Trail Run: Post how you would solve increasing Drug prices

[Kalibah]

My understanding is that the reason drugs are cheaper in Canda and other nations with nationalize healthcare systems is that they have set a LIMIT on the price that a pill can be sold for. Drug companies charge more here to make up the difference ( or they just continue to charge us the "normal" price because they can). Im not "for" big drug companies, but my understanding is if we import drugs from Canada we are in essence cutting a large amount of revenue out of drug companies pocketbooks. Without this money, however RICH you might imply they are, they would be less inclined to come up with the wonderdrugs of tomorrow.

Is that a fair /rational look at one side of it?


Would not, the asnwer be then, to use no resale contracts, so that Canadians and other countries forbidden to resell drugs- but that doesnt take care of US having to pay more. The other option would be for drug companies to stop selling to countries with these price regulations- but however unlikely that is - because despite them getting less - return- it still is a lot of money.


So my question is How would you solve this issue if you were in charge?



COULD WE PLEASE NOT MENTION CANIDATES


Im not asking whos medicare/prescription drug plan is best. I'm simply asking what you would do.

While refraining from pimping canidates, maybe we might be able to have more civil conversations. It might not seem political if we cut out the politicians, I think it is... I hope others agree.


Maybe if this works we could discuss other issues, like Social Security... I say this because in other threads on these issues it resorts to " Bush hasnt done anything" or " Kerrys plan is unrealistic" ... and that gets us no where.




So just lay out your plan or thoughts- afterall it is a political issue

[Ustwo]

We could pay them.

Or we could stop developing these new great but expensive drugs.

There is a REASON we have so many new drugs and its not because people want to lose money or take great risk for nothing.

[Kalibah]

Because there are lots of diseases out there- and there is a great potential to make money + score some karma points.

when you say paying them

Ill assume you mean the goverment paying drug companies

Is that what you mean?
That essentially means that taxpayers are paying- and that doesn't really solve the problem...

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Kalibah

Because there are lots of diseases out there- and there is a great potential to make money + score some karma points.

when you say paying them

Ill assume you mean the goverment paying drug companies

Is that what you mean?
That essentially means that taxpayers are paying- and that doesn't really solve the problem...

Hehe with the election coming on we have a lot of people only recently posting in politics.

I forget they don't know I'm an evil, baby eating, old lady pushing, minority disenfranchising, warmongering neo-con. And that’s on my good days

I suggest the people pay for them if need them. Are some going to be very expensive, perhaps to expensive? Yes. That’s what charity programs are for, and there are many such programs currently. I much rather have really expensive drugs that can help people vs. no new drugs.

Should the government get involved? Hell no, but if they did, they should do NOTHING to cut into the drug company profits. The reason being that the fastest way to destroy our wonderful drug R&D is to take the money out of it.

[prof.pickles]

There must be a happy medium that can be reached between drug company profits and the public good. Insinuaiting that any cap at all would result in a loss of all r&d is not very logical. For all of the money drug companies spend on r&d they are still incredibly profitable.

That equilibrium must be possible but the companies will always claim that they will collapse if things change...that is what giant companies faced with regulation do. We have to come up with a better way to handle this than importing the drugs from a country that does have a sane drug policy.

[Kalibah]

So no one thinks drug companies should just sit tight for a few monthes and STOP exporting drugs to foreign nations that have a "cap" on drug prices?

Wouldn't it make sense? I mean when the seniors need their Viagra, maybe the goverment would say hmm well I guess we can pay the same that Americans pay..



That said- at the least - then would it kill the Drug companies to give use the same price as them?????



Cleartly the solution is NOT importing from Canada- is that agreed at least? It doesnt solve the issue of they pay less, we pay more... Instead of helping Canadas economy, if were going to by pass the expensive price- why dont we just force lower prices- i mean Either way hurts RandD?


And does anyone else thing that posting some other issues like ohh say Social Security in this same manner would be good? I dont wanna err overstep my bounds but It just seems like were having a much better conversation when we keep the canidates out of it, and talk issues- however hypothetical they may be - as we really have no control... it just feels more civil

[daswig]

Legalize them.

[Kalibah]

Originally Posted by daswig

Legalize them.

Legalize...?
the importation of the drugs?
Care to elaborate?

