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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-do-drugs-eh dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Canadians are in a kerfuffle over the Trump administration's preliminary plan to allow Americans to import lower-cost prescription medications from Canada.

The plan was announced July 31 and is part of the administration's long-sought effort to drag down the US's skyrocketing drug prices. But it's a long way from being a reality. Even if the plan does pan out, it will likely be years before regulators review, approve, and scale up efforts to import drugs.

Still, Canadians are infuriated by the idea and already brainstorming ways to toss it down the garburator, according to a report by health-news outlet STAT. Many fear that American importation would exacerbate current drug shortages in Canada.

"You are coming as Americans to poach our drug supply, and I don't have any polite words for that," Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa told STAT. Prof. Attaran went on to refer to the plan as "deplorable" and "atrociously unethical." "Our drugs are not for you, period."

[...] On Monday, August 12, Canada's Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas Taylor was set to meet with pharmacists, patients, and industry officials to discuss a response to the US plan, according to STAT. Petitpas Taylor has pledged to "ensure there are no adverse effects to the supply or cost of prescription drugs in Canada."

In order to protect Canadians, some advocates and policy experts suggested that Canada could begin controlling the export of pharmaceuticals, pass new laws simply banning exporting drugs meant for Canadians, or impose new tariffs.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:10PM (13 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:10PM (#879689) Homepage
    The whole point of a free market is such that the vendors can charge as much as they can get away with for their goods and services, so it's unsurprising that they would behave this way.
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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:29PM (6 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:29PM (#879707)

    it's unsurprising that they would behave this way.

    It's also unsurprising when you get cornered in a dark alley by a thief with a gun that he demand all your valuables and then shoot you in the foot so you can't run after him, particularly when the police have a reputation of never doing anything about it.

    Unsurprising, but not the state I want to drive the world toward.

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    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2019, @04:33PM (5 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 13 2019, @04:33PM (#879741) Journal
      What are you proposing to prevent that? Remember a government is a far more effective thief than a market of corporations is.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2019, @06:04PM (4 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday August 13 2019, @06:04PM (#879763)

        For all of their failings, government has given me police which are 98% non-corrupt, at least a semblance of education for most of my neighbors, an overgrown military which at least hasn't drafted anyone in my family in the last 60 years (or any family for the last 45), roads, somewhat safe food and water, and better than should be expected weather forecasts.

        They also happen to ensure that most of my neighbors have at least the opportunity for enough food to eat and shelter, which dramatically reduces the need for police.

        These things don't come cheap. It's easy to cry foul when power hungry corrupt individuals defraud the system and steal "OUR TAX DOLLARS," but, on balance, I feel less ripped off by the city, state and federal government than I do by the medical industry, insurance industry, even automotive and fuel industries (except, of course, when the feds have been in collusion with the fuel industry to abuse that overgrown military AND rape us at the gas pump simultaneously...)

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        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:34AM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:34AM (#879958) Journal

          For all of their failings, government has given me police which are 98% non-corrupt, at least a semblance of education for most of my neighbors, an overgrown military which at least hasn't drafted anyone in my family in the last 60 years (or any family for the last 45), roads, somewhat safe food and water, and better than should be expected weather forecasts.

          Hurray for extremely low standards. So what, if your government has many failings? We can always find something, if we look hard enough, that the government isn't too badly incompetent or malicious at. Let's review some of the problems with the stuff you wrote. First, you have no clue how corrupt your police force is, but 2% is highly optimistic and situational. A semblance of education means what? They drafted people in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was just via a legal mechanism that snagged people who served in the previous few years. Your government spends freely on new road construction, but has this mysterious trouble in finding money to maintain existing roads. Somewhat safe? And shiny weather forecasts (the relative non-failing appears).

          They also happen to ensure that most of my neighbors have at least the opportunity for enough food to eat and shelter, which dramatically reduces the need for police.

          Most of your neighbors do that for themselves.

          These things don't come cheap. It's easy to cry foul when power hungry corrupt individuals defraud the system and steal "OUR TAX DOLLARS," but, on balance, I feel less ripped off by the city, state and federal government than I do by the medical industry, insurance industry, even automotive and fuel industries (except, of course, when the feds have been in collusion with the fuel industry to abuse that overgrown military AND rape us at the gas pump simultaneously...)

