Posted on 05/08/2007 9:45:03 AM PDT by BlazingArizona
Consumers expecting a miracle in the Senate that would end Big Pharma's monopoly and the FDA-enforced drug racket now operating in the United States will be sorely disappointed by yesterday's events. Fifteen Democratic senators (led by Sen. Edward Kennedy) abandoned consumer interests and joined a Republican-organized amendment that would protect Big Pharma's stranglehold over U.S. consumers by blocking the importation of prescription drugs from other countries...
(Excerpt) Read more at newstarget.com ...
What monopoly?
If Americans want to see an end of all innovation and forget about any new drugs, just let this go through.
They’ve already started. Try buying some runny imported cheese made with unpasteurized milk. ;-)
Yes, I have also thought of that as a possible solution. However if we still sell to sub-Saharan africa at a discount then the Europeans will import from there.
Selling products at different prices in different markets is a common practice, and is not a problem so long as buyers have a countervailing right to shop around for the best deal. Neither is there anything unique about the safety issue with drugs either. A large percentage of the products we import are potentially dangerous. When we import a shank of New Zealand lamb or a Mercedes, we need to be concerned about product safety. Many products need to be tariffed and inspected, but we still routinely import them. The one exception is medications.
Were you aware that Clinton carved out a special exemption from the drug import ban for homosexuals? Yep - if you're of that politically-important minority, you get a free pass to order medication by mail from overseas. Why don't the rest of us have this right too?
Not true. The majority of pharma spending is on compliance with regulations.
No.......I should have put a sarcasm tag on the end of my post to you. ;)
Since when does “free trade” include FORCING a company to sell a specific amount of their product to a foreign government?
Because that’s what this bill does.
As are most Medical Schools......the FDA....research facilities....etc. I think it's a two-edged sword. They're a necessary entity.... but they're also run amok.
This research Doc does have the ability to take this product to market. He has made the decision to see this through to the end. By keeping control of the product and process he will be a very wealthy man and the public will be paying much less.
He is smart enough to know that the world will not measure his success by the size of his bank account. I believe that his line of products will be saving lives in Iraq within a few weeks.
See! It's not that Big Pharma really gives a crap about your safety, which is their stated excuse for keeping imports illegal. What concerns them most is reimportation of their own product sold at lower prices elsewhere in the world. As one of the sources quoted in the article says, if imported medications are so dangerous, where are all the dead Canadians?
In this state, we're fortunate enough to live near a border. Low-cost drugs are a bus ride away. Busing retired geezers from Sun City to pharmacies in Nogales is huge business, and local politicians know not to mess with the massive retired vote. Buying anything in Mexico is notoriously iffy, but over the years we have developed a set of sources we can rely on. But you shouldn't have to be gay or live on the border to get affordable drugs. Open markets should be a basic right of all Americans.
“Drug companies do not spend any more on marketing than they have to.”
Sure they don’t but it doesn’t mean that their marketing doesn’t drive up costs.
“What did Lipitor cost in 1970? What did Plavix cost then? Would you like to guess?”
No idea but I bet you will say they cost more. That’s also before generic alternatives as well as similar drugs by other drug companies that drove the retail price down.
“What did Lipitor cost in 1970? What did Plavix cost then? Would you like to guess?”
>>No idea but I bet you will say they cost more.
No, on the contrary...Drug costs have come way down since 1970. Infinity dollars could not have bought one Lipitor or Plavix capsule in 1970, since these drugs did not exist then.
Marketing does not drive up costs. Again, the contrary is the case. Marketing minimizes the marginal cost per unit sold. This is why firms do marketing.
I don’t agree when it comes to drugs.
For example, say with 10MM marketing, Merck could charge $25 for X drug and net $3/pill.
With 30MM marketing they could net $4 per pill and sell far more but would have to charge $35/pill do defray advertising costs. Because insurance pays the vast majority and to the extent it doesn’t people need it anyway (i.e. increased cost won’t hurt sales), they will of course choose the second option.
With your logic, it appears that you are what you eat.
Good discussion on Pharma and “free trade”. IMO, the fact that US Pharma are forced to export at fixed prices to socialist countries and cannot seem to defend their patents against many of these trading partners is wrong.
In this case the only Free Trade is that the rest of the world gets a free ride on the back of the USA...screw em and let them pay as much or more than we do or do it for themselves.
Unfortunately, drugs are also sold at lower prices to free-market countries like Switzerland because that's what their market will support. In fact, American drugs are sold at lower prices in every foreign country.
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