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

To: Alighieri who wrote (211300)	11/9/2004 8:43:44 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570917

The new medicare drug bill forbids the fed gov from using its volume purchase power to get better pricing for the drugs dispensed to seniors qualifying for the benefit. In other words it forbids the government to effectively act as a monopoly buyer for seniors. That isn't a "non-compete" aspect. It also forbids from importing drugs from Canada or other geographies where drugs are cheaper. I've already dealt with the re-importation issue. I'll just post a short summary. In most cases those lower prices are not the result of free market action but of direct and indirect price regulation. If we import drugs at prices regulated by foreign governments the effect is similar to imposing our own price controls and again it is not a "non-compete aspect". The real "non-compete" law that helps increase drug prices is the patent laws, but while they aren't perfect most people think they are worth it. Tim

To: Alighieri who wrote (211300)	11/9/2004 9:11:05 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570917

Al (edited), It also forbids from importing drugs from Canada or other geographies where drugs are cheaper. I could probably Google this information, but I wonder if this restriction only applies to new drugs that haven't reached the generic stage yet. After all, with generic drugs importing from other countries might make sense, but for new drugs importing them from Canada would virtually impose Canadian price controls on American drug companies. Tenchusatsu