids and athletes foot, to name a few.
After describing the symptoms in gruesome detail, the ads then go on to explain how, very possibly, I could die if I took the medicine. If I don’t die, then there may be awkward social consequences like gas, breakouts or fainting. So why would I bother? I’ll take my chances.
It’s not as if the quality of the advertising is even anywhere near “passable”. I mean, come on – if you want to cure ED might I suggest a single bathtub, maybe in your own bathroom instead of on some public park? And as for the lady that accosts people in airports speaking loudly about bowel movements, who on earth would do that, and who was the imbecile that thought that this would be a good way to sell your product?
I have two basic gripes here. One is the timing. Could you put these advertisements on at a more appropriate time, rather than mealtimes, or when little Johnny is likely to be watching “Big Bang Theory”?
My second gripe is, how about hiring someone who has a clue to do your TV advertising? Bathtubs, people (and now by insane extension, entire cities) made out of copper tubing and cacti growing out of airline seats (as if they were not uncomfortable enough already!) are such poor ideas that I instantly recall the advertisement because it is so bad, but I can’t remember the product for my life.
Sadly, as a nation we have become accustomed to this tasteless barrage pushing products only a minority of us would ever need (and are perfectly capable of finding at a drugstore if we did) that we tune them out. It says a lot about us as a nation, though. You don’t see this kind of nonsense in other countries, because doctors there seem perfectly capable of recommending treatment to patients (instead of the other way around) and the citizens of those nations have a curious ability to walk to a drugstore by themselves and buy a remedy should they need it. Of course, we have the advantage of knowing that your athletes foot remedy might give you a stroke, nausea or smallpox but I’m guessing they, like us, would be OK with the risk if the product was approved by their own health authorities.
If you want to know why healthcare is so expensive in our country, think how much it costs to run endlessly repetitive poor quality advertisements about bladder control (which include people, animals and buildings made of plumbing materials) or Erectile Dysfunction (again with the plumbing) and figure how much less each pill would cost you if you just went to the doctor, told you the symptoms, and he were to prescribe medicine to cure it. Hardly revolutionary is it?