Want Public Plan Health Care? Obama Played yo Ass.

LazyHippy said:
How about backing up your bullshit claims with some evidence?

Europe does not have cheaper meds because the American taxpayer subsides their development. It is European government that subside the cost to the patient. Pharma companies might get away with charging US insurers more than EU Governments but that is another story.

As for European citizens being banned from paying for medical research.... must explain why charities such as Cancer Research UK receive millions each year. What a load of crap.

Oh, and by the way.. plenty of research goes on outside your isolated little bubble, even in countries with a state healthcare system and even (get this) without the motive of profit!
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Ok. I'd hate to correct completely wrong statements, but here we go:
Critical Condition: Cheaper in Canada - ABC News

Canadians are spared higher drug prices, in large part because of price controls. The Canadian government has established a "Patented Medicine Prices Review Board" to ensure drug prices are not excessive.
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The review board has established a very specific formula for drug companies wishing to sell in Canada:

Existing drugs cannot increase in price by more than the rate of inflation.

New drugs cannot cost more than similar drugs for the same illness.
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And a breakthrough drug, the first of a new class of drugs, cannot cost more than the median price for the drug in other countries.

For example, the new cancer drug Campath is priced as follows: United States: $2,400 France: $760 Sweden $660 Britain $570 Italy $500 The median, or "midprice," is $660, so Canadian regulations say that's the most the drug can sell for in Canada.
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^--note that that not only implies canadian drugs are cheaper without subsidies, but also that the price varies extraordinarily WITHOUT subsidies. It wouldn't make much sense to use anything other than the raw price for this calculation.
Every industrialized country has some form of price controls on patented medications, except the United States. American drug companies say price controls stifle innovation and discourage them from selling certain drugs in foreign markets.
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:zzwhip: :zzwhip: :zzwhip:

And yes, this is the same pharma market Obama just crawled into bed with.
 


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xmcp123 said:
Ok. I'd hate to correct completely wrong statements, but here we go:
Critical Condition: Cheaper in Canada - ABC News
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Interesting stuff, and I'll accept meds are cheaper without subsidies, but even if Canada was in Europe (small reference to Europe noted) that doesn't mean :

a. Europeans are banned from funding medical research.

a. The reason meds are cheaper elsewhere is because Americans pay more.

I think your last point outlines why Americans pay so much more
Every industrialized country has some form of price controls on patented medications, except the United States. American drug companies say price controls stifle innovation and discourage them from selling certain drugs in foreign markets.
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Even the drug companies don't claim that American buyers subsidise those in other countries.

I stand by my statement (emphasis removed):
Pharma companies might get away with charging US insurers more than EU Governments but that is another story.
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LazyHippy said:
Interesting stuff, and I'll accept meds are cheaper without subsidies, but even if Canada was in Europe (small reference to Europe noted) that doesn't mean :

a. Europeans are banned from funding medical research.

a. The reason meds are cheaper elsewhere is because Americans pay more.

I think your last point outlines why Americans pay so much more
Even the drug companies don't claim that American buyers subsidise those in other countries.

I stand by my statement (emphasis removed):
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Moar fun sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/business/16drug.html?pagewanted=print&position=
But the United States market is hard to compare with any other. It represented more than half of the global drug industry's sales of $410 billion last year and was the country in which drug companies make the bulk of their profits. Whatever one thinks of the pricing disparity, efforts to force down American prices to Canadian or European levels could radically change the economics of the pharmaceutical industry - which effectively depends on United States profits for all of its activities, including a substantial portion of its spending on research and development.
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Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Delivering on the Promise of Pharmaceutical Innovation: <--just cached so it's the HTML copy. And yes I hate the PHRMA, but there's not a lot of 3rd party info on research available.
The research-based pharmaceutical sector in the United States is the single largest global player in the research and development of new drugs, both in terms of new drugs brought to market, and R&D expenditures. Although the federal government through the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”) and other federal agencies, universities, private foundations and charities fund drug research, particularly basic research, pioneer drug companies are responsible for the majority of all R&D related to new drugs. In fact, the research-based pharmaceutical industry in the United States is responsible for the discoveryand development of over 90 percent of new drugs worldwide.
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I hate citing lobbyist statistics though, so from what I've gathered from other sources(I'll track them back down if it's a big deal) current numbers say the pharma industry invests 25% of it's income into research and development. If you take how big the united states market for pharmaceuticals is(massive) and how much we're getting overcharged compared to other countries(also massive) it's over 25%. So yes, we are subsidizing the rest of the world.
I'd really like to see a law passed saying they can't export drugs to 1st world countries for less than they're sold in the states.
 
WickedJoe said:
I acknowledge both are imperfect but I definitely trust non-for-profit transparent Government more to handle my healthcare.
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Hahah get in line and follow Obama towards the promised land.

:bowdown:

Hahahah "transparent." I trust a man who wants to make money more than I trust someone who tells me they don't, but is somehow rich.
 
Obama is a puppet and has been since day 1. IMHO, all the politicians who make it far enough to even run for president have long ago been bought and sold by corporate interests and their lobbyists. We're in the age of government by the corporations for the corporations.
 
xmcp123 said:
So yes, we are subsidizing the rest of the world.
I'd really like to see a law passed saying they can't export drugs to 1st world countries for less than they're sold in the states.
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Ok, that stuff makes sense. Thanks for digging it out.

Even though I'm happy to concede that the pharmaceutical industry is only sustainable as it is due to the prices paid by Americans that doesn't mean that the reason Americans pay more is the caps on prices elsewhere. If these caps were not in place they would not reduce US prices, but rather charge everyone at the American level.

If they are going to pass any laws, wouldn't it make more sense to do something in line with the rest of the world and cap the prices they can charge US buyers?

I'm sure they'd argue that would slow development, as I doubt they'd want to reduce shareholder dividends or their lobbying/bribe budgets. But would slower development necessarily be a bad thing? If there was a limit to what they could charge then maybe some of the emphasis might shift to focussing on the drugs that have the most medicinal value rather than those with the potential to make the greatest profit. (Ok, I accept that's wishful thinking. I'm sure they'd find a way to make the most money no matter what.)
 
LazyHippy said:
If they are going to pass any laws, wouldn't it make more sense to do something in line with the rest of the world and cap the prices they can charge US buyers?
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Price fixing always leads to shortages. It doesn't matter if it is a price floor, or a price ceiling. Floors decrease demand, and caps (ceilings) decrease supply.

So price capping is not the solution.

Assuming demand stays the same or increases, prices will only come down when there is more supply.

To get more supply, there needs to be more competition.

It really is as simple as that.
 
...But the United States market is hard to compare with any other. It represented more than half of the global drug industry's sales of $410 billion last year...
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Why is a country that's not even 10% of the world population consuming over 50% of the pharmaceutical production? That alone should be ringing alarm bells about shit like over/unnecessary prescription.

XMCP: Well, different ways of looking at things, and different levels of government corruption and ineptitude probably have a lot to do with "nanny state" opinions.
As much as we like to bitch and moan, our federal Government does a demonstrably better job of handling large state projects than a lot of others... State governments on the other hand...

As for the stat about 90% of new drugs coming from the States, I'm willing to believe you're providing what you could find in terms of sourced information, but that figure really doesn't gel with me. I'd like to see how they derived the 90% figure, and I'm going to assume it's based on patent registrations because those are going to be a substantially larger number and look better on the PR sheet, not actual internal R&D... until proven otherwise of course, and I'm happy to be proved wrong in this instance.
 
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