Also, don’t know how much you guys have discussed health care, per se, but that will come up during Obama’s tenure, and it’s interesting that Craig lives in Canada; I’d like to hear his boots on the ground experience with Canadian health care. Waiting to see where Mata’s migrated thread ends up.

- Larry W/HB

Now she’s busy trying to convince us that the SOFA is only going forward because Obama was elected. Ya know, I get better comprehension from my six year old granddaughter than some of these obama keyboard warriors.

INRE the thread hijack. Glad you’re benevolent, but it’s been on my mind for quite a while to do a post on the pharma/drug/Obama plan bit. Pulling together the background of how we got from here to today first, so we can start from a common ground. Patience…. I keep getting interrupted!

I won’t “remove” the above comments, but will duplicate them. (you guys need to do that on your own to maintain your identity..) Maybe we joe blow citizenry can straighten out Congress with our debates.

Then again, as the bailout proved… they don’t listen to us anyway.

Jan’s been busy leaving crumbs on the carpet over here this evening.

But yes, we are getting off topic here but today I feel generous in that regard. That might change if “cut and paste Jan” shows up to do another dump on here.

Appreciate either duplicating, or posting further comments there, please! Thanks.

This video should interest you. It is on the abusive regulation of drugs. This is why the drugs in USA are so expensive. The title is in French, but the video is in English.

RÉGLEMENTATION PERVERSE
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6pkkq_fda_news

And I also found this:

HERE IS A PICTURE OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IN USA IN 2008:

- Time to develop a new drug: 10-15 years.
- Average cost to develop a new drug: 1,318 billion of dollars.
- Investment in R&D: 58, 8 billions of dollars.
- Numbers of drugs approved in 2007: 23.
- Average wear of a “patent” to protect a drug: 11 years.
- Percentage of commercial drugs revenues that equals or exceeds the cost of R&D: 20%.
- Percentage of generic drugs: 67%.

For each commercialized drug, the pharmaceutical industry has to do research on 5,000 to10, 000 compounds. But only 0, 01% to 0, 02% of those compound are commercialized.

I agree with you on the subject of global pharmaceutical industry. Competition and importation are the only ways to deal with the price of drugs. This is the Milton Friedman and Republicans way to deal with things. But leftists are protectionists and they do not understand economics. This is why I am surprised that you voted for THE ONE.

When there is a price competition, the R&D has no other choice than to perform better. That’s the way to go, the only way.

Mata, thank you for the question of drug costs; it’s near and dear to my heart. A huge component of the runaway health care costs are prescription drug costs. And it’s getting worse. The average new cancer drug costs between $5,000 and $11,000 PER MONTH!

The greatest special interest buy off in history was when Big Pharma got inserted into the Medicare Prescription Drug law a PROHIBITION against Medicare negotiating with the drug companies regarding drug costs. In one fell swoop, government (1) gave Big Pharma a pricing monopoly and (2) guaranteed payment from the government. This was a sweetheart deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars. No other sell out to non-military special interests in history ever came close.

The problem is how do you build in some form of competition? The only way to do this is by allowing importation of drugs from overseas (or across the Canadian border). It’s already legal to import drugs for private use. Members of my own family have done this, and it’s worked brilliantly. Just Google “Canadian Internet Pharmacy” and you’ll find lots of licensed, reputable choices. All you’ll need is to fax a prescription and give them a credit card number and you’ll get your drugs — usually at a huge savings (we saved 75% on an expensive drug for one of my family members).

Now, what about pharmaceutical R&D if drug prices go down? This is the big scare tactic bogeyman. That’s all it is. Pharma spends a tiny fraction of its budget on R&D, relative to marketing. It’s like those Apple commercials about Microsoft and VISTA. Big amount of money for advertising. Tiny amount for “fixing VISTA.”

The USA single handedly supports the global pharmaceutical industry (much of which is headquartered in Europe, by the way, e.g. Roche, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, Bayer, etc.). With true competition, Americans will pay less and Europeans will pay more. And probably, we’ll see a little less advertising. But pharma has to do R&D, or it will die.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

INRE to your comment #33: All they have to do is to be more centered on Republican’s values. Sarah Palin is just fine for that, she really represents all those values.

Moving to the Center would be disastrous. The Center has no values, no ideas, no goals and no soul. They believe in nothing. They are just selfishly CENTERED on themselves. Governing from the center is not governing at all. It is the free for all… anything goes: 50 millions abortions, gay marriages, illegal immigration… name it!

BTW Larry, did you watch the video on Milton Friedman that I suggested to you in my comment #33?

Not to mention… I am just sick to death of “campaigns” at the moment.

But I do have a question that has been gnawing at me about Obama’s proposed way to save money in Medicare. That that is importing more drugs from Mexico, Canda, etal.

To my mind, that is nothing more than another form of outsourcing. But I’m willing to keep an open mind. Just what do you think the feds, contracting most of the Medicare pharmas from foreign nations, will do to the local US pharma research and suppliers?

Think there will be any job cuts? Think they’ll move to Mexico or Canada to compete?

Renegotiations is one thing, But the US companies have a higher bottom line. I cannot see a way for them to meet the foreign market prices, and remain in busines… nor keep up R&D.

This is something I suspect you know quite a bit about. So will Obama’s foreign drug imports create loss of jobs and loss of business here?