[pan6467]

As someone who truly hates and believes IN MOST CASES tax abatements hurt more than they help, I would propose a tax abatement to drug companies and a subsidizing of their R&D IF they would work their medicines on a sliding scale OR charge the county health departments cost for the purpose of distribution among the poor. (I don't mean these drugs for toenail fungus or cosmetic drugs that have no true health benefits.)

Another thing I would do is regulate medical care. I would make medical care on a sliding scale based on ability to pay. Promote 2 free yearly physicals and preventive care.

If the doctors and insurance companies didn't like it, I'd very simply socialize medicine, period. Healthy workers are more productive workers. Biannual checkups may catch serious problems early enough that they can be treated far cheaper than if they had been let go because the person didn't have insurance or the insurance company didn't see the need at first to approve something.

Then I'd help fund medical research on stem cells and the computer chips.

How would I pay for it? Very easy cut aid to countries such as Isreal or the UN. Cut overseas military bases and raise tarriffs on imports.

[fuzyfuzer]

Originally Posted by daswig

Legalize them.

if you are implying that drugs like perkaset (sp?) should be legalized you are off your rocker these things are controled for a reason it is to protect you because the people that are prescribing the drugs went to school for many years to better understand them. to think that you can handle it because your in college and you know eveything is just downright stupid.

the two reasons they are controled is because if taken improperly there is an extremely high risk of you hurting yourself and and others. this is also a CYA (cover your ass) move by the corporations. trial lawyers are destroying these companies through secumstantial evedence which brings me to my next point. this isn't a solution at all but maybe a move in the right direction. perhaps we could protect these companies who want to tear them apart like a pack of wolves. these people i am talking about are trial lawyers. trial lawyers cause many problems that are big issues in this country, how can we have any jobs if trial lawyers are allowed to dismantle companies peice by peice when they can more safely be located oversees in a relitively protected zone.

sorry about the rant, i don't hate lawyers and no offense to anyone who is one or is to become one, i only dislike the actions of a select group of them and i understand that like it or not lawyers a necissary part of our country

[host]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

............
I suggest the people pay for them if need them. Are some going to be very expensive, perhaps to expensive? Yes. That’s what charity programs are for, and there are many such programs currently. I much rather have really expensive drugs that can help people vs. no new drugs.

Should the government get involved? Hell no, but if they did, they should do NOTHING to cut into the drug company profits. The reason being that the fastest way to destroy our wonderful drug R&D is to take the money out of it.

There you go, again !!!!
Good read.....the author is an expert, but some will think that she writes
like a partisan hack. She contradicts what Ustwo, wrote......

(Marcia Angell is a Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A physician, she is a former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. The article in this issue will appear in different form in her new book, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, to be published by Random House in August). (July 2004)

<h3>The Truth About the Drug Companies</h3>
By Marcia Angell

1.)............In the past two years, we have started to see, for the first time, the beginnings of public resistance to rapacious pricing and other dubious practices of the pharmaceutical industry. It is mainly because of this resistance that drug companies are now blanketing us with public relations messages. And the magic words, repeated over and over like an incantation, are research, innovation, and American. Research. Innovation. American. It makes a great story.

But while the rhetoric is stirring, it has very little to do with reality. First, research and development (R&D) is a relatively small part of the budgets of the big drug companies—dwarfed by their vast expenditures on marketing and administration, and smaller even than profits. In fact, year after year, for over two decades, this industry has been far and away the most profitable in the United States. (In 2003, for the first time, the industry lost its first-place position, coming in third, behind "mining, crude oil production," and "commercial banks.") The prices drug companies charge have little relationship to the costs of making the drugs and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening R&D.

Second, the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The great majority of "new" drugs are not new at all but merely variations of older drugs already on the market. These are called "me-too" drugs. The idea is to grab a share of an established, lucrative market by producing something very similar to a top-selling drug. For instance, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, and the newest, Crestor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first. As Dr. Sharon Levine, associate executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, put it,

If I'm a manufacturer and I can change one molecule and get another twenty years of patent rights, and convince physicians to prescribe and consumers to demand the next form of Prilosec, or weekly Prozac instead of daily Prozac, just as my patent expires, then why would I be spending money on a lot less certain endeavor, which is looking for brand-new drugs?[4]

Third, the industry is hardly a model of American free enterprise. To be sure, it is free to decide which drugs to develop (me-too drugs instead of innovative ones, for instance), and it is free to price them as high as the traffic will bear, but it is utterly dependent on government-granted monopolies—in the form of patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved exclusive marketing rights. If it is not particularly innovative in discovering new drugs, it is highly innovative— and aggressive—in dreaming up ways to extend its monopoly rights.

