Importing Less Expensive Drugs Not Seen as Cure for U.S. Woes

[sr_pacifica]

A customer at the Concourse Drugs pharmacy in the Bronx will pay about $118 to get a month's supply of 20-milligram Lipitor pills. At PharmacyinCanada.com, a Canadian online outlet, the same quantity of the drug, Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering medication, costs $79.

The difference has become a tempting political target. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, has made a campaign pledge to help cut Americans' prescription drug costs by allowing them to import drugs from Canada. President Bush has conceded that the idea is worth a try "if there's a safe way to do it." Bipartisan legislation in Congress would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries.

It may make political sense to point to Canada as a solution to high prescription drug prices in the United States. But many economists and health care experts say that importing drugs from countries that control their prices would do little to solve the problem of expensive drugs in the United States, where companies are free to set their own prices. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that allowing Canadian drug imports would have a "negligible" impact on drug spending.

To begin with, there are not enough Canadians, or drugs in Canada, to make much of a dent in the United States. There are 16 million American patients on Lipitor, for instance - more than half the entire Canadian population.

Drug makers like Pfizer say they would reduce their shipments of drugs to distributors in Canada and other countries that re-export to the United States. "We are not going to supply drugs to diverters, in Canada or elsewhere," said Hank McKinnell, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer.

And Canadian health officials, fearing shortages and higher prices of their own, would probably clamp down on their own pharmacists and distributors to keep their drugs from leaking into the United States. Canadian patient-advocacy groups have already complained about shortages from the exports to the United States that already occur, even though they violate American law.

<snip>

But what comes to mind for people like Mr. Love is a political nonstarter: imposing Canadian-style price controls. No Democrat or Republican will be likely to dare to propose such a thing during an election year, or perhaps anytime soon, having seen the political debacle of the Clinton administration's effort to devise a national health care system - and knowing that the pharmaceutical industry is one of Washington's most powerful lobbying forces.

Price controls "wouldn't have a ghost of a chance to pass in the Congress," said Senator Byron Dorgan, the Democrat from North Dakota who is the sponsor of the main drug reimportation bill...

More at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/business/16drug.html

[MatrixEscape]

1. Ah, so ...

The pharmaceutical industry is more powerful than the Government and the People. We don't get good health care, either.

So, this is a major problem now clearly stated. Is this industry a company providing a service that customers pay for, or are they despots who will always exercise complete control?

I guess the investors are fine with a company like Pfizer when it virtually declares itself an enemy of the People? The situation is clearly not acceptable. It is so matter of fact, as if, we cannot do anything about it. Raspberry or nyah, nyah? Resistance is futile?

Media Watch: What was the intent behind the article? Was there a political impetus for it? Being a stubborn declaration that an industry has us and our Government in its pocket, does it serve as a proclamation or as part of a emboldened corporate manifesto?

[sr_pacifica]

3. Intent of article

Yes, I was interested in DUers' take on the intent. I found myself arguing with the statements that pretty much made it seem there is no hope, the pharmaceuticals have us by the huevos, so to speak. As you stated, the intent seemed to be "resistance is futile."

[CoffeeAnnan]

2. A recent Scientific American article gives us a clue as to where this

whole thing is headed.Companies like Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and others are forming ventures with several Indian Biotechnology firms to carry out their drug reserach and development efforts.They are also planning to produce these drugs in India.The big attraction, as in the IT industry, is the vast pool of scientific manpower that is coming out of India's many universities.This manpower is highly qualified, English speaking and works for a fraction of our own scientists.This will knock the costs of drug development for the pharmaceutical companies and improve their bottom line.

When this program is implemented watch as the drug companies drop all their objections to imported drugs and say that these are still manufactured by American corporations in India so quality and reliability is not a problem.

[ldf]

5. and after all that, outsourcing, overseas manufacturing

what do you think the odds are that they will drop the prices of their drugs?

how about nil to zero?

:grr:

[dansolo]

4. Price caps would solve the problem

We wouldn't ned to import he drugs from Canada if the drug companies didn't overcharge the American consumers. Isn't it funny how the Republicans want caps on jury awards, but they have no problem with the costs of fuel and drugs to go through the roof.

[ldf]

6. price caps

would be set at the current outrageous levels.

the drug companies see it coming, yet will bargain that they won't go ANY HIGHER, if we accept a price cap at the current levels.

doesn't that sound just like them?