No time for Kerry’s Europhile delusions | Chicago Sun-Times | 10.24.04
Speaking of which, if there’s four words I never want to hear again, it’s “prescription drugs from Canada.” I’m Canadian, so I know a thing or two about prescription drugs from Canada. Specifically speaking, I know they’re American; the only thing Canadian about them is the label in French and English. How can politicians from both parties think that Americans can get cheaper drugs simply by outsourcing (as John Kerry would say) their distribution through a Canadian mailing address? U.S. pharmaceutical companies put up with Ottawa’s price controls because it’s a peripheral market. But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that’s going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren’t going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise — just as the Clinton administration’s intervention into the flu-shot market resulted in American companies getting out of the vaccine business entirely.
Hat Tip Brooks …
Finally someone posted the truth—the [only] reason that Canadian drugs are cheaper is because the cost is always subsidized from the primary to secondary (or peripheral) market(s). All that “outsourcing” of prescription drugs purchases to Canada is going to do is destroy the benefits (lower cost) enjoyed by those already purchasing from Canadian. Any increase demand will diminish the suppy to the secondary market with the only possible response being increased costs. This is a mega-DUH, that could only be sold as political Swill.