Drug Lobby Wins Again in Washington...

Meh. I'm not seeing anything with yields over 5%.

And it's our right to reject gov't protection of this industry.

So now you're saying that it is the gov'ts function to provide incentives to private industry (a.k.a. protect the drug industry) to develop pharmaceutical drugs? Looks like your position isn't much off from the govts' you criticize for socialized health care then.

Who says some should be mandatory?

I haven't waded through all this yet, so I apologize if some of this has already been covered. I just read Paladin and Tuttle's posts and while I think they are largely spot on, I think they miss the obvious remedy. If the drug companies are choosing to sell at something less than the economic cost (note this is not the manufacturing cost) in some markets to increase their marginal returns, lets force them to end that practice by allowing re-importation. The idea that they can only make up the R&D in the U.S. market is fallacious. They will simply have to re-negotiate contracts with socialist systems to reflect actual cost, thereby leveling the cost on the world market.

The current U.S. law enables the market distortion just as much as socialized medicine in Canada does.

In keeping with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Hippocratic Oath, shouldn't medical treatments and any pharmacological requisites be considered "rights"?

Wouldn't it be considered cruel, in keeping with the canons of medical ethics, to withhold cures from those whom need them, for money, even if it's not immediately apparent that harm is being done? Isn't keeping remedies unaffordable or unavailable in the name of profit and/or bureaucratic procedure the same as denying treatment?

Or do we just continue to allow politicians to make the world safe for three martini lunches, summer homes in Martha's Vineyard, offshore retirement accounts, and two BMW's in the garages of every MD and Pharm. Exec. while there's a sizeable percentage of the population who can't, or who can barely, afford healthcare basics?

Maybe it's time to revisit our definitions.

Do pharmaceutical company employees take the Hippocratic Oath?

I am quite sure that they do not.

However, the AMA is a big supporter of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

You have to figure, once a week, Pharm reps walk into thousands of doctors offices every week, carrying samples, and usually a few hundred dollars in "yummy incentives" (cookie trays, lunch for the office, wine).

And in turn, physicians endorse and/or otherwise promote select drugs.

So, even if they don't, from where I'm standing, the fact that doctors help to exacerbate the process which inflates the cost of remedies, I'd say that there's a violation of the Oath, by extension.

Do you have the right to spend someone else's money?


Do you have the right to enslave your fellow man?

That sizeable percentage should get off their asses and work smarter.

Not me.

I have serious doubts that I did.

And I'm still not seeing what could even be considered "Obscene Profit Levels" by any but the most radical anti-capitalists.

There was a time I may have agreed with you.

However, I have seen it happen in my own family, all of whom are hard working people, never wanting or willing to be on the dole. Even with insurance, some necessary treatments are financially out of reach.

You can say, "Work smarter" all you want. Even people who work as hard as they can aren't able to get what they need by way of health care.

Spending someone else's money?

I know of a certain government that does that in my name regularly, and for things which are of little or no benefit to me, to many, or to most, but certainly makes the time in office much more comfortable for themselves.

When we start cutting the verifiable and rampant pork out of the government, and our elected officials are required to live modestly, as though they were representatives instead of nobles, I'll entertain, perhaps even concede, the notions implicit in "Do you have the right to spend someone else's money?"

But, so long as the government takes nearly a third out of my own modest income every year, and shows little or no accountability in regard to the disposition of those pilfered funds, your question, "Do you have the right to enslave your fellow man?" is just going to be more irony in my day.

Boohoo.

Re-importation wouldn't be that simple and 'Big Pharma' wouldn't respond to it by hiking their prices elsewhere.

From here

Yeah, I understand all that, I disagree. That National Reveiw is in the pocket of the pharmaceuticals isn't surprising. It takes more than a fancy magazine to convince me that orthodox economics are wrong. Plain and simple, the supply and demand curves are distorted by the re-importation ban. Pharmaceuticals do not charge what the market will pay in the U.S. because we don't have a free market to set that price. Only when we lift the ban will we see what the true intersection of supply and demand is. If they are only charging what they need to cover R&D, etc., then they will need to increase what they charge overseas. Somewhere, there is a near universal equilibrium price point, but we won't find it under the current scheme.

