Fox News lobbying arm for right wing....

The way prescription drugs are priced in Canada is this....

They have a new drug come out say, Paxil.

They price the drug of Paxil by takin the highest price on the market, which is the U.S. drug price. And the lowest of the top five prices around the world. Lets say Sweden had the lowest of the top five prices in the world.

They take the median of those numbers and the set the price of that drug to never excede the median. Pretty smart and fair.

Oh and the U.S. has one of the highest if not the highest prescription drug cost in the world. Charts show that US prices are somtimes double or more than others.

Dude, Where's My Country is a bible. What I love the most is that everything he says is backed by resources that are 100% accurate and he cites everything from major mainstream media sources. Unlike Ann Coulter who takes shit out of context and also knows that none of her readers are ever gonna look her shit up. Until Al Franken made her look stupid.
 
Originally posted by Spektrum
Canada's system is recognized as one of the best in the world.
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That's a laugh. Huge waiting lists for life and death surgeries. When people cross borders for emergency health care -- it is massively from Canada to the US.

But something fundamentally horrible about Canada's system is that it is illegal for anyone to purchase health care.

You would think a fundamental right of any human being would be to make arrangements with who they please for health care.

Not in socialist paradise Canada though. You need government permission to attend to the health of your own body. That's outrageous.

Socialism is always a war against the individual. The individual is expendable in socialism. You have no worth as an individual per se under socialism -- you are only measured as a unit of society.
 
Originally posted by NeXus
the U.S. has one of the highest if not the highest prescription drug cost in the world. Charts show that US prices are somtimes double or more than others.
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Which is actually humanitarian for the rest of the world, since we end up subsidizing drugs for poorer countries.

You see, the cost of manufacturing a drug is a small part of the cost of developing and testing it in the first place. Lots of drugs never get to market -- so lots of false starts cost lots of development money and it never gets paid back.

So successful drugs have to pay for their own development and a lot of dead end attempts. All very expensive.

So you price a drug to pay that development cost plus cost of manufacture -- amortized over some length of years. But if you can also sell that drug to a poorer country at a reduced price, you cover the net cost of manufacture and a little of the development cost. So the company has marginally increased its income versus expenses by selling cheap to poor countries.

But this only works with a tier system. They can't sell to everyone at the lower price -- so if governments force uniform prices, the poor countries won't be able to afford it. US consumers will lose those foreign marginal payers, and so the internal price of drugs will also go up.

So the current scheme of tiered pricing actually delivers the lowest price to both internal and external consumers.

Naturally, socialists who don't understand economics want to set prices -- which will screw up budgets for new drugs and really slow down the development of new drugs.

It's estimated that the FDA delay in approving the use of beta blockers cost 200,000 lives due to unnecessary heart attacks.

Delaying the introduction of new drugs kills people by omission. Socialists and liberals don't seem to be able to understand that concept.
 
Originally posted by bobbdobbs

It's estimated that the FDA delay in approving the use of beta blockers cost 200,000 lives due to unnecessary heart attacks.

Delaying the introduction of new drugs kills people by omission. Socialists and liberals don't seem to be able to understand that concept.
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I guess they'd rather kill 200,000 than expose a couple million people to a 1% chance of a headache or diarrea.
 
You act like America's health care is perfect. At least in Canada your not turned down help if you dont have insurance and cant afford it. Plus there's millions of people in America with no health insurance at all even though they have jobs. If these owners and CEO's of the companies, like Pfizer, would take a slight profit decrease then things could be different. But they sit on their greedy, rich fat asses only worried about their profit percentage. And now with this new Medicare bill passed by Bush, it allows the Insurance companies and Pharmeceutical companies to charge the government whatever they want for drugs. And they have the nerve to tell people they cant or shouldn't goto Canada to get the same drug for cheaper? I say fuck'em. Oh, Canada....
 
Originally posted by NeXus
You act like America's health care is perfect. At least in Canada your not turned down help if you dont have insurance and cant afford it. Plus there's millions of people in America with no health insurance at all even though they have jobs. If these owners and CEO's of the companies, like Pfizer, would take a slight profit decrease then things could be different. But they sit on their greedy, rich fat asses only worried about their profit percentage. And now with this new Medicare bill passed by Bush, it allows the Insurance companies and Pharmeceutical companies to charge the government whatever they want for drugs. And they have the nerve to tell people they cant or shouldn't goto Canada to get the same drug for cheaper? I say fuck'em. Oh, Canada....
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1. I don't see anything wrong with "America's Healthcare" considering that term itself is a misnomer. My private health concerns are mine, not America's. I have used health care providers and I am happy with their service, billing etc.

