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  • The Cost of Drugs

    LINK

    Supreme Court looks at Maine drug law
    Lawyer says one state should make others pay for lower drug costs


    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON (AP) -- One state should not be allowed to force drug companies to lower prices for its residents and stick the rest of the nation with the bill, a lawyer for the industry argued Wednesday before the Supreme Court.

    An experimental program in Maine would use the buying power of the state under the federal Medicaid law to win lower drug prices for the working poor, retirees and others who do not receive health coverage or drug benefits through their jobs.

    State officials have said the program simply does for one state what other countries have done for all their citizens -- force the drug companies to bargain. Prescription drug prices are often much lower across the border in Canada, in part because of government price caps there.

    Drug firms say Maine oversteps state authority under the federal Medicaid law, which governs how states are reimbursed for the health care costs of poor residents.

    "The statute does not allow states to use Medicaid patients as pawns," attorney Carter Phillips argued on behalf of drug companies.

    The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America also contends the state program is an unconstitutional regulation of interstate commerce.

    If the court rules in favor of the Maine program, other states would soon try the same thing, lawyers on both sides of the debate have said. The state estimates its program, known as Maine Rx, would help more than 300,000 people who do not have prescription drug coverage.

    If prices didn't drop in three years, the state could impose price controls.

    Twenty-eight states are backing Maine, and about a dozen are poised to pass similar laws quickly if the Supreme Court agrees with the state.

    Business groups and conservative legal organizations sided with the drug industry, which lost a lower-court attempt to overturn the 2000 law. The law is on hold pending the drug companies' appeal.

    The Bush administration is taking the middle ground. The government urged the court to block the law, but argued that Maine Rx would be legal if restricted to low-income state residents.

    Richard Morgan, a government professor at Bowdoin College in Maine, said the state is trying to put drug companies over a barrel.

    "The potential here is for America to back into some form of drug price control, and that seems to me an unfortunate outcome," Morgan said. "Maybe we should have drug price controls, but if we do, that should be after a full national debate and some action by Congress."

    Congress has repeatedly tried and failed to pass laws adding prescription drug coverage to the federal Medicare program for the elderly.

    President Bush will ask Congress to pass a GOP-backed prescription drug program for the elderly during his State of the Union speech next Tuesday.

    Maine's program affects the separate Medicaid program for the poor, but opponents note that wealthier people could also benefit.

    The case is Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Concannon, 01-188.
    What do you think?

    I am biased on this issue, but it ain't cheap to develop new drugs that could save many other people, but I also agree that the proper care should be given to everyone. Is this more a case of price control or is it a poor excuse for inadequate health care programs?
    Monkey!!!

  • #2
    The US gov't subsidizes the development of these drugs for the biotech industry, and enforces their monopolies. As far as I'm concerned, the people have a right to them.
    "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
    -Bokonon

    Comment


    • #3
      SO do you agree with:

      [quote["Maybe we should have drug price controls, but if we do, that should be after a full national debate and some action by Congress."
      [/quote]

      Also, subsidies pay for very little (hardly none) of what goes into developing, manufactoring, marketing, and distributing drugs. Even the FDA would laugh at that comment. The regulations and red tape they put around the whole thing makes it costly.
      Monkey!!!

      Comment


      • #4
        well... let's see ecstacy generally costs 20 a pop... weed can vary because you can get real cheap weed but it will be mostly oregano... oh wait...
        "Flutie was better than Kelly, Elway, Esiason and Cunningham." - Ben Kenobi
        "I have nothing against Wilson, but he's nowhere near the same calibre of QB as Flutie. Flutie threw for 5k+ yards in the CFL." -Ben Kenobi

        Comment


        • #5
          I'm still angry after watching C4's "Dying for Drugs" documentary. And this was several weeks ago. There's something just not right when a drug that can be produced generically for $0.30 is sold at $19.

          Surely there's has to be a way to work out royalties so generic drug companies pay to produce a drug cheaply so that it covers the cost of research.
          Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
          -Richard Dawkins

          Comment


          • #6
            I don't think pharmaceuticals should be a for-profit industry.
            To us, it is the BEAST.

            Comment


            • #7
              Sounds like this program violates the interstate commerce clause if caps are threatened/used, but if the state is merely using bargaining power to get better deals, so be it.

              Sava, if pharmaceuticals are not for profit, who will make them?

              Ramo, you say subsidies and enforced monopolies justify creating a "right" to their products. Those forced monopolies are in the Constitution (patent protection), not a right to their labor. If people didn't have patent protection, then others could just wait for someone to create a new drug and then start producing it themselves at a lower cost since the original producer would need to charge more to make up the cost of R&D.

              Comment


              • #8
                One "good" thing however, is the emergenece of more and more companies that focus souly on drug discovery who identify drug components and the sell their research to other companies for either a flat fee or for portions of the kickback. Why is this good? The specialization of these companies make it easier for them to identify targets (most of which are apparently useless). Also, sent they establish these methods once, it is cheaper for them to the studies as well as repeat studies. Thus, manufacturing companies will be able to cut a sizeable chunck out of their budget and hopefully, one day, be able to sell new drugs for less...

                I have to say that why it is sad that someone is going to reap profit in for the case of someones health, but if it were not for these companies, and the large budgets they handle, then these drugs they are fighting over might never of existed.
                Monkey!!!

                Comment


                • #9
                  Sava, if pharmaceuticals are not for profit, who will make them?
                  non-profit or public entities...
                  To us, it is the BEAST.

                  Comment


                  • #10


                    you make the answer seem so matter-of-factish, nice
                    Monkey!!!

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                    • #11
                      So why is it sad, Japher? People make a profit selling me food and I need food more than medicine. I need shelter more than medicine, is it sad people build houses to make a living?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        There's a difference between making a living and profiteering... especially when millions could be saved around the world.
                        To us, it is the BEAST.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          So why is it sad, Japher? People make a profit selling me food and I need food more than medicine. I need shelter more than medicine, is it sad people build houses to make a living?
                          Its sad that it can't be made available to everyone at this time. Oh well. It is also sad that people die from starvation because someone with food keeps it from them. It's not sad that people build houses, its sad that they charge so much. When someone can't get a drug that would save there lives because they can't afford it; it is sad and it is sad that someone is keeping it from them.
                          Monkey!!!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Sava, the reason companies can afford to do R&D is because of that profit. If all the company's owners/employees did was make a living, they wouldn't have the resources to produce new drugs. As for non-profits and public entities producing drugs, why don't they do this now? I suppose they do in communist countries, but I wouldn't want to swap the USA's pharmaceutical industry with it's for profit motives with any communist country's output.

                            Japher, I suppose it's sad that life exists as it does since we have these problems, but just handing away other people's labor will only make things more sad IMO. It reminds me of an incident that occured in a small easterly city in the Soviet Union.
                            There was a guy who grew strawberries (I believe) and sold to the locals who just loved his product. A woman complained to the local commissar that this guy was selling his product and not practicing communism. The local commissar knew what a delicious product this guy grew and brushed aside the woman's complaint because he knew the guy probably would stop producing his product if he couldn't sell it. What was sad? That he produced a product people wanted and was allowed to continue even though he was making a profit or that the product might have disappeared when his motive for producing
                            the product was eliminated?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              but just handing away other people's labor will only make things more sad IMO
                              I agree too... I don't want them to regulate drugs... I profit from it.
                              Monkey!!!

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