“The Pharmaceuticals got the guarantee that there will be no re-importation from anywhere . . .”
This is a GIGANTIC tax, by the way. The way it is now, national governments in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere buy pharma on behalf of all their hospitals. They negotiate a bulk price, and commit to a large quantity. It is the exact opposite of a monopoly.
This practice actually has a name - monopsony - when a single buyer has destructive pricing pressure over multiple suppliers. ME and African countries have taken it to another level - threats of breaking company patents.
The only, and I mean only, country in the world that has a free market for pharma (if you discount the enormous entry barriers imposed by the FDA idiots) is the USA.
We pay extraordinary prices for the drugs we get because 1) the FDA makes sure it takes $1BB and 10 years or more to get a drug to market, and 2) because when it comes to market, the rest of the world will buy at cost plus a sliver, while the US market buys customer by customer.
As such, this deal represents the very first WORLD TAX imposed by the entire rest of the world on the taxpayers of the US.
Thanks, I didn't know this.