The reason is this. There are some individuals that work for drug companies. Their employers (the drug companies) spend billions of dollars every year researching new drugs. The drug companies aren’t in it for just a profit. Profit is a big motivator (we do have a capitalist economy), but it’s no guarantee. See Vioxx.
Where do you think that money comes from? For each drug being touted today, there are probably 20 that never made it to clinical tests. And getting to a clinical trial for the FDA is no guarantee it will be approved. If it is approved, you’re looking at years of testing to get it to the general market.
These are privately held firms that have to turn a profit to fund further drug research. Take a cold hard look at drugs available today, the cost, and what life was like 50 years ago before the research yielded what is dispensed now. The money is coming from some source.
I’m sure there has to be a few, but what Canadian drug maker has made a huge impact on world health with Ottawa funding research?
I can’t see why the Americans would want to change anything, unless it is to pander to the profit margins of US drug companies. I just can’t believe that Canadians are not up in arms and wanting to change their laws.
That’s the point. There isn’t anybody in the current administration trying to ban Americans from buying Canadian drugs.
I posted the same link twice in my OP and squink pointed out the storefronts were shut down. Across the river in East Grand Forks, MN there was a store that did just that.
However, the third link, that some above have ignored, is from the Govenor of North Dakota saying it’s perfectly fine to cross the border for personal scripts.
It’s not subsidies. It’s price controls. Big Drug Company comes to the Ministry of Health and says “we’d like to license prescription drug X for sale in Canada.” The Ministry says “fine, so long as you don’t charge more than $y/dose.” The Big Drug Company now faces a choice - either they sell drug X in Canada at a 200% markup instead of the 400% markup they sell it at in the US, or they don’t sell it at all. Unsurprisingly, the drug companies pretty much always choose lower profits over no profits at all.
Canada doesn’t much care about the whole issue of re-importation. There are a few centres where internet pharmacies serving the US have turned into small industries, and I’m sure they’d like to see re-importation be legal with a continuation of the price differences. Nobody else cares in the least, except that we’re vaguely annoyed/amused when the FDA tries to suggest that drugs from Canada might not be safe.
Because you’re completely wrong in your assertion that Canadians are in any way subsidizing the drugs purchased by Americans.
In fact it’s the other way around: The drug companies would rather sell at lower prices in Canada than lose the Canadian market altogether, and as the Canadian Health Service controls the prices, the drug companies have little say in the matter. So they increase their US prices to pay the R&D (and the marketing, and the profits) - on other words, it’s the US that does the subsidizing.
Since the OP has already been proven false beyond a reasonable doubt, would it be worth it to just lock this thread and be done with the matter?
'cause the only lying douchebag I saw at the debate tonight was the guy sitting across from Mr. Edwards… “I have never equated Iraq with Al Qaeda,” indeed! :wally:
Unbelievable. Duffer, are you truly incapable of discerning the difference between buying drugs IN Canada and buying drugs FROM Canada? It is ILLEGAL for those in the U.S. to buy drugs FROM Canada. Those who go to Canada to buy drugs are not buying drugs FROM Canada, and hav not run afoul of the block that Edwards is referring to.
You know this damn well, hence this despicable and oh-so-typically right-wing statement: “Unfair to those that can’t make it to Canada in a 2 hour trip or less? Well, we live in NORTH DAKOTA! Give us a little something with winter coming!” No, I’d rather not. I’d like to see ALL Americans enjoy the benefits of a freer market in prescriptions drugs, rather than see a handful of frostbitten scofflaws benefit from a loophole.
The idiotic “Canadian taxes underwrite Americans’ lower prices” argument has already been debunked, but we’ll do it again, if you like. Just remember, the huge profits enjoyed by the pharma industry don’t pay for R&D – they’re what’s left AFTER R&D. That’s what makes it “profit,” and not, say, “revenue.”
Hey I more then willingly to be wrong (I frequently am) but are you saying the drug companies think Americans are stupid and have bottomless pockets so they charge Canandians less?
The drug companies seem to have all the say if that is what you are saying.
It’s more that Americans are being overcharged, not that Canada is being subsidized, if that makes sense. Canada has price control laws, true, but drug companies in the U.S. charge much, much higher prices in the U.S. because (they claim) they are recouping the costs of bringing the drug to market (FDA testing, marketing, etc.). IOW, they are not setting U.S. pricing simply based on the cost of producing/supplying the drug itself. And yes, with a lack of adequate price restrictions, the drug companies have pretty much all the say over what they charge for drugs in the U.S.
Everything I know about drug prices in the US or Canada could be printed on the head of the pin with space left over for advertising, but I know many drugs in NZ are subsidised by the govt.
That is a huge arguement in itself (which drugs are/are not subsidised and for what ever peculiar the govt offers) but the cost incured by the end user is not always the cost incured by the seller. There are subsidies involved. I presumed Canada was similar. I apologise if I was wrong but “just because” does not seem like a valid reason for US companies to rip off US consumers.
Im guessing that I agree with your actual views on the whole importation deal. I actually agree with the Bush Administration’s position of blocking the entry of Canadian drugs to the Unites States. A company has a fundamental right to property right protections, and you’re right, eliminating them will hamper drug development.
If a pharmacutical company wants to price drugs differently in diffenent countries, that is their right. In Canada, a national health care system means that to effectively sell a drug at all, they need to negotiate with the NHS or whatever they call it there and deliver a price that both parties can agree upon; here they price it at what the market will bear.
That said, duffer, this is a pretty asinine BBQ Pit thread. Edwards statement was perfectly reasonable and accurate. He didn’t say the Bush Admin. chopped off the hands of drug importers, he said that they blocked the importation of Canadian drugs, which they do.
Anyway, back to the drugs-
If Americans can buy drugs from any country that they like, I think that all of you “Compassionate Liberals” should give a long hard look at the end effects of this. Right now, HIV drugs are being made more widely available to the people that really need them but cannot afford American retail prices. This is a Good Thing ™. But, if a set of protease inhibitors that runs for $1500/month in the US and $1.50/month in Zimbabwe and Americans can suddenly buy those drugs from Zimbabwe, first, the pharmacutical companies are likely to stop offering the drugs to Zimbabwe on the cheap in the first place, and second, if this system continues where everyone can buy new AIDS drugs for as much as aspirin, the incentive to develop new AIDS treatments or cures will drop to zero .
If you want to screw everyone over in the long term by copmpletely stopping pharmaceutical development, be my guest, but I would advise strongly against it.
Drug companies obviously charge what the market can bear. The Canadians appear to be able to drive a harder bargain (for whatever reasons). The US market tolerates higher prices. (For comparison, look at what prices are charged in Mexico. Lower purchasing power in the market - lower prices.)
But I take it you’ll concede that the Canadians have nothing to be up in arms about ? There’s no loss, and if anything, a few pharmacists are making an extra buck or two.
Oh, and duffer - you’ve been proven wrong a couple of times in this thread. Why can’t you just take it like a man ?
