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Seniors Would Lose Access to Modern Life Saving Medicines Under Foreign Socialist Price Controls
Townhall.com ^ | April 24, 2019 | Peter Ferrera

Posted on 04/24/2019 4:35:15 AM PDT by Kaslin

Stiff FDA regulation imposes high costs on development of new and innovative drugs in the United States. But stiff competition in America’s free markets still enables America to lead the world in development of new, cutting edge, breakthrough drugs, leading the world in treatment and care especially for America’s seniors, most in need of the world’s best health care.

Foreign countries often free ride on America’s free market system, gaining access to the drug breakthroughs after American patents run out, without allowing the freedom for the innovators to recoup the cost of their heavily regulated innovation. That is one reason why citizens in those foreign countries often have to wait in long lines for their health care.

That is also the reason that Americans enjoy the world’s greatest access to cutting edge drug therapies and treatments, extending life for seniors and quality of life. Foreign, socialist price controls deprive their citizens of these latest, modern, cutting edge drugs, by cutting off the investment needed for development of those drugs, due to the limited returns allowed by their price controls.

This is similar to what happens under rent control, which sharply reduces the supply and availability of modern housing wherever such price controls for housing prevail. Drug companies that achieve miracle cures for their American customers are often criticized harshly by grandstanding politicians that have never themselves produced anything to save lives and improve the health of anyone.

But if those same Socialist price controls were imported to America to be used for Medicare, seniors would lose access to the cutting edge, modern drugs that are saving their lives today. As the President’s Council of Economics Advisors explained, if the United States had adopted the Socialist drug price control policies of other developed nations twenty years ago, then the world would not have highly valuable treatments for diseases today that required significant investment.

Without the freedom to recover for the high costs of regulation imposed by the FDA, investors would not be drawn to finance the innovative, breakthrough, modern drug therapies that seniors enjoy today, saving lives and improving the quality of their lives. When your mother suffers from life threatening cancer or heart disease, you expect her to get the latest, most modern treatments and drugs from our competitive free market health care system. That is because under our American free market health care system, American patients enjoy access to 90 percent of all modern drugs available worldwide.

That is why 60 conservative organizations joined in a letter organized by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) to oppose the adoption of foreign Socialist price controls for Medicare in America. That price control system would be based on an International Price Index reflecting prices allowed by foreign Socialist governments, where patients do not enjoy the latest, cutting edge breakthrough drug therapies. America, by contrast, utilizes the Average Sales Price established in free markets for the prices of the new, innovative drugs that serve seniors under Medicare so well, providing longer, higher quality lives well into older age.

The ATR organized letter stated that price controls imposed on medicines suppress innovation and access to new medicines, deterring the development and supply of new life saving and life improving medicines to the detriment of consumers, patients, and doctors. The U.S. is a world leader in research and development because our system of healthcare rejects price controls and encourages innovation.Consequently, a majority of new medicines are developed and launched in America.

America does not follow the failures of other countries. It leads by shining example to be followed by others.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: medizine
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1 posted on 04/24/2019 4:35:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Of course they would and intentionally so.

Happens when one is no longer useful to the State.


2 posted on 04/24/2019 4:37:54 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Ruth Bader Ginsburg doctor is a taxidermist.)
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To: Kaslin
I don't know, I think the dimocraps have done wonders for drug trade.. You can get crack, meth or fentanyl on just about any street corner in my neck of the woods....
3 posted on 04/24/2019 4:54:12 AM PDT by unread (Joe McCarthy was right.......)
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To: Kaslin

China Rx — not good...

China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, by Rosemary Gibson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37492588-china-rx

https://amac.us/expert-contamination-of-china-made-heart-drug-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/


4 posted on 04/24/2019 4:54:17 AM PDT by polymuser (It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chesterton)
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To: Kaslin

I gotta admit, there’s a group/two fighting the “re-importation” BS the Fl. legislature is trying to push through...and fighting CORRECTLY (using the proper terms and methods to show how it would hit everyone 2x).

Say it before, say it again: Even the (R)N(C) loves ‘em [their own flavor] of Socialism (for vote buying\power).


5 posted on 04/24/2019 5:08:00 AM PDT by i_robot73 (One could not count the number of *solutions*, if only govt followed\enforced the Constitution.)
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To: Kaslin

Way too many seniors are happily voting us down the path of death panels and rationing healthcare based on who deserves it all in the name of “healthcare security.” Its sad.


6 posted on 04/24/2019 5:12:41 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)
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To: i_robot73

When Rx companies jack up the prices of Epipens, insulin, etc with zero reason, just to line the pockets of the companies, they lost ANY support for the current ‘we can charge whatever we want’ approach.