And there is nothing peculiarly American about this industry. It is the very essence of a global enterprise. Roughly half of the largest drug companies are based in Europe. (The exact count shifts because of mergers.) In 2002, the top ten were the American companies Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth (formerly American Home Products); the British companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca; the Swiss companies Novartis and Roche; and the French company Aventis (which in 2004 merged with another French company, Sanafi Synthelabo, putting it in third place).[5] All are much alike in their operations. All price their drugs much higher here than in other markets.

Since the United States is the major profit center, it is simply good public relations for drug companies to pass themselves off as American, whether they are or not. It is true, however, that some of the European companies are now locating their R&D operations in the United States. They claim the reason for this is that we don't regulate prices, as does much of the rest of the world. But more likely it is that they want to feed on the unparalleled research output of American universities and the NIH. In other words, it's not private enterprise that draws them here but the very opposite—our publicly sponsored research enterprise.

Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Most of its marketing efforts are focused on influencing doctors, since they must write the prescriptions.)

If prescription drugs were like ordinary consumer goods, all this might not matter very much. But drugs are different. People depend on them for their health and even their lives. In the words of Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), "It's not like buying a car or tennis shoes or peanut butter." People need to know that there are some checks and balances on this industry, so that its quest for profits doesn't push every other consideration aside. But there aren't such checks and balances. ...............

2.) What does the eight-hundred-pound gorilla do? Anything it wants to.

What's true of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla is true of the colossus that is the pharmaceutical industry. It is used to doing pretty much what it wants to do. The watershed year was 1980. Before then, it was a good business, but afterward, it was a stupendous one. From 1960 to 1980, prescription drug sales were fairly static as a percent of US gross domestic product, but from 1980 to 2000, they tripled. They now stand at more than $200 billion a year.[6] Of the many events that contributed to the industry's great and good fortune, none had to do with the quality of the drugs the companies were selling.............................

,,,,,,,,,,,,<b>The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was perhaps the fundamental element in the rapid rise of big pharma—</b>the collective name for the largest drug companies. With the Reagan administration came a strong pro-business shift not only in government policies but in society at large. And with the shift, the public attitude toward great wealth changed. Before then, there was something faintly disreputable about really big fortunes. You could choose to do well or you could choose to do good, but most people who had any choice in the matter thought it difficult to do both. That belief was particularly strong among scientists and other intellectuals. They could choose to live a comfortable but not luxurious life in academia, hoping to do exciting cutting-edge research, or they could "sell out" to industry and do less important but more remunerative work. Starting in the Reagan years and continuing through the 1990s, Americans changed their tune. It became not only reputable to be wealthy, but something close to virtuous. There were "winners" and there were "losers," and the winners were rich and deserved to be. The gap between the rich and poor, which had been narrowing since World War II, suddenly began to widen again, until today it is a chasm.

The pharmaceutical industry and its CEOs quickly joined the ranks of the winners as a result of a number of business-friendly government actions. I won't enumerate all of them, but two are especially important. Beginning in 1980, Congress enacted a series of laws designed to speed the translation of tax-supported basic research into useful new products—a process sometimes referred to as "technology transfer." The goal was also to improve the position of American-owned high-tech businesses in world markets.

The most important of these laws is known as the Bayh-Dole Act, after its chief sponsors, Senator Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) and Senator Robert Dole (R-Kans.). Bayh-Dole enabled universities and small businesses to patent discoveries emanating from research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the major distributor of tax dollars for medical research, and then to grant exclusive licenses to drug companies. Until then, taxpayer-financed discoveries were in the public domain, available to any company that wanted to use them. But now universities, where most NIH-sponsored work is carried out, can patent and license their discoveries, and charge royalties. Similar legislation permitted the NIH itself to enter into deals with drug companies that would directly transfer NIH discoveries to industry.

Bayh-Dole gave a tremendous boost to the nascent biotechnology industry, as well as to big pharma. Small biotech companies, many of them founded by university researchers to exploit their discoveries, proliferated rapidly. They now ring the major academic research institutions and often carry out the initial phases of drug development, hoping for lucrative deals with big drug companies that can market the new drugs. Usually both academic researchers and their institutions own equity in the biotechnology companies they are involved with. Thus, when a patent held by a university or a small biotech company is eventually licensed to a big drug company, all parties cash in on the public investment in research.

