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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

Government not helping to lower drug prices
Monday, August 09, 2004

After reading Robert Martin’s July 31 letter, "Drug companies aren’t much good if they go bankrupt," I have concluded that either he has lost touch with reality or he is a paid spokesman for the pharmaceutical industry.

When Martin says "The government should never be used as a tool to disrupt the free-market system," he apparently doesn’t realize that is exactly what is happening when the government tries to prevent private citizens from obtaining their drugs from Canada. If the drugs sold in America were not so exorbitantly priced, our citizens would not have to consider Canada to meet their needs.

In another section of the letter, Martin asks, "Just because a government program exists, the drug companies have to reduce their prices?" Drug companies have, in fact, raised prices for drugs to coincide with the so-called Medicare discount-drug cards.

I agree with Martin that bringing new drugs to market is expensive, and I don’t begrudge the drug companies the ability to make a fair profit. While he mentions the costs for research and development, he conveniently forgets to mention advertising. We all have witnessed the incredible growth of drug advertising in recent years that obviously has a direct effect on the increase in prices.

The high price of drugs is a huge drag on the U.S. economy, and miracle drugs aren’t much good if so many of our citizens can’t afford to buy them.

DAVID D. SIMMONS

Worthington

[Edmund Burke]

Looks like backflips of illogic to me.  Preventing US citizens from buying in Canada is only an attempt to stem a corrupt socialist/cartelist buying scheme that will harm the pharmaceutical industry.  Advertising is part and parcel of doing business in a market economy.  As for being a drag on the economy, I'm not sure how one proves that.  Seems to me you'd have to prove that people would spend the money they saved on drugs in a more productive way...I doubt that can be demonstrated.

This guy's well-spoken, but the core of his letter is "this crap's too expensive and it ought to be cheaper."  Who says?

This is the origninal:
 

Robert Martin attacked in yet another letter to the editor.

What happens if nobody can afford drugs?
Saturday, August 28, 2004
 

In the recent letter "Drug companies aren’t much good if they go bankrupt," Robert Martin replies to my earlier letter.

Martin’s defense of the drug companies completely ignores a very real problem that many Americans have: a desperate need for drugs but no ability to pay for them. If I understand correctly, Martin is saying if you can’t pay the price, you are not entitled to the drugs. We know, however, that the price is inflated, because Canadians can buy American drugs for far less than Americans can buy American drugs.

He accuses me of having "outlined the dangerous, fallacious and criminal basis of the entitlement mentality." Who is entitled to desperately needed drugs, only the wealthy?

If Martin’s position is taken to one extreme, he is correct. If there is not sufficient incentive, the drug companies will not develop new drugs and may go bankrupt. This is bad for the drug companies and bad for the people who need the drugs.

If the situation is taken to another extreme, he is wrong. If the drug companies’ customer base cannot afford the drugs and it becomes a trade-off between food and rent or drugs, those who can’t afford the drugs die off, and the customer base shrinks. This is also not good for either the drug companies or for the people who need the drugs.

The capitalistic, free-market system is based on maximizing profit, and it turns out to be the most efficient system for delivering goods and services. However, a drug patent gives a company an exclusive right to make this drug for a number of years and to set a high price on the drug without free competition, and without concern for the effect on people’s lives.

In return for the patent protection for essential goods and services, there needs to be some form of regulation on price and delivery, which allows the monopolistic provider a reasonable profit margin and recovery of researchand-development expenses, but not excessive profits and prices that limit access to the goods and services.

Government-regulated industries can run efficiently, providing essential services at a price acceptable to the service provider. An example is Medicare.

Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices and to regulate prices on patented drugs. Medicare should be acting to help the American people, not to protect the drug companies’ excessive profit margins and force the price beyond the ability of many Americans to pay.

I intend to pursue this matter by questioning my senators and representative on where they stand on drug pricing, on purchasing drugs from Canada and on the amount of campaign donations they receive from the drug industry and then spread the word. I will vote for or against these people based on the answers I receive and encourage others to do the same.

