Free Icecream: Not Free Enough and Wrong Flavor
Apparently, folks who wanted free federal healthcare for everyone are upset that, to get some kind of reform, concessions had to be made. Like not giving free federal healthcare to everyone.
Here’s an idea: Allow importation of drugs; let folks buy coverage across state lines; allow those who purchase their own insurance to get the same tax breaks as businesses that provide coverage. Can’t have that, though. Too much like the free market.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:20 am
“Too much like the free market.”
Markie Marxist sez: “Exactly, Uncle! You’re being a good commie today. We can’t make socialism look good by comparison if we don’t strangle the no longer free ‘free market’ until it can’t function well anymore. It’s just a common sense communist approach to advancing our Marxist totalitarian agenda overall, and our totally government controlled healthcare agenda specifically.”
December 16th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
That and end all those agribusinee subsidies, especially including sugar.
December 16th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
“allow those who purchase their own insurance to get the same tax breaks as businesses that provide coverage”
That’s not the free market. That’s government subsidization of the insurance markets through firm-provided health coverage. Extending that to private individuals is still a form of subsidization, albeit subsidies under which more people pay less taxes (which is why a lot of people think it sounds good).
It’s akin to saying that the same benefits should be bestowed by government to gay marriage, when the reality of it is that government shouldn’t have a say in marriage, period. Subsidies should not apply to any group and adding a group who gets subsidies doesn’t make it more right. It just makes more subsidies.
The other two are very good ideas that Democrats don’t want to talk about.
Another thing people don’t like to talk about is adding prescribing authorities to nurses. Or better yet, remove prescription requirements from many more pharmaceuticals. Can you imagine having to have a piece of paper by an electronics specialist to purchase an ipod? Or a better example, can you imagine having to get a piece of paper from a laundry specialist to get laundry detergent?
December 16th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
The only way that we will pay the same price for drugs as Canadians do, will be when Canadians pay as much for drugs as we do.
The reason that they pay less is that all the research costs are spent by the time the first pill is sold. the second through bazillionth pills cost about the same, which is basically the cost of the raw materials and processing, packaging, shipping, etc. So a drug manufacturer can make enough money to cover manyfacturing costs and sell that drug to Canada, but Canada’s price controls fix the price artificially low, too low to cover research and development costs.
Canadian law has already interfered with the free-market price of drugs to force prices down. The remedy to that is not to interfere more heavily to force the U.S. price down – unless you are sure that you are not going to need the next wonder-drug that is NOT going to be developed because of the price controls. Anybody who thinks that drugs are cheap to discover/invent is nuts.
The day that re-importation is allowed is the day that drug companies stop exporting to Canada/Mexico/Wherever at below market prices.
Then the left will show pictures of dying children in third-world countries, and blame it on the “greedy drug companies”, rather than on the unintended consequences of their own actions.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:35 am
I think his point was Nick that if they can’t do it for everyone, then it isn’t principle guiding them and they shouldn’t be doing it at all, for anybody.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:28 am
I agree with everything except the importation (re-importation) of drugs. In Canada and most of Europe they use American drugs but have laws regarding pricing. Some of those laws regulate the mark up on a drug. i.e. Cost of production + 7%. People will scream that 7% is a good profit margin but here is what happens. The R&D costs are not passed along and are born right here in America in the form of higher prices. We subsidize the rest of the world every time we pop a viagra.