These laws mean that drug companies no longer have to rely on their own research for new drugs, and few of the large ones do. Increasingly, they rely on academia, small biotech startup companies, and the NIH for that.[7] At least a third of drugs marketed by the major drug companies are now licensed from universities or small biotech companies, and these tend to be the most innovative ones.[8] While Bayh-Dole was clearly a bonanza for big pharma and the biotech industry, whether its enactment was a net benefit to the public is arguable.

The Reagan years and Bayh-Dole also transformed the ethos of medical schools and teaching hospitals. These nonprofit institutions started to see themselves as "partners" of industry, and they became just as enthusiastic as any entrepreneur about the oppor-tunities to parlay their discoveries in-to financial gain. Faculty researchers were encouraged to obtain patents on their work (which were assigned to their universities), and they shared in the royalties. Many medical schools and teaching hospitals set up "technology transfer" offices to help in this activity and capitalize on faculty discoveries. As the entrepreneurial spirit grew during the 1990s, medical school faculty entered into other lucrative financial arrangements with drug companies, as did their parent institutions.

One of the results has been a growing pro-industry bias in medical research —exactly where such bias doesn't belong. Faculty members who had earlier contented themselves with what was once referred to as a "threadbare but genteel" lifestyle began to ask themselves, in the words of my grandmother, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Medical schools and teaching hospitals, for their part, put more resources into searching for commercial opportunities.

Starting in 1984, with legislation known as the Hatch-Waxman Act, Congress passed another series of laws that were just as big a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry. These laws extended monopoly rights for brand-name drugs. Exclusivity is the lifeblood of the industry because it means that no other company may sell the same drug for a set period. After exclusive marketing rights expire, copies (called generic drugs) enter the market, and the price usually falls to as little as 20 percent of what it was.[9] There are two forms of monopoly rights—patents granted by the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) and exclusivity granted by the FDA. While related, they operate somewhat independently, almost as backups for each other. Hatch-Waxman, named for Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), was meant mainly to stimulate the foundering generic industry by short-circuiting some of the FDA requirements for bringing generic drugs to market. While successful in doing that, Hatch-Waxman also lengthened the patent life for brand-name drugs. Since then, industry lawyers have manipulated some of its provisions to extend patents far longer than the lawmakers intended.

..................As their profits skyrocketed during the 1980s and 1990s, so did the political power of drug companies. By 1990, the industry had assumed its present contours as a business with unprecedented control over its own fortunes. For example, if it didn't like something about the FDA, the federal agency that is supposed to regulate the industry, it could change it through direct pressure or through its friends in Congress. The top ten drug companies (which included European companies) had profits of nearly 25 percent of sales in 1990, and <b>except for a dip at the time of President Bill Clinton's health care reform proposal,</b> profits as a percentage of sales remained about the same for the next decade. (Of course, in absolute terms, as sales mounted, so did profits.) In 2001, the ten American drug companies in the Fortune 500 list (not quite the same as the top ten worldwide, but their profit margins are much the same) ranked far above all other American industries in average net return, whether as a percentage of sales (18.5 percent), of assets (16.3 percent), or of shareholders' equity (33.2 percent). These are astonishing margins. For comparison, the median net return for all other industries in the Fortune 500 was only 3.3 percent of sales. Commercial banking, itself no slouch as an aggressive industry with many friends in high places, was a distant second, at 13.5 percent of sales.[11]
<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244#fnr3">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244#fnr3</a>

[daswig]

First off, it's "percocet". You realize that analgesics like Tylenol #3 and #4 (with Codeine) are OTC in places like Canada, right? That's right, you can go into a drug store and buy them just like you buy tylenol WITHOUT Codeine here.

Here's the thing. Everybody who WANTS illegal drugs in the US can already get them. Want pot? How hard is it to find? Want crack? How hard is it to find? Heroin? Easy to find. So since illegal drugs are so easy to get, what's teh big deal about making the less dangerous pharmaceutical grade drugs available? We've reached the point that it's far easier to find illicit opiates on the street than it is to find a doctor to perscribe legitimate opiates. I know this, because I have certain health issues that require me to take them for real medicinal purposes. (That's how I knew I was old....I stopped looking for drugs for recreation, and started looking for drugs for medicinal purposes.)

