About that Canadian Drug Importation Bill

I'm going to have to sound a somewhat contrary note regarding the thirteen Democratic senators who didn't support the bill to allow the cheap importation of drugs from Canada. The issue of cheap Canadian drugs is a red herring, because these drugs are typically American-made drugs which are exported to Canada at low cost because the Canadian Health Services buy in bulk and can negotiate low prices. Here in the 'States, the Republicans placed a ban on Medicare negotiating directly with the pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of medicines. The solution to the problem is not to buy back our own drugs from Canada, but to give Medicare the power to use leverage on the pharmaceutical industry to lower prices. I love Canada, and Canadians (check out my blogroll), but I don't see them as the saviors of sick Americans, Canadian drugs are a poor solution to an engineered problem. We need to free Medicare to buy the pharmaceuticals at low cost... personally, I'd nominate Dick Valentine to head up such an effort:





The sick joke behind this whole tragic mishegas is that American taxpayers foot the bill for the development of the drugs that bring huge profits to Big Pharma.