2. The reality is: In America, hospitals will not turn you down for non-payment.People being turned down for health service is practically a myth. Thats why poor people or people with no insurance go to the emergency room instead of using a normal doctor, even if they only have a cold. They know they will get treated and not have to pay.

3.I dont have health insurance, and I dont want it. I sure as hell dont want the government forcing me to have it. When I was in college, I had it through my parents employer and it was a pain in the neck getting an apointment for anything, with the referrals, co-pays, non-pays,etc. Now I pay as I go-I prefer it that way and so far I save money.

4. Greed is good. The profit motive has basically been the catalyst for every significant innovation in modern history. However, I do agree that many CEOs are grossly overpaid, especially when they do a terrible job-it does sicken me to see massive layoffs while a CEO gets bonuses..BUT- that is really that company's choice and business. they can pay whatever they want.

5. There should be no Medicare Bill..or Medicare.

6. Right, we should be able to buy drugs from other countries. I have no problem with that.
 
Originally posted by bigbutnottoo

4. Greed is good. The profit motive has basically been the catalyst for every significant innovation in modern history. However, I do agree that many CEOs are grossly overpaid, especially when they do a terrible job-it does sicken me to see massive layoffs while a CEO gets bonuses..BUT- that is really that company's choice and business. they can pay whatever they want.
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I really recommend watching John Q. It's about America's health system and the way it operates. Even though it is a movie, a lot of things in it hold true. I watched it with my mom, who's been a nurse for years and said things like that do happen(but usually not to children).

Greed is never good. It's definitly not the catalyst for every innovation in modern history. Look at what Henry Ford did. He raised his worker's salaries so they could afford the same cars they were building. He did this at his own expense and it was something modern CEO's would never even consider doing. (just a side note, I know he didn't invent the car, but did invent the assembly line, the reason we have so many cars today). We need more Henry Fords in this world.

I've always said, a lot of people live poor in this country, so a few can live rich.
 
Originally posted by Spektrum
I really recommend watching John Q.
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The unintended true message of John Q was that there is a scarcity of organ donors.

When the character Denzel played got his kid a donor organ, someone else didn't get it.

John Q didn't show the family waiting for the organ that Denzel's kid got.
 
Originally posted by Spektrum

Greed is never good.
It's definitly not the catalyst for every innovation in modern history.

Look at what Henry Ford did. He raised his worker's salaries so they could afford the same cars they were building.
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First part: Definitely not true.

Second part: Ford did that precisely because it was good business, not out of any altruistic motive to help out his workers. As you said, he did it so they could buy his cars. Just reinforces what I said. Good business people are selfish and do things that will help their own business. Thats a good thing.
 
To his credit, I do believe Denzel Washington agreed that what his character did in John Q was wrong.

Regardless of what the intended propaganda message was. The real deal is that no one has the right to something that is not their's, whether it is a pack of gum or a human organ.
 
Theres a difference between the American Dream and fucking people over.

Do you think that the disgusting greed of Enron was good?

How about the mutual funds scandal?

or the Tyco CEO who threw himself a multi-million dollar birthday party? of course paid for at the expense of his investors and workers by charging it on the corporate account.

Greed is what supports lay-offs, tax loopholes, and other shameless acts of these pigs. They need to be slaughtered.

You are obviously a steal from the poor and give to the rich kinda person. I wish you could see what its like to be dirt poor, and see if you change your skewed views then.
 
Originally posted by NeXus
You are obviously a steal from the poor and give to the rich kinda person.
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It is exactly this sort of righteous intolerance to differences in belief that gets kooks flying passenger planes into tall buildings.
 
Originally posted by NeXus

You are obviously a steal from the poor and give to the rich kinda person. I wish you could see what its like to be dirt poor, and see if you change your skewed views then.
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I AM poor, and that's EXACTLY why I support free-market economic policies.
 
Originally posted by bobbdobbs
It is exactly this sort of righteous intolerance to differences in belief that gets kooks flying passenger planes into tall buildings.
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Well I see that 3k people died for nothing. 9/11 was a message from terrorist organizations to the United States to stay out of the middle east and mind out own business. Not because of "righteous intolerance to differences". You think people would have gotten the message.

Did we?

