Florida Is First State Allowed to Import Prescription Drugs From Canada

www.wsj.com

Some personal editorializing: This is a pretty remarkable first because of how captive we Americans are to pharma prices. Famously, when Medicare Part D was brought into existence by law it restricted the federal government from negotiating Part D drug prices. To me, shopping for drugs in Canada is tackling the symptom and ignores the cause. I wonder if this gets more traction with more states how it might affect drug prices in Canada, too.

The real solution to all this, of course, would be nationalize the healthcare industry in all aspects and to create a single payer healthcare system.

49 comments

Hmm! Why would prescription drugs be cheaper in Canada? What could possibly be the difference between America and its northern neighbor, they're both equally advanced and developed. Something just makes their drugs cheaper. Weird! 🫠
- Don't worry, our right-wing nutjobs are slowly chipping away at privatizing our health care system. Sooner or later we'll probably reach parity. 🙄
  
  See also, the UK. Their healthcare system, the NHS, has been chipped away at by subsequent right wing governments. Now that there are huge waiting lists for even basic procedures and more shortfalls in services provided, right wingers are now calling for the actual dismantling of the NHS, and moving to a more American setup. They claim that centralized healthcare doesn't work and private health providers are 'more efficient'.
  They refuse to acknowledge however that their repeated attempts to reduce funding and make life harder for staff is what got them where they are. Centralized universal healthcare isn't inherently bad or inefficient. It is only made bad by a lack of funding or addressing its issues. Private healthcare is not the fucking answer.
  I'm not even British, I'm from Ireland, our healthcare system has a different issue, it's severely bloated by consultants, bad management and bureaucracy. It might be kinda shit sometimes, but at least, if I ever have a heart attack or a stroke, I know I won't need to worry about bills. It'll be a few hundred max.
  
  If we sell our drugs to America on the cheap, we’ll probably end up buying them back at five times the price. Isn’t that how it works with our electricity and/or water?
  
  It’s funny because when you realize the right wing nut jobs are really being directed and funded by billionaires it makes perfect sense.
- It must be because Canada is part of the commonwealth 😏. If we had King Charles on our money who knows what great things might start happening.
  
  I literally at least once a year lament the shortsightedness of the ultra-libertarians who founded the country. Imagine what we could have had as part of the Commonwealth over centuries!
- Well yeah, when you subsidize something, it usually gets cheaper at the counter, since you're paying for it with tax dollars instead.
  
  People who need cheaper prescription drug prices aren't paying a lot in taxes either.
  Also, learn MMT. Taxes don't pay for anything when you can print your own currency.
Seems oddly progressive until you take into account the high percentage of Florida's population that's retirees and boomers who are probably heavily medicated.
Just goes to show that Florida's regressive legislators know what side their bread is buttered on. We always knew that Republicans don't actually believe in anything besides staying in power at all costs, but this is interesting in that someone crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that they had to actually appeal to the voter base instead of allowing their constituents to be fleeced by pharmaceutical companies who undoubtedly lobbied against this. Hopefully this is just the beginning and causes inflated drug process in this country to normalize a other states adopt this
- Worse: you don't even have to go that far back to see Republicans sabotaging the needs of diabetics because they were angry at Biden.
- No no, you don't understand, this is a different country's government healthcare so it's all good. It's only US government provided healthcare that's evil.
  /s
  Seriously though, the mental gymnastics that Republicans need to engage in to justify their crap policies is mind boggling. They create problems, partially solve the problems they created in the worst and/or most corrupt way possible, and then have the gall to take a victory lap over it.
- Isn’t progressive at all. It’s a free market decision.
  
