ex animo
davidfarrar
Posted on 12/16/2009 6:58:22 AM PST by DavidFarrar
WASHINGTON – The Senate rejected a plan Tuesday to allow Americans to import low-cost prescriptions from abroad, handing drug makers a victory that may help secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
ex animo
davidfarrar
The cost of these prescriptions is “killing folks”. A lot of folks (old folks in particular...and probably more women in particular) cut their pills in half..or don’t take meds because of the cost.
My problem with re-importation from Canada (and that is generally what is used as a reference) is this: Canada imposes prices on American-made drugs that allow the company to recover manufacturing cost and a small profit. Sound good? How do you finance any new product development? The companies have the option to abide or abandon the Canadian market (and give up patent rights to the Canadian government). Re-importation from Canada would cut R&D budgets, and since we do the bulk of R&D, there would be cheap drugs, but few new ones.....
hh
Looks like the vote to kill it was bipartisan, which means the RINO-party is just as guilty as the Neo-Communist party at sustaining the trade protectionism for their political benefactors. The free market be damned.
emails and calling DC are a waste of time in most cases they have busied the lines, limited the amount of space in boxes etc. They are NOT use to having their local offices called and faxed by angry FReepers. Feel free to add your own senators...remind the republicans to stand firm and NO compromises! Local numbers can usually be found under the contact info or the services info. Do a copy paste with line breaks and paragraph breaks for easy reading/copying.
Speaks volumes.
“. The free market be damned.”
The government long ago got rid of THAT.
This is all theater, posturing for the media.
Although drugs can be imported from Canada with a certain amount of trust, that does not necessarily apply to Latvia or Bulgaria or Venezuela. The larger question is protecting the public from counterfeit trash that kills.
Would you trust a drug made in North Korea and trans shipped through Venezuela?
Pharma’s piece of the Health Care bill ...... Follow the money
Another way of saying that is that Americans are, and have been for years, subsidizing the socialized medical systems of Canada and other nations by paying much higher prices for drugs developed by US drug firms.
Just another hidden tax or fee paid by Americans that few talk about openly.
An older friend is going the Canadian import route, it’s either that or go without as the “doughnut hole” has been reached and nothing else is affordable now.
Yes, if the Food and Drug Administration ran the due process tests on them, or even private companies, we can successfully address issues of protecting the public from counterfeit trash that kills. This argument is simply a red herring — in my humble opinion, of course.
As an example, I presently purchase a prescription drug from India through a Canadian company for $21. That same prescription costs $102 here in the U.S.
We are being ripped off,IMHO.
ex animo
davidfarrar
The vote tally was 51-48 in favor; there are only 40 GOP votes. How do you blame the GOP for that?
Sadly you are right. But since we can’t change the rest of the world, there are few good alternatives. One might be to prohibit exportation of drugs while under patent protection. I doubt whether most other countries would notice, though....
hh
It doesnt matter because odumbo will keep his campaign promise and veto this bill
And adding to something said in another post, there actually is no free market internationally. Never has been and likely never will be. And the more the US government pretends there is a free market internationally, the more US citizens and businesses will pay a price for the pretense.
The US still has the economic power to deal with this drug situation and other situations where other nations take advantage of the US in international trade, but the government is too cowardly and bought off to do it.
This is one of a couple of issues where I can foresee very intense populist pressures creating some problems for the GOP in the next cycle. Banking fees/credit card interest is another. Traditional lassiez-faire positions on those are going to be a no-sale with wide swaths of the electorate.
I would like to get the breakdown of this vote. Can anyone assist?
ex animo
davidfarrar
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