Will be difficult for them to blame Republicans for their malfeasance.
Posted on 10/31/2011 1:56:39 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
Acting once again without Congress, President Obama on Monday was directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to reduce drug shortages that administration officials say have placed patients at risk and led to price gouging.
The president signed an executive order -- his fifth in a week -- instructing the FDA to take action absent congressional approval.
Last year, the FDA reported 178 drug shortages -- mainly cancer drugs, anesthetics, electrolytes and emergency room drugs -- and the agency says it continues to see an increase in shortages this year. The White House also announced Obama's support for House and Senate legislation that would require drug makers to notify the FDA six months ahead of a potential shortage. Under current regulations, drug manufactures are only required to notify the FDA if medically necessary drugs are being discontinued. Notification of shortages is strictly voluntary.
In remarks before he signed the order, Obama said drug shortages have nearly tripled over the past five years while Congress has foundered.
"Even though the FDA has successfully prevented an actual crisis, this is one of those slow-rolling problems that could end up resulting in disaster for patients and health care facilities all across the country," he said. "Congress has been trying since February to do something about this. It has not yet been able to get it done. And it is the belief of this administration ... that we can't wait for action on the Hill."
The executive action is part of an overarching push by the White House to portray Obama, who is facing ...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You can look at the entire spectrum of socialist economic activity in history, or you can just look at the way the USA handled petroleum products with price controls in the Seventies.
No need to guess how it is going to work.
It’s my view that pharmaceutical companies as well as defense cos, have an obligation to their customers as well as to shareholders to meet the demand without ever incurring life threatening shortages.
Firms that provide life saving drugs for society as well as materiel for the US military aren’t the same as providers of HDTV sets or movie DVDs or other non-essentials.
Their products just like electric utilities affect lives and if they fail to produce responsibly, they need to understand clearly that they will pay a heavy price. I have no problem seeing a corporation that abuses its position and attempts to fleece or hijack the public facing consequences.
Sorry failed to specifically answer your question. My answer in ( )
apoliticalone, is it your view that the government should be involved directly in mandating what drugs should be produced (Yes, under certain circumstances such as national interests and defense), in what quantity (Yes to meet national interests) and at what price (price setting and gouging are both undesirable, price gouging is a prosecutable offense during disasters, they decide it by juries).
The government regularly puts and claims national interests (security etc) ahead of our individual rights. Should a corporation be permitted to function outside and above the national interests? You tell me if your water or electric co should be permitted to price gouge or autonomously ration supply for only economic reasons.
Just an opinion.
Will be difficult for them to blame Republicans for their malfeasance.
The Dems will play the “it’s for the children” card...
While keeping them from asthma inhalers...
I actually believe him. We’re continually short of various meds. Not sure what this order is going to do to help that though.
“The past five years? Well, who’s been running Congress for the past five year? Republicans have been running it for less than a year now. Who was running it before?”
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Actually Republicans haven’t “run congress” for many years now. They have had control of the house of representatives since January of this year but that is not running congress, it only gives them the clout to block legislation in the house. They cannot push anything through because the dims can block them in the Senate where they still have the majority.
Republicans have controlled one half of one third of the federal government for the past nine months and according to Obama that makes them at fault for everything that has ever gone wrong in the history of the world.
Soon there will be only one world, a world in rapid decline unless sanity can be restored somehow.
“Will be difficult for them to blame Republicans for their malfeasance.”
Not at all. You’re forgetting that reality means nothing to liberals.
I don't necessarily doubt we have a shortage of meds. It's just that I think The FDA has more to do with the shortage than anything. The FDA is nothing more than a political arm of The RAT Party and a make-work factory for The RAT Party's number one constituency; lawyers.
I stand corrected.
The FDA is an example of the “hidden costs” principle of economics.
The cost, in lives and suffering, of withholding drugs from the market, is an invisible and unmeasurable “what if” game. “What if drug XYZ were approved earlier, how many lives would be better or saved?”
But, on the flip side, if a drug is approved “too early” and has some detrimental effects, these costs are visible and measurable.
Therefore, the incentive is to NOT approve drugs.
Yes, sometimes a defective product slips through and people are harmed. But that's when the legal system kicks in and serves the purpose it was designed to serve and that will keep UL on its toes.
As it stands, The FDA pays no price for any defective product it lets on the market. And, even if it did, as a government agency, we the people would pay the price.
The free market does everything better.
The FDA also pays no price (and I believe this is MORE significant) for delaying release of lifesaving drugs.
I wonder what happened in 2007. Hm. On an unrelated question, when did Nanzi Pelosi take over The House?
Well, the threat of Obamacare certainly pushed some drug money into other areas. That’s not the whole problem, but certainly part of it.
Thank you. So the bogeyman here is “stockpilers”, much as “speculators” are the all-purpose whipping boy for rationalizing the governmental interventions in other markets that just make matters worse.
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