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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (263055)	4/29/2008 4:55:45 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 281500

Ignorant for our own Good Recently, parliament passed one of the worst laws in recent memory. However, it has gone unnoticed. Perhaps we can’t keep pace with the rate of legislative inflation. I am referring to the new Medicine Law which, among its many sections, includes a most hypocritical and surprising measure. It states that "promoting, advertising or providing information to the pubic regarding products included in section 1 is expressly prohibited." And what do we find in section 1? Medicines "which do not receive public financing." The law is the Spanish application of a European directive that maintains "member states will prohibit in their territory advertising to the general public of medical products, whose cost can be reimbursed." In other words, the State pays for a wide range of medicines to ensure all potential consumers can afford them. But it blocks those who need medicines from learning of their existence through the most efficient mechanism available for transmitting product information: advertising. The reason is that the nanny state is paying the bill. Only a bad nanny wouldn't want her "children" discovering where they could find a solution to their sickness or pain. But the state wants to keep costs down. This is even more surprising when we remember that, contrary to the new law, every official institution, not just the Ministry of Health, tells us it is important for citizens to always be well-informed so they can make responsible decisions. Clearly this is true. The problem is it contradicts the Medicine Law's prohibition on advertising. The Juan de Mariana Institute published a study listing the dangers this law holds for the economy and public health. Its conclusions are unsettling. Aside from the data on illnesses that will go untreated and lives that will be lost because individuals won’t know there are medicines available, it is interesting to examine the unseen consequences brought about by banning advertising. It reduces the incentive for technological innovation. Europe is engaged in a long-standing fight against drug companies and there is no doubt it has been effective: If in 1980 Europe developed eight of every ten new pharmaceuticals, that number today reveals the exact opposite. Eight of every ten are produced in the United States. The law encourages the European pharmaceutical industry to go offshore. Europe loses no less than half a million of its best scientists to the United States. The state faces a clear problem financing medicine. But banning advertising for drugs covered by the state has a terrible impact on public health. Statines, for example, save between 60,000 and 70,000 lives, but only half the Europeans who should take this treatment are receiving it. Moreover, none of this is necessary. The state has gradually assumed the expensive role of breaking the relationship between needing a medicine and paying for it. It would be enough to restore a reasonable level of individual payment. juandemariana.org On that same site there is a similar article Against Free Information juandemariana.org

To: TimF who wrote (263055)	4/29/2008 5:21:29 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I bring up Walmart because, when they are in an area, there tend to be few (sometimes no) choices for consumers as Walmart drives other companies out of business. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, justified or not, I am saying that it is common in the real world. The big get bigger. There is a fallacy in the 'free market' theory in the CW that the 'free market' means lots of companies offering lots of choices. In the real world, concentration is the norm and small selection is also the norm. If I lived in a smallish town, I would have the option of shopping at Walmart or Walmart or maybe Sam's Club and Walmart. My selection at Walmart would be from big company brand A or big company brand B. The selections are pretty limited even though the number of products is quite large. ------------------------ Here you go again, changing the argument when I show you that your position is simply incorrect. Now you are tweaking the definition of a benefit to not include a reduction in taxes by deducting personal debt interest. You used to keep more money if you have personal debt interest, why wasn't that a benefit that is no longer available? You don't think there was a constituency who wanted to keep that deduction? Yet again, you are tweaking your original point to exclude the welfare to work program. Now you are saying that the benefit isn't an issue if it didn't go to the middle class? What? I want single payer which, by definition, puts for-profit insurance out of business. Perhaps there would be insurance just in case you want cosmetic surgery but I don't know what kind of market there is for that. I think private health insurance is a lousy business today. I will be happy to see it go. No, if a government program that covered everyone in the US was working badly, it would be the topic of discussion everywhere. It would also be easier to evaluate and understand since it is a single program and not a hodge podge of programs from (I think it is) 1,000 or more private insurers and government programs. Instead of individual lawsuits against Healthnet, we would have Congressional Hearings with everyone yelling at the administrator and, probably, cabinet secretary.