Posted on 05/14/2007 9:02:12 AM PDT by oblomov
Listen to Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe discuss importing drugs from Canada, and you'll hear endless happy talk about "more competitive prices," "substantial savings" and how "crucial" reimportation is to "the American consumer." What you won't hear Ms. Snowe mention much is the drug-import program of Portland, Maine.
Interesting that, since Portland was one of those cities that gained notoriety a few years back for defying federal law and setting up a Canada import program that it promised would save its thousands of city employees and their dependents a bundle on drugs. Three years in, it has attracted all of 350 participants.
That was also the flame-out fate of a statewide plan by Gov. John Baldacci to empower the Penobscot Indian Nation to build a distribution center to import price-controlled Canadian drugs for some 325,000 uninsured and underinsured Mainers. The tribe in February unceremoniously closed the program (which never got its hands on Canadian drugs, but morphed into a domestic mail-order business), having attracted just 3,000 Medicaid recipients.
Ditto, all across America. Three years ago, grandstanding governors and mayors vowed to break federal law and set up state-run drug import programs, giving millions of citizens the "opportunity" to buy cheap Canadian drugs. The media showered these souls with headlines, praised them for being on the side of poor, strapped U.S. consumers--then forgot all about it. Today, most state-import programs are on life support, while some have closed completely. Never mind all Washington's hifalutin arguments about intellectual property, free trade and safety; the overwhelming majority of Americans appear to have little use for import programs that offer few drugs at long wait times, under suspect safety conditions and with minimal savings.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
The simple reason why Canadian drugs are cheaper is that their national health plans fixes the price they will pay. The pharmaceutical companies just shift their losses on Canadian drugs to the US market. These programs if they were successful would have just further increased costs to American consumers.
This is a ridiculous statement. Canadian drugs are much cheaper and are widely popular with people who must pay for their drugs themselves. This article is about stupid government programs, not the savings that can be realized by buying drugs from Canada. There is no good reason, except the greed of large contributors to political campaigns, that the US government doesn't just back off and allow citizens to buy there needed drugs from the cheapest and best source. And I don't want to here the old canard about the necessity for US citizens to pay more to subsidize necessary research for the rest of the world. Money needed for research should be paid equally by all consumers of the products not just by the suckers, US citizens, whose government has become a international socialist regime.
The drug companies are still making a profit over their marginal costs of production and distribution. They are not recovering proportionate R&D costs from the Canadian market. The U.S. consumer is picking up a disproportionately large share of the tab for R&D for the Canadian market (among many others).
We are permitted to pay the cheapest price for everything...except pharmaceuticals. Why?
In this case, because Canada has price-controls, the prices are artificially low and could not be used to recoup research costs if extended to everyone.
Allowing Americans to buy price-controlled drugs is imposing de-facto price controls in the United States. A typical liberal maneuver as they do not have balls to propose price-controls here, but are happy to tag along with another nation's price controls.
We are paying the cheapest price for pharmaceuticals.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Canard? Name all the new drugs created by companies in countries that practice price controls. Whether you like it or not, the drug development pipeline depends heavily on profits generated in the U.S.
Institute price controls in the U.S. and you will kill innovation. Period. Ninety percent of all new drugs are discovered in the U.S. and there is a very good reason for that.
Money needed for research should be paid equally by all consumers of the products not just by the suckers
And I'm sure you have a failsafe plan for getting all those countries who force price controls on the pharmaceutical industry to stop dictating prices and allow the market to determine the cost. Care to share that plan with us?
.....US citizens, whose government has become a international socialist regime.
Our country doesn't practice price controls, which is why most of the world's R&D locates here, and you think this makes us an international socialist regime?
Not allowing it's citizens to purchase needed drugs where they can get the best price and forcing them to pay higher prices than the rest of the world in order to support pharmaceutical companies, is price control, plain and simple.
No need, I get my pharmaceuticals from Vanuatu.
Cheap imports are good, except for this one category, of course. Go figure.
Then you don't understand price controls. Do you have a plan for forcing the socialists of the world to pay market prices for their drugs like we do? Or are you long on complaining and short on solutions? Do you even understand why almost all new drugs are discovered in the U.S.?
You're acting like a democrat who won't institute price controls here, but will allow us to benefit from the anti-capitalist policies of the international socialist regime directly to our north. As long as the ends justify the means, it's ok? How conservative.
‘They are not recovering proportionate R&D costs from the Canadian market.’
They’re also not recovering the enormous expense of advertizing, which is necessary to tell Baby Boomers that they don’t have to go through life with leaky bladders or set aside five minutes once a week to take their medication, like their parents did back in the Stone Age.
American television is absolutely innundated with stupid comercials, run ad nauseum, hawking quiality-of-life drugs, 24/7, that promise to relieve symptoms that people just used to put up with, while the drugs themselves hardly do anything to cure or treat the underlying conditions (with notable exceptions, of course).
Oh, and everyone of these meds seems to have 72 side-effects, one of which always seems to be diarrhea or constipation -— which is appropos since the target market (Baby Boomers) are all full of you-know-what, anyways.
‘Brave New World’ it seems, was more than just a novel to these folks.
So now you guys are in favor of killing American industry and eliminating jobs for American workers? I wish you'd keep your story straight.
Just looking for a little intellectual consistency from the Free Traitors.
They keep finding new stuff to worry about too! Like Restless Leg Syndrome.
If only they could do something about my Restless Penis Syndrome.
How exactly can you import prescription drugs from Canada? I tried with a prescription from my doctor in US and I was told that I needed a Canadian doctor to approve it. The fee the Canadian Doctor charged eliminated the savings...
Is it "intellectual" for other countries to tell our manufacturers they can only charge a specific amount for their product?
Even high schools teach kids what constitutes a false economy and why that's bad. What's your excuse?
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