Let me take this moment to suggest that importing cheap drugs from Canada is not right for the country. It’s a weasely, pathetic cop-out in reaction to the REAL problem.
Why are drugs in Canada (and everywhere else, for that matter) cheaper than here? It’s because the Canadian government has enacted laws to make drugs affordable to their populace. Feel free to correct my ignorant ass when I screw this up.
The United States government has not enacted any such laws, therefore our drugs are more expensive. The solution is NOT to import drugs from Canada, but to implement a system similar to the one Canada has. Only, our politicians don’t have the fucking stones to say so. One side would rather cut US pharmacies completely out of the loop, give our medicine buying public crap-ass drug services by forcing them to buy mail order from overseas and act like they care. The other side doesn’t even seem to think there’s any problem with US citizens paying 3x what the rest of the world does for the same stuff. Thanks guys :mad:
Fix the fucking problem, and get drugs in THIS country priced like they are everywhere else in the world.
I pretty much agree, except that fixing the drug price problem is easier than fixing the general health care problem. Not only don’t we have laws making drugs cheaper, we have laws making them more expensive. The ban on imports is one, the ban on negotiating lower prices is another. We’re being played for chumps by our government. It makes no economic sense to have a commodity sitting at two different prices a few miles apart. If the price rises in other countries as ours falls, fine. Overall everyone will come out better off.
The whole situation reminds me of the stories about textbooks a few months ago - kids made money in college buying textbooks from England (legitimate ones, not pirated ones) and selling them at half the price. Same argument from the publishers - we need the high prices to publish. Feh.
Well, sortof… You’re absolutely right that the REAL problem is that drug manufacturers are allowed to gouge us for whatever the hell they want to charge, with no restrictions placed by our government. Where you go wrong is in assuming that we’re talking about importing cheap(er) Canadian drugs – we’re not. From the link World Eater posted above (bolding mine):
Yup, you read that right. They charge Americans more for the same drugs we’re buying locally, than what we’d be able to buy them for if they were made locally, exported out of the country and then re-imported right back where they started. Because they can (“market forces” allow it). It’s a major fucking ripoff scheme and our government is letting them get away with it.
And in many cases we’re not just talking about a few cents or even a few dollars; we’re talking wide margins in the pricing. My numbers are 10 years out of date, admittedly, but just as an example, when I lived in Mexico, I paid $1.00/month for the same exact birth control pills (same U.S. manufacturer, same brand, same everything) that cost approximately $25.00 in the U.S. That’s not just a 3x markup, that’s a 2,500% markup! :eek:
And their claim that they’re supposedly recouping R&D costs is not only bullshit, as Voyager points out that most of the breakthroughs come from government funded research, but why are we being ripped off for a disproportionate amout of those costs? Why are American citizens the only ones who should have to bear the burden of paying for their R&D, while the rest of the world gets to benefit from our forced benevolence? And what about when their R&D expenses on a particular drug are long, long ago covered and now non-existent? Do they drop the prices, or just keep the difference to line their greedy pockets? Ok, that was a stupid question, so no need to answer. I wish we had some legislators who were brave enough to tackle the real problem here.
The drugs become available in generic form, which is cheaper, or they become over-the-counter (e.g. Claritin).
I agree that U.S. consumers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for R&D. But two things to keep in mind – even if the cost of R&D for a particular drug has long been paid for, the money you are paying today for a drug is going to the R&D of other, newer projects. And don’t forget that there are many projects that never make it to fruition; those cost money, too.
Let me pose this question – if the U.S. passed a law that required pharmaceuticals to charge only for the actual manufacturing cost of a pill, who then will pay for the R&D?
Canada’s benevolence to its citizens is nice. What isn’t nice is that it did so on the backs of the pharmaceuticals; Canada itself determines what price is fair. It then forces the pharmaceuticals to charge no more than that price. To me, that’s not right. If Canada wants affordable prescription drugs for its citizens, it should cover the difference and subsisize the cost, so the pharmaceuticals don’t have to eat up the loss. That would allow Canada to also help foot the cost of R&D.
I don’t know how many drug projects are paid for by government grants. But I have a friend who is a chemist for a major drug company, and I suspect he would say that government funding only makes up a very small portion of the entire cost of taking an idea and developing it to FDA approval, then to market.
Advertising laws have changed in the last few years with regard to prescription drugs. That’s one of the reasons why we see so many TV ads for prescription drugs now. Patients are now seeing their doctors and asking for a specific branded product, instead of the doctor recommending and writing a script based on what is deemed to be the patient’s need. So now a lot of advertising dollars from pharmaceuticals are going into TV and radio, whereas in the past most of it went directly to lining doctor’s offices with tchotchkes and free samples.
No matter what the drug companies charge? That would lead to rampant increases in drug prices, as drug companies ran up the prices to what the new market would bear. You think drugs cost a lot now? Wait until the market has virtualy unlimited resources.
These tears for the drug companies are unnecessary, they are making a fat profit even at the reduced rates allowed in Canada.
