Can someone gimme the prescription drug problem in a nutshell?

[mr. x]

I dont understand why drugs (over the counter) are so expensive here and i here so much about the elderly having to fork over so much cash and struggling to manage

then theres the canada issue, where cheaper drugs and so forth (is it cuz of the whole socialism thing?)

[John0101]

yes, canada's government is a semi-socialst society. The government/local communities buy drugs in large batches, lowering the costs of the drugs. Then they in turn pass on the savings of the drugs to the consumers. Note Canada does have a higher tax rate so some everybody in the country is footing part of the bill.

reasons why drugs are so expensive is partly because of the huge amount of money that go into research, but also because drugs are relatively inelastic, meaning you need them to survival, so drug companies can charge more and the demand for the drugs will still be the same.

[nonamerasian]

Read (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Living/healthcare031022_canada.html)

[mr. x]

yes, canada's government is a semi-socialst society. The government/local communities buy drugs in large batches, lowering the costs of the drugs. Then they in turn pass on the savings of the drugs to the consumers. Note Canada does have a higher tax rate so some everybody in the country is footing part of the bill.

reasons why drugs are so expensive is partly because of the huge amount of money that go into research, but also because drugs are relatively inelastic, meaning you need them to survival, so drug companies can charge more and the demand for the drugs will still be the same.

so is this unethical what they are doing or is just a "laissez faire" kinda thing?

[John0101]

so is this unethical what they are doing or is just a "laissez faire" kinda thing?

laissez faire pertains to capitalism, canada is semi-socialism, canada's drug law in many ways are more ethical then in the U.S. (u.s=capitalist) where many people are left out of buying drugs because left to the free market, some people can't afford them so they have to do without.

[thaite]

making a profit for your product is hardly unethical

[John0101]

making a profit for your product is hardly unethical

I totally agree. But, lets say you found the cure for AIDs, your the one person who can manufactor this drug. Because you are the only one that has the drug, you have monopoly power over the drug and produce less then efficeint amount of pills to charge extraordinary prices. There are millions of people who needs this drug in the world, but not many can afford it. Monopoly power=Unethical. We need government intervention w/tax breaks and subsidies on drug research and manufactoring.

[mr. x]

I totally agree. But, lets say you found the cure for AIDs, your the one person who can manufactor this drug. Because you are the only one that has the drug, you have monopoly power over the drug and produce less then efficeint amount of pills to charge extraordinary prices. There are millions of people who needs this drug in the world, but not many can afford it. Monopoly power=Unethical. We need government intervention w/tax breaks and subsidies on drug research and manufactoring.

yah ive thought about that scenario too. so are these drug companies i was trying to say, can they stand to lose a few dollars for these folks?

[John0101]

yah ive thought about that scenario too. so are these drug companies i was trying to say, can they stand to lose a few dollars for these folks?

left to the free market the drug companies have no incentive to lower the price aka produce more of a particular drug. There are a few drug patient laws that address this (1) drug patients only last X number of years, so after X years other companies can reproduces the same pills and sell the drug for less (2) each individual country can produce the drug, but cannot export the drug. I.E. u.s. drugs must be made in the U.S. and cannot be resold. But of course there are special circumstance made to Africa (left to the free market, Africa shouldn't recieve any AIDs drugs, not many people can afford the drugs, and those who can they are just going to resell the drugs overseas and make monster profits.).

Solutions: IMO government buys the patient, and be sole producer of the drug, produce it at no accounting profit so they make no money on the drug. Every citizen pays alittle bit of the drugs with their tax dollars, but poor people will benefit greatly.

[mr. x]

so when you hear about drug companies complaining about canadian websites and so forth are they bitching just cuz they are losing money?

[John0101]

I'm not quite sure on the laws here, but buy drugs from canada does undercut the U.S. market. Yes drug companies are making less money, but I think it's more of a political game. I don't know much about political science thou...