Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Americans go to Canada to buy drugs since the Canadian gov't artificially keeps the price down. Ain't no drug research going on there- so if the drug companies can't pay for research here- Guess what? NO NEW DEVELOPMENTS.
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Well, that kind of mischaracterizes the situation. It's US drug companies that are selling, so it's not an issue of R&D in Canada vs. the US, it's an issue of total R&D. It's not like drug cos. have fled canada since the government put in price controls.
LIke any co, Drug companies generally need to recoup their R&D somehow. The US market is one of the wealthiest, so they do it here by charging high prices. They sell at lower prices overseas where there's less income to afford the drugs. This type of price discrimination works so long as reimportation rules are enforced. Which the drug cos. are generally able to do, but less easily with Canada. And that's mainly because driving to Canada from detroit is a lot cheaper than flying to, say, London.
Now, one reason Canada's prices are lower is because the government is a bulk purchaser, so can insist on bigger discounts. But it's not like those discounts are limited to drugs. Check out car prices. Most of them are cheaper there--compare, e.g., BMW prices. About 10% cheaper in Canada. Why don't folks in the US buy Canadian cars? Because the warranty doesn't transfer and you have to leand to convert kph into mph, because the dealers aren't allowed to swap out the speedometer plates absent special approval.