We must take back the control of the government from the drug companies by educating our friends and neighbors on what is happening and using the ultimate weapon, the vote.

In the meantime, do what any freemarket person would do: Buy your drugs from Canada.

KENNETH M. POVENMIRE

Columbus

http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.p...0828-A9-02.html

Also, since when has the Dispactch allowed a person to respond to a response? I have written hundreds of letters in response and they never published them. Has enyone else seen the DIspatch allow one person two letters on the same topic? And isn't this in violation of their own 6 mo letter policy? This is clearly the second letter for this person in a matter of weeks, not 6 months. It looks like I hit a liberal nerve on this one. Note the emotional tone of his message, and never did I claim that there should not be a safety net Government program THAT PAYS MARKET prices for drugs to provide for the needy. He proposes Medi-care as a mechanism to fix prices, ie create shortages. I used market mechanism, he uses government mechanisms. Tax credits for healthcare and drugs would solve all this problem, and in fact, even John Kerry has fiigured that one out.

This was the original letter to the editor, published just over 1 month ago. Special Treatment by the Dispatch for Liberals?

Government needs to battle drug companies
Saturday, July 10, 2004

The Dispatch recently ran an article headlined "Wary Canadians quit prescribing drugs for Americans." This article caused my anger and frustration levels to reach a new high.

A number of my acquaintances buy drugs from Canada because they are so much less expensive, and I am tempted to do the same. We Americans are being ripped off by the drug companies with the complicity of the U.S. government.

The Canadian government has found a way to obtain fair prices from the drug manufacturers, where there is still profit even at reduced prices. If this were not so, the drug companies would have stopped selling in Canada long ago.

The Canadian market is only about 10 percent of the U.S. market, and the loss of it due to unrealistically low prices established by the Canadian government would hurt but would not be catastrophic for the drug companies. In that case, the drugs would flow from the United States to Canada.

I repeat, the American people are being ripped off by the drug companies, with the complicity of the U.S. government. The Canadian, Mexican and most European governments have negotiated reasonable prices from the drug companies.

The recent Medicare drugbenefits law actually forbids the U.S. government from negotiating for lower prices from the drug companies and, therefore, our drug savings come out of the U.S. Treasury.

Eventually we pay for the drug savings with tax money while the drug companies’ profits are protected.

Why has the U.S. government allowed this to happen? The reason is quite clear to me: The drug companies have the U.S. politicians in their back pockets, due to a combination of campaign contributions and a pro-business (damn the little guy) conservative political philosophy.

At the present time, there is a reluctance on the part of our Congress to enforce laws on the books that make it illegal to import drugs from Canada because of the furor it would cause from the Americans who depend on the low-cost Canadian drugs.

The drug companies may have found a less-direct way to stop the flow of low-cost drugs into the United States, by applying pressure on the insurance companies that provide medical-malpractice insurance to Canadian doctors who rewrite prescriptions so that the prescriptions can be filled in Canada.

The Food and Drug Administration recently stopped and searched a busload of American citizens returning from Canada with lowcost drugs. This incident was written up in the June 2004 issue of the AARP Bulletin.

It appears that intimidation is being used to achieve what the government is afraid of doing directly. The American people will be held hostage by the drug companies until the U.S. government intervenes on the people’s side, instead of on the drug companies’ side.

I urge readers to write to the president and to legislators, explaining how they feel about the high drug prices. Tell them Americans want fair drug prices, as the Canadians have.

If the readers do not know how to contact the president and the legislators, the local public library reference service will provide this information.

KENNETH M. POVENMIRE

Columbus

http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.p...0710-A7-00.html

 

Here is the response:

http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php...731-A11-00.html

[Edmund Burke]

Yea, this is almost unheard of...I was TOLD by Sheller once that they try to avoid debates between letter writers.  I was very surprised to see a response to a response.  The Dispatch is quickly going over the falls...they need some shaking up.