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Comment on The Ignorance of the Left on Price Control | Thomas Sowell

MapleEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Canada has price control of drugs. Drug manufacturing can’t increase the price of a drug unless there is a proportionate increase in benefit to the patient. That’s why epipens are 1/5 the price in Canada that they are in the US.

The argument that drug companies will do doing research and coming up with new drugs if they can’t make unlimited profit is ridiculous. They are greedy fucks and will take the lower profit to keep lining their pockets. Canada proves that.

That you can’t have price control and profits is a lie.

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jimbolauski@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
How much drug research comes from Canada?

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- MapleEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  $16 billion per year.
  
  That’s not the point, though, of course. The point is that US pharmaceutical companies sell their drugs into Canada at 1/4 to 1/10 the price because they still make profit and having $100 in your pocket instead of $1,000 is better than having $0 in your pocket.
  
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  - jimbolauski@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    It is the point, Canada can rely on the US to subsidize R&D costs. The cost to manufacture does not cover all costs of a drug, or the costs of drugs which were ineffective.
    
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    MapleEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    I’m not sure that you said what you intended to say. Do you want to revisit it before I respond?
    
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ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Canada also has patents ie. government enforced monopolies. Drugs are already a pretty screwed-up market.

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- MapleEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  Yes. Companies that invest in drugs development deserve to make a profit. Patents protect their investment for a limited amount of time. They should not be able to make unlimited amounts of profit forever. What the drug price controls in Canada do is prevent a company from making a cosmetic change, like adding another stripe to the capsule of Losec, calling is Prilosec, and jacking up the price or increasing by 10 fold the price of an Epipen because you made a minor change to the delivery system. If there isn’t a proportionate increase in benefit to the patient you can’t raise the price in Canada.
  
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