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Bullseye! The higher prices in the U.S. drive the R&D that brings new drugs to the market. Absent that economic input, the R&D would dry up. The Europeans and Canadians are happy to snap up the fruits of our labor (both research and the folks who paid the higher prices for the research) and sell it at a discount. Why not? They never shouldered the expense to develop the new products. They have no costs of research, development and approval to amortize. If the market is cut out from under the R&D community, they will stop doing R&D. The motive is profit. The beneficiaries are people who need treatment. Both parties are damaged by the imports.

I have a couple of questions to ask both of you: If the people who are supposed to benefit from the drugs can't afford them then why bother to do R&D? Most conservatives, and I am one of them, complain about Part D for seniors, yet you don't want them to go to Canada to get them if they have no insurance. So, I guess the solution that you two, and others, see is that seniors should just go ahead and die so our drug companies can keep on with R&D for seniors(and there are other, younger people who can't afford insurance but need meds) who can't afford the drugs?

How does that make you any different than the Dems who want to ration health care?

You are probably the same people who are constantly saying that free trade is a good deal for America, but this free trade you don't want.

You won't have to worry about whether drugs are affordable. You'll be able to buy all the stuff that has been developed to date at affordable prices. There just won't be anything new. If what's on the shelf won't fix your problem, you'll die anyway. There won't be an alternative available at any price. Drug companies have lots of special programs for hardship cases that really need their products, but can't afford them. It's good PR. I would rather see prices that encourage R&D with internal "charity" efforts directed at good PR to the alternative of no R&D because it is not a paying proposition.

The Dems will ration health care. They will also kill the profit motive for R&D. You'll get a ration of the existing drugs. There won't be anything new. R&D is the engine that converts "hope" into reality.

If the people who are supposed to benefit from the drugs can't afford them then why bother to do R&D?

Profits drive R&D. Yours is a silly question.

So, I guess the solution that you two, and others, see is that seniors should just go ahead and die so our drug companies can keep on with R&D for seniors(and there are other, younger people who can't afford insurance but need meds) who can't afford the drugs?

What? Do you even bother to read what you write? Seniors should go ahead and die? Good grief, Medicare and Medicaid are available to help people that can't afford their meds. Florida, where I live, is filled with seniors who can afford their meds but don't want to pay the price because they think it's someone else's responsibility to pay for them. They might not be able to eat out as many times next month or play as many games of golf. The horror!

There will always be people who cannot afford all the treatment they believe they need or may actually need. What's the answer, nationalized healthcare? Fine, but remember that countries with price controls don't produce new drugs. It just doesn't happen. About 90% of all new drugs are discovered right here in the US.

You are probably the same people who are constantly saying that free trade is a good deal for America, but this free trade you don't want.

Like all protectionists you have no idea what free trade [or free(r)] trade means. Canada agreed to an international treaty whereby American drug companies would sell them at controlled prices (and can ignore the patent protections if they do not) if they agreed not to allow the re-importation of those drugs. Canada is breaking their agreement. This is not free trade; it is an artificial market created by socialistic leeches who like benefiting from the efforts and expenditures of others. To support such actions is to support socialism.