Well, we did just overthrow the Iraqi government and the Afgani government...
 
Originally posted by Spektrum
Well I see that 3k people died for nothing. 9/11 was a message from terrorist organizations to the United States to stay out of the middle east and mind out own business. Not because of "righteous intolerance to differences". You think people would have gotten the message.
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Pretty much the same message Jefferson Davis sent when he had his armies attack Fort Sumter -- all the south wanted was for the north to leave their system of slavery alone. Lincoln didn't get the message, I guess.
 
Originally posted by bobbdobbs
Pretty much the same message Jefferson Davis sent when he had his armies attack Fort Sumter -- all the south wanted was for the north to leave their system of slavery alone. Lincoln didn't get the message, I guess.
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I agree that something needed to be done over in the middle east. There are so many injustices.

However, before the US goes around and polices the rest of the world, it needs to take care of itself first.
 
wow, this thing just exploded while i was away . . .

1. henry ford was a very brilliant, and very bad man.

2. america is not totally capitalist in any way, we have a strong socialist element in everything we do, so to decry socialist principles is to decry america's own, so far successful, economic system.

3. i forget which one, but somebody was sighting the old gun laws and stuff, the guy who also trumpets his intelligence (i think). man, i don't have time to research that shit, but you said you were a history minor, so then obviously you know that the south used to be solidly democratic and the parties have had different platforms several times over the years, so sighting shit from anything less than fifty years ago is just disinformation. the democrats of yesteryear aren't even distant cousins of the demos today. you should start looking at stuff like that if you want to have a career in the legal field. you'll get nailed and strung for spitting inaccuracies out there.

4. those stats from earlier . . . as always statistics aren't in the numbers, although i do appreciate bobbdobbs posting that link for me. i didn't actually have time to look at them much as i have been traveling but i can say that higher income individuals tend to be mroe fiscally conservative, and better education equals higher income. stats aren't everything, just something to look at.

5. 9/11 happened because of religous extremism that is able to proliferate because of poverty and desperation. i don't believe in enforcing our values all over the world just because i happen to think they're correct, that manifest destiny bullshit is dangerous. but i do know that free markets and democracy create wealth and stability, which does not facilitate societies pumping out young men filled with hatred and willing to die for some stupid book. although we have our share of those here i guess, they just tend not to bother other countries (not counting george bush . . . just kidding).

our government, especially congress, is run my tremendously accomplished and learned individuals. it is not always perfect, but it is functioning as planned. communism doesn't work, it is fine in theory and the manifesto has some great ideas, but liberal democracy and free markets have conquered the world, not communsim. and the world is the greatest market of all, and the stock being traded is ideas and civillization. i don't mean to pick a fight on the issue. pick up "the ideas that conquered the world" by michael mandlebaum. if you read the times he's in there a lot, it's a well rendered explanation.

things in america are continuing to improve in my opinion. we are still world leaders. we aren't perfect, but we work to make things better. it's just opinions about how the best way to go about this that differ.

also, al franken is very smart, he went to harvard and he was a poor kid. that guy rules.
 
Originally posted by goodbutnotgreat
wow, this thing just exploded while i was away . . .

2. america is not totally capitalist in any way, we have a strong socialist element in everything we do, so to decry socialist principles is to decry america's own, so far successful, economic system.

3. i forget which one, but somebody was sighting the old gun laws and stuff, the guy who also trumpets his intelligence (i think). man, i don't have time to research that shit, but you said you were a history minor, so then obviously you know that the south used to be solidly democratic and the parties have had different platforms several times over the years, so sighting shit from anything less than fifty years ago is just disinformation. the democrats of yesteryear aren't even distant cousins of the demos today. you should start looking at stuff like that if you want to have a career in the legal field. you'll get nailed and strung for spitting inaccuracies out there.
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Thanks for taking the time to make those points. Since these ^^ were in reference to me, let me clear it up for you.

2. We have only been socialist since the 16th Ammendment was ( evdence points to illegally) ratified. FDR further pushed us over to the dark side.Yes,I do decry all socialist principles AND policies. I would further say many people decry socialist principles, yet support socialist policies because they are pragmatists.
If you say I oppose America, Well I DO support the Constitution, so I must oppose America in its current form, since EVERY single elected official (except for Maybe Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Kyle from AZ, and a couple others)opposes the US Constitution.

