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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (211125)	11/8/2004 12:07:09 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570436

Al, just a few weeks ago we were discussing the impact of the flu vaccine shortage: Message 20666997 It may be way too early to come to any conclusions, but the CDC is saying that flu season is off to a slow start: news.yahoo.com Tenchusatsu

To: Alighieri who wrote (211125)	11/8/2004 12:29:50 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570436

I'm sorry. I do not know of a way to make it simpler for you. I have clearly stated, multiple times, how what you're saying amounts to cutting drug company profits. There is no other interpretation. If you can't see it, you are simply beyond willingness to see it or you're dense. Or both.

To: Alighieri who wrote (211125)	11/8/2004 9:33:19 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570436

Having the government be the main buyer of drugs or use pressure to lower the cost of drugs for a large segment of the country isn't capitalism. Reimporting drugs in and of itself might be capitalist but the reason why the drugs are usually cheaper overseas is because of government law, regulation, or pressure to lower prices which is not exactly capitalism. Right now the US subsidizes the rest of the world because Americans pay the full price for drugs and many other countries force the prices to be lower. The high prices in the US pay for research and development, and since the marginal cost for production is usually low the drug companies can make money in the rest of the world as well. If the artificial distinction between the market for drugs outside of the US and those in the US is broken down by imports/re-imports of drugs from places with government controlled prices than you will have pressure to make prices higher in other countries and lower in the US. In the best case scenario the other countries would raise prices some, we would lower it some and we wouldn't subsidize the rest of the world as much. Other plausible scenarios aren't so rosy. If the other countries don't let prices rise they may face shortages of certain drugs. Also if the prices don't rise overseas than research and development of new drugs will be less profitable and thus will receive less resources. Ideally I'd want to get rid of both bans on re-imports and foreign price controls at the same time, but I'm not sure that is very likely to happen. Tim