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I realize that most politicians are in the back pocket of someone - but do they need to be so damn obvious about it???

Hrmm...maybe it's all the "Canadian" medicine that's made people up here so damn liberal...

Drug companies were faced with Canada's national purchasing - a scheduling of prices not truly negotiated with the Canadians - but established on a take it or leave it basis. For the sake of argument, let's say that it is 40% off the price prevailing in the United States. The drug companies have the choice of either not selling any drugs in Canada, or agreeing to sell at a reduced cost - one which may not cover the filly allocated cost of drug development, production and distribution. There may be scale effects in the cost of production of the drug that give them a reason to knuckle under and sell to Canada at those rates. For whatever rationale - they choose to sell at the scheduled prices to the Canadian market.

Now - assume that the entire universe bought drugs that were transshipped from Canada at those prices. What would happen? The ROI on capital invested in the pharmaceutical companies would fall as the revenue would drop below the cost research and development, litigation (in the US, primarily), patent defense, marketing, etc., etc., etc. Soon investment in the pharmaceutical industry would be curtailed and R&D would decline and....you get the picture.

About 25 years ago I worked in the retailing of photographic equipment - and grey market cameras were an issue. Large retailers (the late 47th St. Photo might be the best example) could purchase a container shipment of say, Minolta cameras in Paris and, depending on the currency exchange situation and the differential prices Minolta would sell cameras to distributors in deferent countries for, they could bring those cameras into the US and sell them at attractive prices and still make significant profits. Even after the cost of transshipment.

This is essentially analogous to the pharmaceutical conundrum re: Canada. However - one thing about pharmaceuticals is that 10 mg of Lipitor is 10 mg of Lipitor, no matter where it is dispensed in the world. In the camera industry - manufacturers combated the grey market transshipments by offering different warranty periods in different countries, by printing the manuals and packaging only in one language, and by having exclusive model names for the same product in different countries (an XD-11 marketed in the U.S. was labeled an XD-7 in France, for example). By the nature of pharmaceutical drugs - there is nothing you can do in this sense to differentiate.

The one thing you could do, which I see no evidence of the US drug manufacturers doing - is limit the number of units of any particular drug shipped into Canada to some rational level based on the composition of the Canadian population. If Canada has 28 million people, clearly they do not need 28 million annual dosages of Lipitor for example. Right now it seems as if the Canadian Rx operations that are transshipping back into the US can order unlimited quantities. That seems to be an incredibly stupid policy on the part of pharmaceutical manufacturers.

I realize that most politicians are in the back pocket of someone - but do they need to be so damn obvious about it???

If they can be that obvious, it is obvious they don't have to worry about voter wrath. The sheeple will just re-elect them anyhow.