7 posted on 04/24/2019 5:14:55 AM PDT by rstrahan
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To: Kaslin

Socialism always causes shortages.


8 posted on 04/24/2019 5:15:25 AM PDT by mom.mom (...our flag was still there.)
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To: Kaslin

Companies all over the globe sell their drugs at cheap prices in the rest of the world and then charge sky high prices in the U.S. to recover R&D costs.

We here in the U.S. shouldn’t bear the cost of R&D for the rest of the world, which is what has been happening for decades. If a German company sells a drug at dirt cheap prices in the EU, they shouldn’t be allowed to recover their costs on the backs of U.S. citizens. Make them sell the drug here in the U.S. for what they charge EU citizens. Similarly U.S. companies sell drugs cheaply everywhere else and force U.S. citizens to subsidize the cost of drugs in other countries.

Right now we look like suckers because we do in fact subsidize the cost of drugs for the rest of the world.


9 posted on 04/24/2019 5:36:13 AM PDT by Stevenc131
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To: Stevenc131

I would change a bit of what you are saying. Drug companies are “forced” to sell their drugs cheaper in other countries.

Which results in higher prices than would be needed to US consumers.


10 posted on 04/24/2019 5:46:54 AM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
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To: Kaslin

The dems want the elderly to die so they can provide free medical care to aids patients, pay for abortion and euthanasia and sex “change” operations.


11 posted on 04/24/2019 5:48:40 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Lying Media: willing and eager allies of the hate-America left.)
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To: rstrahan

“When Rx companies jack up the prices of Epipens, insulin, etc with zero reason, just to line the pockets of the companies, they lost ANY support for the current ‘we can charge whatever we want’ approach.”

Tired of overpaying for drugs to subsidize lower prices in other countries. If the drugs are developed here and sold here the costs should not be higher than those same drugs in Europe, Canada and South America yet most of them are. The US patients pays the development cost overhead. The same is true of drugs developed in other countries, the development cost recovery is borne by US patients .


12 posted on 04/24/2019 5:50:15 AM PDT by georgiarat (The most expensive thing in the world is a cheap Army and Navy. - Carl Vinson)
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To: Kaslin

But the people who sponsored this article are apparently cool with selling under socialist price controls in every other country on the planet. WTF?


13 posted on 04/24/2019 5:56:02 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Kaslin

I have been saying this for years. I never knew either of my grandfathers. Both died from diseases that are cured today with drugs that are given away FREE by my local drug store. Now I have (very slow growing) cancer. The last thing we need is busybody liberals taking away the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs. That’s exactly what will happen if you take away the profits from new drugs - no one will develop them. Duh....


14 posted on 04/24/2019 6:20:52 AM PDT by norwaypinesavage (Calm down and enjoy the ride, great things are happening for our country)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

This is just big Pharma agitprop. what we have in the US is the typical result of socialism HERE and crony capitalism here. The US has become third world corrupt - no, worse, because the peasants can’t bribe their way out of a bad situation. Only the elites.


15 posted on 04/24/2019 6:26:15 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Kaslin

People who are not yet on Medicare are going to get a rude awakening. I get sinus infections every few years and the best drug for me is Biaxin. The last time I needed this antibiotic, I had to pay $50 for the prescription. Yes, I do pay every month for drug coverage, but there are myriad drugs that aren’t covered. Biaxin IS covered for around $50, so that means this antibiotic actually costs $100 for a 10 day prescription.

Please awaken to the fact that Medicare, and it’s ancillary required entities, DO NOT COVER EVERYTHING. Not even close. And Seniors are the first to be denied care, when it is the Government providing healthcare.


16 posted on 04/24/2019 6:33:16 AM PDT by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell.)
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To: Kaslin

This is all the drug-funded lobby against Trump’s plan to make drug companies sell their drugs domestically for the same price they sell them internationally, isn’t it?

We continue to get hosed in funding healthcare for the rest of the world often without being able to afford drugs for ourselves and our families.

What Trump is really trying to do is get the drug companies to share the costs with Americans and the rest of the world, rather than dump them all on our backs.

This article and initiative is Big Pharma trying to deceive the public on the issues and policies involved.


17 posted on 04/24/2019 6:37:48 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker
Trump’s plan to make drug companies sell their drugs domestically for the same price they sell them internationally

Actually, his plan is to make drug companies sell their drugs TO MEDICARE for the same price they sell them internationally - the result of which could be further jacking up of non-Medicare US prices.

18 posted on 04/24/2019 7:27:15 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: NobleFree

Isn’t that all he has control over right now?


19 posted on 04/24/2019 7:30:32 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker
Yes, and he should be careful about how he exercises that control. A key conservative insight is that government action is ruled by the Law of Unintended Consequences.
20 posted on 04/24/2019 7:34:11 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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