3. These "old" gun laws are from 1968. Also, I never said Democrats did that ( at least I dont think I did). I am not a Republican, but I do often stick up for Republicans when I see people giving Democrats a "free pass" and blaming Republicans. I am aware of the history of shifting political allegiances,etc. While you made good points, its not really relevant. I know what you mean about the legal field, but I didn't say anything innacurate. or anything I said was merely commentary, just like your boy Al Franken. He's not presenting evidence in court, so he has some leeway.

OK, now I think I know what you were talking about. I pointed out that many Democratic policies hurt black people and I tied that in with gun control being meant for black people (which is true). Well, it is true that black people are hurt by many Democratic policies and actually overwhelmingly support Republican policies such as School Vouchers (i support) and "faith-based" initiatives (I oppose). But the NAACP is "owned" by Democrats in the same way labor unions are.

Its no question that Democrats have helped create a modern day slave class. Are republicans better?Not , really; but they dont profess to be. At least Republicans are honest for the most part. They dont go around telling blacks or the poor that they are going to help them, because they know that is not the government's job.

This reminds me of a minidebate between Linda Chavez and a DNC honcho. He kept saying that Bill Clinton created 22 million jobs and George Bush didnt create any. She didnt dispute that, She stated the obvious " The government isn't supposed to create jobs." Anyone who doesn't know that, well.............

We need people in government like true American Janice Rogers Brown, who Dem, Teddy Kennedy and others blocked. Why? Why?
BECAUSE she is a BLACK LIBERTARIAN. And in the US, blacks and females are only allowed to be socialists. This is reality.
 
It seems like we can agree on one thing. Anybody But Bush.

I think that Howard Dean and John McCain should go up against Bush next year. Because Dean has the most motmentum and support so far. And John McCain is one of the few great Republicans. McCain could get all the republican votes that Bush was going for 2000. Dean could get all the Democratic and left votes. Plus McCain knows a helluva a lot more than Bush about the military. Plus McCain actually served in Vietnam and was in prison for 6 years for his country. All Bush likes to do is go to his ranch and play dress-up for his weekly photo.

Did ya hear the speech in Baghdad on Thanksgiving? He said "we did not march miles into Baghdad only to retreat. We will not leave!" And then he hopped in a plane back to Crawford, Texas. He forgot to say, and when I say "we", I mean you."
 
bigbutnottoobig - shit sorry man, not sure how i missed this for so long. that is a long, well thought reply, sorry to just ignore it.

i'm pretty sure i was referring to your posts so it was a dick move to not respond at all.

that's interesting about the gun laws and such, i have never read anything about that, i hope to look them up and see for myself some time. as always your other statements are interesting, although i disagree with many of them (also as usual). anyway, just wanted to say sorry, i would feel kind of slighted if i took the time to write out a respnse that long and didn't have it read by the instigator.
 
goodbutnotgreat, stop saying sorry, dont be a pussy!:blahblah:

just kiddin.....


" The government isn't supposed to create jobs."
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Try running with that as your capaign slogan. They'll take ya down like Nixon!
 
Originally posted by goodbutnotgreat
bigbutnottoobig - shit sorry man, not sure how i missed this for so long. that is a long, well thought reply, sorry to just ignore it.

i'm pretty sure i was referring to your posts so it was a dick move to not respond at all.

that's interesting about the gun laws and such, i have never read anything about that, i hope to look them up and see for myself some time. as always your other statements are interesting, although i disagree with many of them (also as usual). anyway, just wanted to say sorry, i would feel kind of slighted if i took the time to write out a respnse that long and didn't have it read by the instigator.
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Good,
No problem. You tend to raise good points in your posts. Your concerns seem genuine and you ask questions that involve practical application rather than ideology and rhetoric.
 
I was being sarcastic, you made a stupid statement. The President and congress can pass legislature that stimulate the economy, which in turn creates jobs. Not necessarily expanding government to create jobs.
 
Originally posted by NeXus
I was being sarcastic, you made a stupid statement. The President and congress can pass legislature that stimulate the economy, which in turn creates jobs. Not necessarily expanding government to create jobs.
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It's still not their job (proper function).
 
Sure it is, its their job in the court of public opinion. And since the people elect him, that makes it his job. If he failed this job, he would no longer have a job (proper function). :hammering
 
Originally posted by NeXus
Sure it is, its their job in the court of public opinion. And since the people elect him, that makes it his job. If he failed this job, he would no longer have a job (proper function). :hammering
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So you believe the government has no proper role?
 
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