You're familiar with Prilosec, right? It's an acid inhibitor that's used to stop heartburn. When it was perscription only, it was running $3 a pill, not counting the doctor's visit. Now, it's less than $.50 a pill, because it's OTC. That's for the same exact thing that used to cost $3.

Regarding your "but you can hurt yourself!" idea, well, if you take over 4000 mg a day of tylenol (that's just 8 "extra strength" 500 mg capsules), it can kill you. Eat a whole bottle, and you're in SERIOUS trouble. I've yet to meet a pharmaceutical drug that makes somebody more dangerous to themselves or others than Meth or PCP. Yet it's not terribly hard to get them.

Unnecessary comment removed

Originally Posted by fuzyfuzer

if you are implying that drugs like perkaset (sp?) should be legalized you are off your rocker these things are controled for a reason it is to protect you because the people that are prescribing the drugs went to school for many years to better understand them. to think that you can handle it because your in college and you know eveything is just downright stupid.

the two reasons they are controled is because if taken improperly there is an extremely high risk of you hurting yourself and and others. this is also a CYA (cover your ass) move by the corporations. trial lawyers are destroying these companies through secumstantial evedence which brings me to my next point. this isn't a solution at all but maybe a move in the right direction. perhaps we could protect these companies who want to tear them apart like a pack of wolves. these people i am talking about are trial lawyers. trial lawyers cause many problems that are big issues in this country, how can we have any jobs if trial lawyers are allowed to dismantle companies peice by peice when they can more safely be located oversees in a relitively protected zone.

sorry about the rant, i don't hate lawyers and no offense to anyone who is one or is to become one, i only dislike the actions of a select group of them and i understand that like it or not lawyers a necissary part of our country

[TheKak]

R&D isn't about helping people. It all comes down to the bottom line, there is no good willed people saving thinking going on, its all about what is going to make them more money. We need price caps, or SOMETHING to lower prices even if it hurts their precious profits. So if someone can't drive a $100,000 car so some old and/or poor people can have medicine, fuck em.

[ARTelevision]

I would be willing to accept a bi-partisan inspired National Health Care Plan in which pharmaceutical companies would be made to participate with either something like an excess profits tax or by directly funding lower-priced drugs. This would have to be part of a comprehensive reform in the spirit of the original and bi-partisan effort spearheaded by President Clinton.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by TheKak

R&D isn't about helping people. It all comes down to the bottom line, there is no good willed people saving thinking going on, its all about what is going to make them more money. We need price caps, or SOMETHING to lower prices even if it hurts their precious profits. So if someone can't drive a $100,000 car so some old and/or poor people can have medicine, fuck em.

So by your definition of R&D you want to hurt R&D.

These medicines won't be developed so your 'fuck em' won't happen.

[Lebell]

My ex worked for a big pharmaceutical and she had some stories.

Based on my knowledge gained through her, I would reinstate the law banning advertising drugs, as this equals or SURPASSES R&D costs.

I might also be in favor of some caps (Canada doesn't seem to be hurting when it comes to the availability of current drugs), but other than that, I am mostly a free market type.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Lebell

My ex worked for a big pharmaceutical and she had some stories.

Based on my knowledge gained through her, I would reinstate the law banning advertising drugs, as this equals or SURPASSES R&D costs.

Now that I agree with, because most people don't have a clue, and having your patients try to recomend the drugs they take is a bad thing.

I would also ban kick back some doctors get for perscribing drugs. In fact I can't believe such a thing exsists, but it does. One recent grad I know, told me because of the current malpractice and insurance issues he makes most of his money doing this. It can only bring corruption.

[Superbelt]

The way Canada gets their drugs so cheap is that they are the principal buyer of all prescription drugs in Canada. It's one of the biggest benefits of their nationalized health care. As the principle buyer, and as a large nation of wealthy individuals Canada says "We'll pay you this much for your drug. You don't like it? Go screw."

We need to do this. It's free market. We don't have to force them, just say "This is all we will pay" No drug company can afford to ignore America.

Also, what Lebell and Ustwo said definetley has to be done. Cut out the fat for the Pharma companies and allow the doctors to make honest decisions for the betterment of their patients, not maximizing profits. Pharmaceutical reps should NOT be allowed to go around to doctors giving them incentives for pushing their new drug.

