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To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (183394)	2/3/2006 11:27:47 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

OT If Americans could and did import the majority of their drugs from Canada what do you think would happen? You would create extra demand for drugs from Canada without creating extra supply. A lot of those drugs come from the US. The American drug companies might even stop selling drugs in Canada, or reduce what they sell, but if they don't they certainly won't increase it. If you have a great increase in demand and flat or lower supply you normally get higher prices. If prices are controlled you get rationing by other methods than price. Perhaps long waits (put in your order and get you drugs a year later), perhaps rationing by social connections (who you know, rather than how much you will pay), perhaps rationing by bribes (give some money to the person allocating the drugs and you get to the front of the list). In theory Canada could subsidize the drugs so that the price the drug producer recieves is higher then the price the consumer pays, but even if it is willing to do that for 30 something million Canadians it wouldn't do it for 300 million Americans. Either the subsidy would have to somehow be applied only to Canadians in the unified market or Canada would not provide the subsidy. What you wouldn't get is a price for the now unified American/Canadian drug market with prices for prescription drugs equal to the current controlled Canadian price. As long as Americans buying drugs from Canada are a small fraction of the Canadian drug market those few Americans can get the Canadian price without disrupting either the current American or Canadian systems. But if hundreds of millions of Americans try to buy drugs at current Canadian prices from Canada than both systems fall apart.