Obamacare Will End Drug Advances and Europe's Free Ride [95% of new drugs are made for sale in U.S.]

Forbes ^ | July 1, 2012 | Paul Roderick Gregory

[grundle]

Ninety five percent of the new drugs coming on the market are developed for sale in the United States. They are paid for by American consumers, while other countries, such as Canada, Germany and France, free ride at our expense. The United States is the last major country that allows the market to set prices high enough to compensate pharmaceutical companies for their R&D investments. Obama Care will increasingly control pharmaceutical prices as costs rise and federal and state funds fall short. Major pharmaceutical advances will stop, and the rest of the world will lose along with Americans.

The “dinosaur” that we rarely hear about are the drugs that have improved, prolonged, and changed our lives. When President Eisenhower suffered a massive heart attack in September of 1955, his doctors could only inject a pain killer and prescribe bed rest. When Vice President Cheney suffered heart attacks almost a half century later, he was given powerful blood thinners, a stent was inserted, and he was released from the hospital shortly thereafter. Before acid inhibitors, ulcer sufferers had only operations that cut off ulcerated portions of their stomachs. Before AZT drugs, an HIV positive test was a death sentence. tPA saved millions of heart attack and stroke victims. HPV is an effective vaccination against cervical cancer. Anti-psychotic medications allow patients with schizophrenia to live productive lives. Viagra saved millions of men the shame of sexual dysfunction, and probably rescued thousands of marriages. The list goes on and on.

Without the hard-pressed American consumer to finance R&D costs, we would not have AZT, Cimetidine, Nexium, tPA, Beta blockers, new cancer drugs, anti psychotic drugs, and all the rest. American consumers pony up, while the rest of the world benefits without paying its share.

[no-to-illegals]

the rest of the world will lose along with Americans.

So everybody loses. Americans lose the most because only prices are rising. Another political method to bleed Americans of their treasury is all am seeing in this article. Dang these politicians!

[oblomov]

The issue is not patent protection, but reimbursement.

[oblomov]

Not to mention that the Gx manufacturers don’t do research. They employ lawyers, not researchers.

The Gx business model is no different from that of commodity chemicals.

[Organic Panic]

This great news comrads. No new drug advances will eliminate the expense of drugs.

Secondly, and most important, Sandra Fluck gets free birth control.

[wally_bert]

Prilosec and the like have saved me a lot of grief and misery.

Most antacids I could chew or drink to pretty much no end and get little to no relief.

[adorno]

I presented a similar argument to some “fellow patients” at my doctor’s office some 20 years ago, when Hillarycare was the topic of the times.

Those other patients pooh-poohed my arguments, but they weren’t thinking about how intrusive government would have to be, and how much the country would be changed by something like Hillarycare.

My predictions are slowly coming true, but with a different name for the same government program.

People who don’t bother to think, or can’t think, are what’s ruined this country.

[Intolerant in NJ]

The “dinosaur” that we rarely hear about are the drugs that have improved, prolonged, and changed our lives...what we do hear about is how medical costs are not rising as quickly under Obamacare as they used to - precisely because money is not going into these new developments as it used to - complaining that medical costs are so much more than they were a few years ago is like going to buy a Cadillac and complaining because it costs so much more than the Chevy you bought in 2010.....