[fuzyfuzer]

Originally Posted by daswig

First off, it's "percocet". You realize that analgesics like Tylenol #3 and #4 (with Codeine) are OTC in places like Canada, right? That's right, you can go into a drug store and buy them just like you buy tylenol WITHOUT Codeine here.

Here's the thing. Everybody who WANTS illegal drugs in the US can already get them. Want pot? How hard is it to find? Want crack? How hard is it to find? Heroin? Easy to find. So since illegal drugs are so easy to get, what's teh big deal about making the less dangerous pharmaceutical grade drugs available? We've reached the point that it's far easier to find illicit opiates on the street than it is to find a doctor to perscribe legitimate opiates. I know this, because I have certain health issues that require me to take them for real medicinal purposes. (That's how I knew I was old....I stopped looking for drugs for recreation, and started looking for drugs for medicinal purposes.)

You're familiar with Prilosec, right? It's an acid inhibitor that's used to stop heartburn. When it was perscription only, it was running $3 a pill, not counting the doctor's visit. Now, it's less than $.50 a pill, because it's OTC. That's for the same exact thing that used to cost $3.

Regarding your "but you can hurt yourself!" idea, well, if you take over 4000 mg a day of tylenol (that's just 8 "extra strength" 500 mg capsules), it can kill you. Eat a whole bottle, and you're in SERIOUS trouble. I've yet to meet a pharmaceutical drug that makes somebody more dangerous to themselves or others than Meth or PCP. Yet it's not terribly hard to get them.

Unnecessary comment removed

so your solution is to make all the drugs that can hurt you legal, also doctors are there for a reason, what your doing is self medicating if you are trying to get controled drugs without a perscription. how do you know that that is the best drug for you, maybe you read online one perspective of what you are suposed to take that doesn't mean it's best. also you idea of automaticly producing an over the counter generic completely earases the drug companies profits. whats the incentive to create new drugs with that solution we completely destroy our industry.

jst because illegal drugs are easy for you to get dosen't mean that it's right. and if all these drugs are legalized he companies who make them immediatly become responsable for any moron that doesn't follow the rules that is the state of our legal system. this again would destroy the industry and obviously neither of us want that.

[tspikes51]

Increase the amount of time that a pharmaceutical company has exlusive production rights for a new drug.

[Kalibah]

Meh

Im a proponent of legalizing illict drugs in the US. We waste too many forces doing cavity searches etc for drugs, when we could be focusing on more important issues like Terrorism (gasp!)

Those that will abuse them are already
Those who are smart enough not to use them now, prob wont. I think most non-users are that way because of health concerns rather than the legality.



But im sorry im off on a tangent now

[flstf]

Originally Posted by Superbelt

The way Canada gets their drugs so cheap is that they are the principal buyer of all prescription drugs in Canada. It's one of the biggest benefits of their nationalized health care. As the principle buyer, and as a large nation of wealthy individuals Canada says "We'll pay you this much for your drug. You don't like it? Go screw."

We need to do this. It's free market. We don't have to force them, just say "This is all we will pay" No drug company can afford to ignore America.

Not only do we pay more for drugs than Canada because of their buying agreements but we pay even more in order to subsidize them (if that makes any sense). If we do the same thing then we might as well nationalize the whole industry and be done with it.

I really really hate to see us go down this path because whatever the government controls will cost us a lot more or simply not be available eventually.

[Mr Zen]

A couple of things

You realize that analgesics like Tylenol #3 and #4 (with Codeine) are OTC in places like Canada, right?

Umm... Nope, you can get Tylenol #1 OTC, but not 3 & 4. Those require a perscription. (Or so the ladyfriend says anyway, I don't really need that kind of pain killer on a regular basis )


As for pot. I say leagalise. The government could grow it themselves (like the Canadian government is trying to do in the mines up in Flin Flon). This creates a whole new industry, both growers and sellers. Or the government could do it themselves and use all the profits to fund R&D (could be channeled into medical research) and fighting the import of actual harmful drugs like crack.

[daswig]

Originally Posted by fuzyfuzer

what your doing is self medicating if you are trying to get controled drugs without a perscription. how do you know that that is the best drug for you, maybe you read online one perspective of what you are suposed to take that doesn't mean it's best. also you idea of automaticly producing an over the counter generic completely earases the drug companies profits. whats the incentive to create new drugs with that solution we completely destroy our industry.

