Obama and the Power of Words

The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 26, 2008 | STEPHEN F. HAYES

[dervish]

Remember the flu shot shortage a few years ago? Thank Hillary. It was her brain child to have the government buy up the vaccine forcing sales at greatly reduced rates. Price went too low so most of the manufacturers stopped making flu vaccine.

[ModelBreaker]

Hillary is associated with universal healthcare. It is her baby and she has invested years developing it. Once she is taken out, that’s the end of that idea.

LOL. The left will not give up on this ever. If Hussein wins the election, that will be agenda item 1.

[ThePythonicCow]

here is an excellent article that explains it: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa521.pdf.

Yes - good article.

af is correct.

af started this subthread with post Post #26, which stated:

one of the reasons why I support reimportation of drugs from canada is that it would put a heavy strain on their system. Price controls would collapse as canadians would be paying for cheaper drugs for us (and there are a lot more Americans than canadians). Combine that with a harper govt and you could see the end of socialized medicine there.

I still don't agree with that claim. I still suspect that lifting the reimportation ban would as likely drive prices, and drug company profits, and drug company R&D lower, as it would drive Canadian prices higher leading to threatening their socialized medicine.

I saw nothing in the article linked above that changes my mind on my disagreement with the specifics of af's original claim.

[dervish]

Since the article throughout is recommending lifting the reimportation ban thus forcing more costs onto the rest of the drug subsidized world in order to sustain R&D costs, I don’t agree with your analysis.

As to the collapse of the Canadian system, I don’t know enough about it to speak.

[neverdem]

If elected he will be much like Jack Kennedy.

I think this is closer analogy. He was such a disaster for NYC, he paved the way for Rudy.

Archives of David Dinkins Administration Now Available

Since Barack and his wife agree with the black victimization and hate whitey creed, I think it could be much worse.

[beejaa]

“We underestimate Obama at our own peril.”
I agree as well. We have lots of white voters eagerly voting for this man in order to feel absolved of racism, plus younger voters who want “change,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. If Obama is elected, it will be interesting to see what happens to the issue of race in this country.

[ThePythonicCow]

Since the article throughout is recommending lifting the re-importation ban thus forcing more costs onto the rest of the drug subsidized world in order to sustain R&D costs, I don’t agree with your analysis.

Good point. I've been vacillating on whether to phrase this as

• "lifting the ban on re-importation", which sounds like a good thing, I'll agree, and yes, that article recommends it, or as
• "importing Canadian price controls", which doesn't sound so good, as it indirectly imposes Canadian price controls here as well, by trying to drive the market price down to whatever is the lowest price. In this case, the low price is the most controlled price, not the most competitive.

We risk trying to "fix" the market distortions that have been caused by excessive intervention, both here and in other countries, by yet more regulatory intervention.

My current guess (yet another vacillation, sorry) is that it won't really make much difference whether or not re-importation is allowed. The excessive role of government in medical services and drugs will continue to grow.

That article favored "lifting the reimportation ban" because it could be a first step toward reducing the market distortions of excessive government intervention. I doubt that.

[dervish]

“The excessive role of government in medical services and drugs will continue to grow.”

I agree. Medicare D costs are going to grow exponentially, and a Dem government will surely step in and impose price controls. I would not want to buy pharma stocks long term.

[Travis McGee]

[ThePythonicCow]

I'm only an osteopathic physician.

I just asked my mother - in her late 80's now. I turns out that the doctor who worked on me in the first six months of my life was a Cranial Osteopath, named Dr. Beatrice Blawis, who had studied under the founder of “Osteopathy in the Cranial Field” (OCF), William Garner Sutherland.

My ailment was that the bones in my skull were fused, after a difficult birth (my mother has narrow hips, and I have a large head.) So it was good fortune that a cranial osteopath was just down the country road from us, in the next town. She was "just what the doctor ordered."

As usual in medicine, the key to a successful outcome is picking your ailment. Most specialists tend to treat you for whatever they specialize in. So pick an ailment the remedy for which will actually be of benefit to yourself.

The same probably applies to computer programmers, though I choose not to think much about that one -- it risks hitting too close to home.

Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.