I don't think anything needs to be changed until someone actually demonstrates that the pharma's are making OBSCENE LEVELS OF PROFIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

And then someone needs to explain why obscene levels of profit are a bad thing.

Hell, that's what I strive for.

That's within their right. I have no issue with extreme profit. My issue is with a distorted market. As a consumer on this side of the wall, I don't like giving Polarslam a free ride on R&D. Get rid of market manipulation, and let the drug makers charge whatever they can get away with.

The cost controls that other countries have make me think that the shift from parallel trade to "free trade" wouldn't show us what the real S&D curve here would be.

The only evidence I'd be able to offer is anecdotal. It won't show up in the quarterly report. It's the kind of thing the pharma reps giggle about with their pet MDs at conferences when they forget the tape is running.

Paladin's right in that much of that $ is plowed back into the pharma company - to pay for all those airfares and hotels and greens fees in Bermuda, or the Take the Doc's Family to Epcot weekends, while the academic research centers are told "Think of a way to reduce the side effects on Old Drug X so we can apply for a new patent by calling it New Drug Y and cut into Nexxium's market share. Cancer? Diabetes? Hell, if we cure those, who'll buy methotrexate or metformin?"

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for you to explain why it's reasonable for them to charge Americans multiple times what they charge Canadians for the same damn pill.

Obviously if they're trying to market Viagra in Nigeria, they're going to undercharge based on the standard of living.

But all the snide remarks aside, Canada's standard of living is comparable to that in the U.S.

So, whatcha got to justify your martyrdom to the Mighty Market?

It's entirely reasonable because it's what it takes to make sure that 3% annual yield is there. You don't like it that the investors get that much? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

National Review is both right, and full of shit. Right, in that prices are based on local supply and demand. Full of shit in the fact that it accepts the Canadian health care system, the price caps, and the government manipulation of both supply and demand there. So its conclusion is wrong.

That said, I don't see how we're going to get Canada to change its policies short of invading them or imposing sanctions. Lifting the reimportation ban is not going to affect them in the slightest, though it would be good for American consumers.

Actually, the question is "why is it reasonable for Canada to force them to charge a fraction of its market value?" The answer is "it's not". The villain here is Canada, not the pharmaceutical companies.

I'm not sure, but aren't the drug companies voluntarily accepting the price dictated by Canada? The villain is the U.S. government that coddles the drug companies. Again, take out the re-import ban and you'll see a new price in Canada. The druggies accept the price now because they can charge a premium in the closed U.S. market. Without that premium, they have an incentive to play hard ball with Canada.

Except it's far more likely that Canada will simply say "tough shit, sell at this price, or don't sell". Governments have a tendency to do that. And I very much doubt the pharmaceutical companies want to lose all their sales in Canada... could cause resentment later on.

That said, if Canada wants to screw themselves (and I'm very sure they do), let them. I'm not for the reimportation ban, I just don't think it'll have the effect you anticipate, and it will stunt growth in the industry. Which isn't a bad thing, as that more than anything is likely to make Canada reconsider its price caps, but it will take a while, during which pharmaceutical R&D and output will fall. Just make sure you're okay with that. I am.

That is a failure on their part, not a reason to prop up the industry with restraints on free trade.

I'm okay with that, but doubt the result you forecast. The drug companies under such an environment wouldn't go out of business or end R&D, they would simply change the model. They would charge the true economic cost to those willing to pay, and they would be more selective about product development. If they make 3 successful drugs for every 10 out of the lab, then they aren't doing very good market research. This is yet another symptom of a protected market -- they are not forced by price pressure to adopt a more competitive business model.

Sorry fellas, libertarian logic ain't cutting it with me on this particular issue.
I've personally seen the man behind the curtain on the whole drug biz, and I'm pissed off, and when I'm pissed off I go Punisher.
Don't side with my enemies, you'll catch shrapnel.

The libertarian in this case (O2C) seems to be arguing against re-importation, or at the very least that this particular government interference with the market is not a problem.

Well, then maybe it's as simple as I'm Helo, the usual libertarians are Tigh, and the drug companies are the nazi doctor.