PING...
Posted on 10/14/2004 8:28:01 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
MODERATOR: Mr. President, let's have a new question. It goes to you and let's get back to economic issues. Health insurance costs have risen over 36 percent over the last four years, according to The Washington Post. We're paying more, we're getting less. I would like to ask you who bears responsibility for this? Is it the government? Is it the insurance companies? Is it the lawyers? Is it the doctors? Is it the administration? MODERATOR: Senator Kerry.
SENATOR KERRY: The reason health care costs are getting higher -- one of the principal reasons is that this administration has stood in the way of common-sense efforts that would have reduced the costs. Let me give you a prime example. In the Senate, we passed the right of Americans to import drugs from Canada. But the President and his friends took it out in the House and now you don't have that right. The President blocked you from the right to have less expensive drugs from Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.gov ...
I can't seem to find the section or amendment of the US Constitution that says we have "THE RIGHT" to get less expensive drugs from Canada.
If anyone can direct me to it I'd be most appreciative........... };o)
PING...
There is only one RIGHT that I would like to see
Kerry exercise: the one that talks about remaining
silent...
I can't seem to find the section or amendment of the US Constitution that says we have "THE RIGHT" to get less expensive drugs from Canada.
 |
It's right under the amendment that says a woman has a "right" to an abortion, and right before the amendment that says minorities have the right to my income. |
No right. But why's free trade gotta be so hard?
Does anyone remember thalidomide?
http://www.thalidomide.ca/
The reason health insurance costs are rising is simple, but I wouldn't understand a liberal to get it: gross mismanagement by the insurance companies in the 90s. 1990s era insurance companies hate preventative medicine and would do everything possible to only pay for currative medicine, in medicine much like object maintenance is generally cheaper to deal with problems the earlier you deal with them. By avoiding those comparatively cheap costs 10 years ago they are now stuck holding the bag for much more expensive currative medicine now. Of course most of the folks who owned and ran the insurance companies then have sold them or retired, they made their bucks.
Flu Shots- tell the folks that want to import foreign drugs to look at the problem with flu vaccine. If it can happen with a British company, what makes you think importing from Canada will be more reliable? If you think conterfeit is only in money and watches, you haven't been on a NYC street corner.
I remember before we had medical, dental, prescription insurance. Things sure were cheaper. I think having insurance, whether private or gov. controlled, caused the prices to go UP UP UP way faster than inflation. I used to pay $7 to go to doc for check up, now my part is $20 and insurance pays about $60. I used to get a tooth filled for $6, now MY part is about $100 and insurance pays less than half.
The reason that drugs appear to be less expensive in Canada, is because they're subsidized by the Canadian government.
I doubt that Canada will be able to continue this practice, if Kerry starts sending Americans north for their 'rightful' share of drugs!
I don't understand why this obvious solution has not occurred to the CEOs of the drug cos. This is too politically hot to manage--don't sell Canada an unlimited amount of drugs. Only sell them what they can use for their own citizens.
Because the insurance companies are going broke, so they're raising rate wherever they can. They ignored the fact that in the world of medicine you always have to apy eventually, and the piper charges outrageous interest. Expect the insurance system to do some serious melting down over the next few years, hopefully it will come back stronger and smarter.
It still irks me that W did not keep driving home the point that these less expensive canadian drugs are also EXPIRED!
"Kerry: "the RIGHT to have less expensive drugs from Canada"
Liberal Democrats throw the word 'rights' around to the point where it has no meaning. As usual, they have no clue what they're talking about.
Wow, that's the 1st I've ever heard of that.
Two positions of Kerry are particularly stupid.
The first is adding the general population to the Federal Employees Health Benefit program (FEHB). The premiums for FEHB are fairly low because each employee is subsidized, with the employer picking up a share (more than half, actually), just as employers do for employee medical care in just about ever business that offers employee health insurance.
Now Kerry is either talking about extending these subsidies to every person who asks for them, or he is proposing that the general population pay three times as much out-of-pocket to buy into the FEHB plan. The first option would be murderously expensive, and the second option would be a non-starter, because the price would be stratospheric.
The second really stupid is this notion that we can buy all our drugs from Canada. The US drug market is the 800-pound-gorilla of the pharmaceutical trade. If the US tries to gain wholesale access to the Canadian market, the US drug companies will just stop offering discounts to the Canadians. How could it possibly be cheaper to ship drugs to Canada, repackage them, then ship them back? Drugs are cheaper in Canada because the Canadian government negotiates bulk pricing and the market is small enough that the drug companies know they can make up their development costs in the US market. If the US market is seved through Canada, this discount pricing will disappear in a heart-beat.
John Kerry is flat wrong... Anybody anywhere in the US can buy drugs from Cananda... Open an internet search page for the drug of your choice get a prescription and wala it comes FEDEX too...
The issue is that The president will not import drugs from Canada because they are not safe... This is another example of the Hypnosis spin that Kerry gets...
If you are not an informed voter then you should not be allowed to vote. If you have not throughly researched the issues and you vote for someone on presentation you do an injustice to America.
The more I look at John Kerry and the issues the more dangerous he becomes... that is true view not Right or Left view...
Importing drugs from Canada wouldn't last long...
See, if the US government started importing drugs from Canada wholesale, many MPs in the Canadian Parliament would see this as the Canadian taxpayers subsidizing drugs for American taxpayers.
Then, count on some outraged Liberal MP with the backing of a few other Liberal MPs, together with the Conservative and Bloc caucuses passing a bill eliminating subsidies for prescription drugs in Canada (NDPers and most Liberals wouldn't vote to eliminate a subsidy even if their lives depended on it).
Thus, Americans would end up paying the same for the drugs, and the Canadians would end up paying more for their drugs.
A lose-lose situation for bothn countries, if there ever was one.
I sure agree with your position on this. The President should have used this example to illustrate how throwing open the drug import doors could lead to massive health problems, particularly for the elderly. Mr Kerry would chance putting peoples lives at risk.
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