Who said I was trying to get drugs without a perscription? You're making large assumptions. With the meds I'm on, they're duly perscribed by a licensed physician, they are filled by registered pharmacists, et cetera. Here's the thing. I'm going to be on the drugs perscribed by my doctors probably for the rest of my life. Yet every two months, I have to go back to my physician to get the perscription renewed. I go into his office, we talk for two minutes, he writes the script, and I go about my business while my insurance is billed for $180. The visits are completely unnecessary, but serve to drive up costs. If I could simply continue to refill my perscription, as I will undoubtedly continue to do in perpetuity, there would be significant cost savings.

Regarding profitability, do you know who lobbied hardest for prilosec to be reduced to OTC status? The MANUFACTURERS. Why? Economies of scale. They make more money selling them OTC for less money than they could EVER hope to make selling it by perscription for more money. If the manufacturers hadn't lobbied and lobbied HARD to get it classified as OTC, it'd still be rx only, and they'd be making less money.

jst because illegal drugs are easy for you to get dosen't mean that it's right. and if all these drugs are legalized he companies who make them immediatly become responsable for any moron that doesn't follow the rules that is the state of our legal system. this again would destroy the industry and obviously neither of us want that.

How do you figure that? I'm a trial lawyer by trade. The manufacturers of Tylenol weren't sued out of existence because of toxicity that results from overdoses of it, were they? I suggest that you have a skewed view of the legal system, possibly because your legal training primarily involved watching reruns of "Law & Order".

[daswig]

Originally Posted by ARTelevision

I would be willing to accept a bi-partisan inspired National Health Care Plan in which pharmaceutical companies would be made to participate with either something like an excess profits tax or by directly funding lower-priced drugs. This would have to be part of a comprehensive reform in the spirit of the original and bi-partisan effort spearheaded by President Clinton.

Heh. We've seen how well the Government retirement plan has done, so why not turn our healthcare system over to them?

Thanks, but if I'm gonna die, I'd rather die because I can't afford the good medical care, instead of dying because I "took advantage" of governmental health care. I don't trust the government to handle SIMPLE matters like picking up my garbage reliably. Why would I want to trust my medical care to them again?

[fuzyfuzer]

Originally Posted by daswig

Who said I was trying to get drugs without a perscription? You're making large assumptions. With the meds I'm on, they're duly perscribed by a licensed physician, they are filled by registered pharmacists, et cetera. Here's the thing. I'm going to be on the drugs perscribed by my doctors probably for the rest of my life. Yet every two months, I have to go back to my physician to get the perscription renewed. I go into his office, we talk for two minutes, he writes the script, and I go about my business while my insurance is billed for $180. The visits are completely unnecessary, but serve to drive up costs. If I could simply continue to refill my perscription, as I will undoubtedly continue to do in perpetuity, there would be significant cost savings.

Regarding profitability, do you know who lobbied hardest for prilosec to be reduced to OTC status? The MANUFACTURERS. Why? Economies of scale. They make more money selling them OTC for less money than they could EVER hope to make selling it by perscription for more money. If the manufacturers hadn't lobbied and lobbied HARD to get it classified as OTC, it'd still be rx only, and they'd be making less money.



How do you figure that? I'm a trial lawyer by trade. The manufacturers of Tylenol weren't sued out of existence because of toxicity that results from overdoses of it, were they? I suggest that you have a skewed view of the legal system, possibly because your legal training primarily involved watching reruns of "Law & Order".

You say that you are a trial lawyer and that is your chosen profesion but i have to say that, that puts us on exact opposite sides of the fence. my family and myself are very tied into the medical profesion, my dad is a doctor and i am learning to become one. im sorry but i have to say that i am suprised that any doctor would see a trial lawyer because, whether they are right are not, they blaim trial lawyers for high malpractice insurance and lawsuits. lawyers have caused the demise of many companies one in general is the whole breast implant idea. that company, whos name slips me at the moment, was sued out of evidence of harm. also it really isn't the rulings that destroy the companies its the settlements. once a company settles more people try to sue using the settlement as evidence. these companies try acceptable losses and then are destroyed. the diologe between the two of us isn't probably going to change either of our minds because of the intrinsic differences between us. also sorry for the assumbtion that you were reciving drugs illeagaly i try not to draw conclusions so i apologize.