Quote:
Originally posted by smooth
[B]I don't think you are aware that, according to the arguments on the floor, this bill specifically precludes the program from collective bargaining.
I didn't say that the bill should have established a price control. That's the market's job and the government shouldn't step in unless the market isn't working properly. In this case, the market has already provided a price control but the bill doesn't acknowledge it or allow us to benefit from it. This is backward policy. We should be benefitting from lower prices, not restricted by our government from enjoying them.
Not allowing people to walk across the border to buy the same product from Mexico or Canada is restricting the market. They both have the same medication for less than it is being sold here but we can't purchase it. If that isn't preventing the capitalist market to work properly I must need an economist to tell me how it isn't. Please do so.
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Quite the unbiased article there.
The "program" will not have collective bargaining abilities but the individual plans that cover the seniors within this plan will. Every PBM is moving in that direction through drug formulary rules, contracts with manufactures, and cooperation among the PBMs.
It doesn't take an economist to recognize that Canada and the US are two separate markets governed by very different rules. The US FDA puts far more restrictions on drug use and approvals than just about any other country in the world. I hope that one day you can look at the pharm industry as a truly global market but right now it's a bunch of islands that all interact in some ways but can in no way be considered a single market nor does it act as a single market. I hope the trend of buying from outside markets continues, if only because it will eventually end our subsidization of others' drug prices. Unfortunately, that will mean fewer dollars going towards the smaller market diseases.