Do You Know Why You Pay Up To Ten Times More For Drugs Than Canada And Europe?
Posted: Wednesday, December 16, 2009
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
It has long been known that Canadians pay far less for drugs than we do, many of which are produced by the same companies, at the same locations, as ours. Europe has very similar drug prices as Canada. And the most aggravating part is, there is no excuse for it. This is a real problem which should be a major issue for voters when the next election comes around. Ask your legislators and/or presidential candidates where they stand on this issue.
If we were allowed the same prices here, as in Europe and Canada, all of the above expenses would be lowered a significant amount. Do you know where these funds, over and above the actual costs of the drugs, actually go? Several places. One, into the coffers of the already huge pharmaceutical companies. Two much of it is spent in lobbying our elected officials, legislative and executive branches. They are one of the largest contributors to our government officials in the nation. The have invested $130 million in these campaigns over the past decade. Keep these figures in mind. They become more significant as we delve into this.
Not all of our legislators, to their credit, are sympathetic towards the whining of the drug companies that they need high profits in order to continue to carry on their massive research, developing more and better medications. This is a very valid point. They do a marvelous job and I can honestly say they have produced some exceedingly great remedies over the years. But on the other hand, they use that excuse to account for all the extra costs they add to the drugs. When, in actuality it does not account for nearly all of their excessive expenditures.
In fact, when, you add together the tremendous donations to politicians, their huge lobbying costs, and their extensive profits, you can see where much of the high costs of drugs originate. You can look at the offer they made to the government of giving up $80 billion in revenue with the understanding that the government would not ask for more. $80 billion!!! Just as a concession to keep the government from insisting on more?
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and others tried to push a bill through which they called "reimportation" of drugs but were beaten down by those Senators who backed the White House. And when Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) brought his "reimportation" bill to the Senate floor, the administration's FDA Chief Margaret Hamburg, sent a letter warning of "significant safety concerns" We were once able to purchase drugs from Canada and the traffic grew so heavy that the lobbyists prevailed in stopping it, citing possible low quality drugs and safety concerns. All a bunch of crap!
The president has shown his lack of strength in this case in two ways. He promised to tell the pharmaceutical companies, "Thanks but no, thanks" concerning their high drug costs and has dropped out of that. He also promised to clean house in Washington concerning lobbyists, which was simple diarrhea of the mouth. He has hired several to his staff and has succumbed to their deals in other ways. I have written other articles concerning lobbyists and it appears to me that this is what is running our government and has for years. That is not conducive to wise governance. Big money has only their own interests in mind when making their decisions and passing them on to our government. And the citizens are left holding the bag.
Until the American voters wake from their sleep and keep a close check on their legislators , rather than simply seeing the amount of pork they can swing for their state or district, we will continue to have drugs we cannot afford and health care we cannot afford to carry. The health care reform bill now under consideration has several features which favor only special interests and the voter be hanged.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Don't you realize that every statement from Obama carries an expiration date? As usual nice work.Absolutely, thanks for reading and commenting.
Cut the nonsense! What you say is accurate but you completely left out the fact that these pharmaceuticals have massive R&D expenditures that they have to support. The rest of the world gets a cut in pricing in order to remain competitive otherwise India and China will clone the drugs and sell for less. Go get a job at a massive pharmaceutical firm and understand their business model before bashing them. BTW, I'm glad that prices are high. Most of western drugs are bad for you anyway. So the less you poison yourself with them the better. Go seek out natural remedies as much as you can.I can see that you are loaded with wisdom Anon. If what I said was accurate, it wasn't nonsense. I'm in my 80th year and have been taking all these poisonous drugs through out my life. You seem to have taken some hateful pills. But never the less I appreciate your taking the time to read the article and make your comment.
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