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 ...
No, it refers to people who think it's in my best interest to kill all future innovation for cheaper prices today. That's how socialists think. They only care about getting what they need today. Screw the future and everyone else.
If it were as simple as a news story moving aound censors on the net, then there would be no issue.
The fact is that nearly every other country besides the US has price controls on drugs, procedures, and medical devices. In other countries, these price controls are applied under the rubric of socialist “positive rights” language.
As a result, the US funds the medical innovation of the entire world. Very few drugs come to market because of the commercial potential in other countries- it is the US market that they are all developed for because of the freedom to charge something resembling a market price for a drug.
The US alone has rejected the “intransigent nationalism” of other countries that disallow freedom of contract.
Customers can’t simultaneously demand Turkish drug prices and US innovation.
But don’t worry, when innovation dries up, your Dem Senator friends will cook up lots of taxes and and new programs to fund research. And so one more sector of the economy falls under the aegis of state control. Too bad it won’t be for ailments that you or most Americans suffer from. Just the ones with political saliency.
Ever wonder exactly who's spreading this spate of stories about "melamine in everything"? To me it looks like Big Pharma's version of the hockey stick curve.
Screwing the future and everybody else is called individual liberty. Those deluded enough to think they can manage the future and expect the rest of us to go along with their plan underestimate the difficulties of running the USSR without the NKVD.
So am I. I guess we don't have your prescription for Kool-Aid.
“Customers cant simultaneously demand Turkish drug prices and US innovation.’
Of course we can. We can also buy Jaguars made in the UK by Ford and bring them to America. It’s how things work.
Are there price controls on Jaguars in the UK, or any country for that matter? The issue is not one of simple price arbitrage.
You’re assuming every country but the US has price controls on pharma. A cite to that affect would be useful.
Also, the drugs I’m familiar with are not reimported. They are made overseas. Usually by a division of the American manufacturer. Advocating a captive US market for any product is so far from free trade as to be a laugh.
Not "every", but all the other developed countries.
US Dept of Commerce Study
FDA Commissioner speech
Cato Institute editorial
The Cato proposal is not unrealistic, but it's miles away from what the Senate proposed last week.
And guess what:
Nature study on innovation
AEI-Brookings study on new drugs
Of course you realize that the Democratic proposals are not about "free trade" or lower prices, but about managing our liberty in the service of government agencies, unions, and HMOs, right?
The reason that Rx drugs cost less in countries like Canada is that international laws on commerce treat prescription drugs differently from other consumer products. U.S. pharmaceutical companies are required under a 1994 treaty to sell their drugs at drastically cut prices to countries with drug price controls...
Great comments, thanks.
Thanks.
That should provide a sobering dose of reality for all those here who really believe in free trade, the rule of law and conservative principles in general. Some others still couldn't give a damn as long as they get theirs.
tin foil hat time I guess. Big pharma is eeeevvvviiiillll.
go vote for Buchanan or something. You sound like a Patsie with this raft of faux populism.
Caveat emptor, my friend. If you're buying pharma products from Mexico, and you're getting them on the cheap, there's a better than average chance those drugs are counterfeits.
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