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Costs Won't Come Down While Drug Company Profits Are Considered Wealth
How are drug companies different from other corporations? The problem is that they are not. They are part of a global economic structure that considers drug profits as wealth. Cutting "better deals" with drug companies is nonsense. Their existence as private entities should be challenged by government organizations that produce drugs for the public good.
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Lobbyists for healthcare pouring $1.4 million a day into the coffers of congress!
Insurance Co. profits have risen 428 % since 2000....
Baucus has taken %1.3 from the Hearth/Corp lobbyists in the past 2 years....
No wonder he and his buddies have become KNUCKLE DRAGGERS for the American people but great for Corp's!
July 28, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
What you ask, Kali, would be extremely difficult politically because it would entail enormous tax increases. However, the net result would end up saving American consumers huge sums, and would yield better drugs in the process. I discussed some of the details earlier in
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/fredmoolten/2009/06/prescription-drug-costs-can-be-2.php
July 28, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that post. I hadn't seen it.
July 28, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Profit for insurance companies are dollars deflected from providing healthcare, plain and simple. Why we celebrate the withholding of monies to interrupt someone's failing health defies any rational answer. But if it is repeated often enough, the propagasnda works!
July 29, 2009 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are so clever! The proof of your brilliance is in the myriad of 'wonder drugs' being developed in countries with nationalized medicine. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. There are no drugs developed there, because without a profit incentive, no one puts up the capital, no one does the research, etc. Government design and planning leads inevitably to market failures. This is why the USSR did not dominate the auto world with the Lada. But you leftists never learn, you will always think that a government run, government planned, bureaucratic mess will work better than free markets.
July 29, 2009 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are so clever, too...or not.
There is plenty of drug research and development going on in Canada.... you know, one of those countries with reformed health care.
http://www.losec.ca/en/research/
Go Canada.
Here's something else for you to read so you'll know just how un-clever you really are....
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/180/3/279
July 29, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course they people of the USSR had healthcare. Cubans also. You might be interested in a program out here that offers free checkups for pets. While the free clinics for humans have waiting lists that number in the hundreds, I hear the dogs with "healthcare" are quite happy, wagging their fat, lazy tails.
July 29, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bark! Bark bark... BARK!
BarkbarkbarkbarkBARK!
July 29, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink