Great for your wallet right now. BUT- The American market and its patent protection are 100% of the reason that there is any medical research at all. Even foreign companies that develop new drugs do it for the American market.If we substitute foreign acquired drugs we weaken and ultimately destroy the engine of medical research. And if you think well that's okay, we are at such a high level of medicine right now, we can afford to say "thus far and no farther," well, there is the problem of antibiotics. Bacteria and viruses are living creatures and they mutate and antibiotics lose their effectiveness over time and have to be replaced. That requires expensive medical research. If a company cannot make its research expenses back with a period of monopoly patent protection, new drugs- new antibiotics- will not be produced and after a time we are back to about 1910 medically. Without effective antibiotics, every disease is far more potentially fatal and things we take for granted, like knee replacements' success will be measured by survival rates and mostly won't be done at all. Every sort of medical operation will carry a much higher fatality rate. Hospitals will truly be places to die.
I understand you argument, but why do all the other countries get a price break and it is up to the American public to bear the major costs of the research and development? I do not like subsidizing the rest of the world, just so they can buy cheap Rx drugs. It seems totally unfair to me.