  You literally didn't even make it more than 3 words into my first sentence...
As a Canadian, I can't see this not fucking over our own access to medication that we need, especially when our own governments are actively trying to dismantle what little socialised healthcare we have. It's going to be like the Ozempic weight loss craze depriving diebetics of the drug, but for every drug. You're one of the wealthiest states in the single wealthiest country in the world, surely you have the means to provide your own citizens with affordable medication, at least much more so than Canada with our tiny population density and comparatively low GDP. To put it not so politely, we shouldn't be punished and forced to take on the burden of providing medication to you simply because you choose not to.
- Look we've been trying, the private insurance companies aren't budging. Single Payer is the goal, but we're gonna need to not die in the meantime, so hand over the affordable insulin.
  
  so hand over the affordable insulin.
  Because Americans are somehow more deserving of not dying than Canadians? If a Canadian diabetic suddenly can't afford Insulin because it's all going to the US, that doesn't matter to you? Should every country be obliged to pitch in to make sure the richest country in the world has enough resources to sustain itself even at the cost of their own citizens' lives, then?
  Also, if you recognize that you need Canada's help to, quote, "not die," maybe demanding we "hand it over" isn't the best way sway attitudes about this over here.
Florida no!
Wait... wait, no this is a good thing, sorry, force of habit. Carry on
So, we've just been doing this illegally all these years?
Who's that mobster down there? Desantis? Ain't that his name? Yeah. That's it. What's his cut going to be?
- His cut from what? Canada?
  
  Do you understand how today's modern mob works? He'll be shaking down Canadian drug firms with his special 'tariffs'.
I have zero interest nationalizing the industry. Just the healthcare portion like other countries. Maybe that is the first step though, create a national drug plan. It’s stupid what insurance covers or doesn’t cover. I take a daily medication. Twice a day cost me ten dollars a month. If I was the ER, once a day; it’s 250 dollars and I have amazing health insurance.
- I disagree with nationalizing any of it. Instead, we should have some important reforms:
  reduce patent duration - this is the major hurdle in generics replacing name brand, which keeps prices high
  transparent care costs - journalists and individuals can't easily compare routine/planned costs because prices are only known with a quote (very hard to get), and there's usually no guarantee that the price is good
  ambulance prices are ridiculous, and it's not something you can easily opt out of - I think these should be 100% publicly funded, provided the paramedics recommend the ambulance (you could choose to pay for it yourself if they don't)
  simplify insurance - ideally make it more similar to auto insurance, as in you get coverage after some deductible, no networks or other nonsense (you pick your caregivers, procedures, etc); you could pick a more comprehensive plan if you know you'll have more fixed costs
  reduce restrictions on medications - e.g. with insulin, the US only allows the more expensive options, which have replaced less expensive options (they were a little less effective, but still solved the problem, and way cheaper)
  I personally don't trust our government to put together a decent healthcare system. The one we have is heavily regulated, with lots of cronyism to ensure things stay expensive. A national program just makes it a political problem, I want it to be transparent so that public can vet it. We can have government health care systems (e.g. Medicare), but the focus should be on making the system more transparent and auditable, not just hide the problem in the tax system.
  
  My friend takes insulin. He used to be on MediCal. They only covered the cheap insulin, and he had so many problems with it. Then he got a job with decent coverage and gets the good stuff now. No more problems.
  Pharma should be at least partially nationalized. Guarantee them a set profitability through a government contract, then all treatments developed are provided at cost. We pay a lump sum in taxes, but then the medication is nearly free. This is going to be a huge benefit when customized mRNA cancer treatments become common.
  Totally agree we need to do something about the crazy price of an ambulance ride. People risk their lives and the lives of others when they forego an ambulance and try to transport themselves after a serious injury. My former roommate cut off some fingers in a chop saw, then drove to the emergency room with his hand wrapped in a towel and his severed fingers in a sandwich bag. Said he wasn't paying $5000 to go 3 miles.
  I was actually happiest with my medical when I was in the service. If socialized medicine could be like that, I'd be 100% behind it. Note that I am not talking about the VA medical, which can be horrible. "Yep, you've got cancer. We can get you in for surgery in 6 months..." - "Well, your cancer metasticized and spread - if only we got to it 3 months earlier..."

49 comments