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Drug-price debate rekindles fight over pill imports from Canada

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Dexter:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/261351-drug-price-debate-rekindles-fight-over-pill-imports

The presidential campaign is reigniting the battle over importing prescription drugs from Canada, with all of the leading Democratic candidates endorsing the idea. Calls for allowing people to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies are also intensifying from some Republicans in Congress, including Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa). But the drug industry remains dead-set against allowing importation, and it's unclear whether voter support will translate into legislative action. “Ensuring patients have access to needed medicines is critical, but importing medicines, whether from Canada or elsewhere in the world, is the wrong answer,” the trade group, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America or PhRMA, wrote in a fact sheet last month. That position was reiterated in a recent briefing with reporters.

sinkspur:
The problem with the position of the drug companies is that it makes no sense to people.

Why should I have to shoulder the entire burden of funding research for Pfizer when people in Canada and Mexico and Puerto Rico can buy the same medications for less than half of what I pay?

If the drug companies weren't selling the SAME prescriptions in other countries, they'd have a point.

As it is, they don't.  And I've completely changed on this subject. It's time to let me order from an offshore or Canadian pharmacy if I choose to.

Oceander:
So why are prices so different?  Are other countries imposing price controls?  Then we're not paying for research, we're paying to subsidize other peoples' socialism.

Sanguine:

--- Quote from: Oceander on November 29, 2015, 09:26:01 pm ---So why are prices so different?  Are other countries imposing price controls?  Then we're not paying for research, we're paying to subsidize other peoples' socialism.

--- End quote ---

Exactly.

Fishrrman:
Oceander writes:
"So why are prices so different?  Are other countries imposing price controls?  Then we're not paying for research, we're paying to subsidize other peoples' socialism."

Hmmmmmm......
Lemmmmeeeeesssseeee here....

If "other countries" were imposing price controls on the drugs from American pharma firms, forcing them to sell their product below manufacturing costs, then why would any company (at least a company that wished to make a profit) sell them any product at all?

Because that company would lose money on every single tablet or dose it sold.

Not a good business plan.

So... seems to me that the companies which are doing business in these "other countries", are making profits as a result of the business they conduct. And the profits they're earning are substantial enough to justify the "cost of doing business" in those countries.
Would you suggest that our government is forcing the pharma companies to do business in other countries, as well as here?

What this suggests is that prices are fixed higher HERE "just because".
...Because they can charge a much higher price, and get away with it.
...Because the government protects them by limiting the sources from which YOU can buy prescription drugs.

After all, if you need what they're sellin', where else ya gonna get it from?
(When the law here says you can't order from the foreign pharmacies)

Oceander, I surmise from your posting history that you fancy yourself as one who promotes "the free market".

Insofar as the pharma trade goes, shouldn't we at least HAVE one?

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