U.S. Puts Pressure On Australia To End Drug Price Controls

[Noordam]

">Tampa Tribune

Nov 27, 2003

0 U.S. Puts Pressure On Australia To End Drug Price Controls
By ELIZABETH BECKER
The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Having beaten back price controls on prescription drugs in the United States, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is trying to roll them back overseas, with help from the Bush administration and Congress.
In talks over a free-trade agreement with Australia, U.S. officials are pressing to water down the system by which the Australian government negotiates the prices it pays for prescription drugs, Mark Vaile, the Australian minister for trade, said Wednesday.

If successful, the United States could use this agreement as a benchmark for trade deals with other rich nations.

Loosening price controls is a priority for the drug industry, which gets most of its profit in the United States and argues that prices here could be lower if other nations paid their share of the cost of developing new drugs.


...more at article......

Show of hands how many REALLLLLLLYYYY Think the drug companies will lower the price of drugs in the US IF Australia and other "rich" countries drop price controls.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. Won't Work. Bush is a "HO" of the pharmacutical industry!

:eyes:

Australians will not take this shit!

[Don_G]

2. I Hope They Try

If pushed, the foreign governments will give incentives to establish pharmacutical industries within their own borders and compete with the US based drug compaines globally.

THAT will increase competition and bring drug prices down.

[brainshrub]

3. Big pharma = pure evil

Putting profits ahead of health should be a crime against humanity.

If they care so little about our health, why should we care about their patent protections?

[Deja Q]

4. BULL****

They can argue that prices here would be lower.

We all know what will happen: Their prices will go up. Ours won't go down and will likely continue to go up.

To say I'm skeptical is a gross understatement. You definitely are too.

Thanks for postng, it's good to know what the evil is doing around the world. :yourock:

[asjr]

5. prices

I hope this backfires big time. It will show the rest of the world that this is another step to world denomination by this regime. They could have gotten Medicare lower drug prices but they had to help out their big buddies get more and more of our money. This truly stinks.

[jonoboy]

6. even the most conservative people in Oz like it the way it is

Medicare and subsidised drugs are so popular in Australia that any government attempting to fiddle with the system will be swept from power.
We all knew this was coming from Bush and the deputy sheriff John Howard hates our socialised medicine..how he's going to talk his way out of this one I can't wait to see.
And they want us to do away with our film industry as well..just as it's beginning to show results..they want more US content on TV..it's already about 60%