          "Except of course..." pretty much kills the point. It's always interesting how people gloss over the corruption and waste.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @06:49PM (#880700)

            "Except of course..." pretty much kills the point. It's always interesting how people gloss over the corruption and waste.

            Time to swab out your brain cavity. They addressed the corruption and waste specifically to address the outliers where we're being ripped off by the gov AND corps. Yet you turn it around like some sort of attack.

            This is the kind of disingenuous bullshit people don't like from you, maybe go re-read the comments on your whiny journal entry.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 17 2019, @12:50AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 17 2019, @12:50AM (#881373) Journal
              Sorry, AC, this kind of fallacy happens over and over again. General claim X is made, but in a futile attempt to forestall the bringing up of obvious counterexamples, Y, various fallacy arguments are made for why Y can be disregarded. And yet there we are. Claim X is made followed immediately by negating argument Y. All that is require to fully rebut the argument is to note that the arguer just shot themselves in the foot.

              In addition to the above example in this thread, we have someone dismissing [soylentnews.org] the claim that "resources are preferentially going to the older generations" with the moral assertion that "most healthcare supports those who are older (preventive care aside) is pretty much the way it ought to work". It still means that they just granted said preferential allocation of resources.

              Don't want the "disingenuous bullshit" obvious rebuttal? Then don't make the Wizard of Oz fallacy. We're never going to agree that the Wizard of Oz is mysterious and all powerful when we can see him running around like a chimpanzee behind the curtain. The mention of a counterexample never negates the counterexample. It's time to learn that.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @05:16AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @05:16AM (#879994)

          Thank you for the rational and realistic post. The government is not, on the whole, that bad, because it at least provides us with service. The real rpoblem is the corporations who are infecting our governmental process with their undue and over concentrated influence without the reasoned mind of real individuals, which is what our system was institued to service and be run by. We really need to get industry in this country back on track to enriching our lives, rather than being used as vehicles of theft and destruction

  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 14 2019, @02:22PM (5 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday August 14 2019, @02:22PM (#880213)

    Um, no. In a free market there's lots of competition, which drives the market price down to the cost of production (including amortized capital costs and interest).

    Far from being the point of a free market, high profits are a sure sign that you don't actually have one. If you did, someone else would have swooped in and started selling the same goods with half the profit margin to make a killing.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 15 2019, @06:19PM (4 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday August 15 2019, @06:19PM (#880686) Homepage
      Nope. There's no asymmetry in a well-functioning free market. The situation you have described is entirely asymmetric. Have you never noticed that economics textbooks, and in particular the treatises which introduce the concept, will explain these things in terms of commodities "P" and "Q", not "money" and "goods"?
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 16 2019, @02:20AM (3 children)

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday August 16 2019, @02:20AM (#880836)

        Who said anything about asymmetry?

        In a well functioning free market there's many producers and many consumers. And if there's many producers then, irrespective of how many consumers there are, there's no way to charge substantially more than cost for your commodity goods - all the (rational) consumers will buy from another producer selling at a lower price while still making a profit.

        Of course, if the profit margins aren't large enough to be appealing then the producers will shift production to some more profitable product, but the net result is that all products on the market will see roughly the same profit margins.

        The only ways to sell at a price substantially more than cost is to:
        1) promote irrational consumer behavior (a.k.a. marketing),
        2) collude with all/most of the other producers to artificially raise prices, or
        3) establish a monopoly so that you don't have to collude with anyone else.

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 16 2019, @07:38AM (2 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday August 16 2019, @07:38AM (#880934) Homepage
          > Who said anything about asymmetry?

          Your whole post was presented in terms that were asymmetric, so you did. As you did in the above response.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 16 2019, @01:43PM (1 child)

            by Immerman (3985) on Friday August 16 2019, @01:43PM (#881049)

            Looking at one part of an equation is not necessarily asymmetric, except in attention.

            In a free market price is determined by the intersection of the cost and demand curves. But that's just another way of saying that commodities will be sold at (roughly) cost, though it adds the detail that the cost will change depending on the volume being produced.

            Please feel free to explain things more fully if you have a solid argument against that basic assumption of free-market economics.

            • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday August 18 2019, @10:10AM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday August 18 2019, @10:10AM (#881700) Homepage
              In the abstract, money is merely just another commodity. There's as much a push to maximise the amount of P you can get for so many Qs as there is a push to maximise the number of Qs that you can get for a certain amount of P. Consumers are merely suppliers of the commodity called "money".
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves