The American Spectator

p> Wonderful article. My biggest free market fantasy would be to see the pharmaceutical industry announce to the world that they would be closing their doors of manufacturing and research for a full year in order to test whether their products would be missed by people in general and the hand-wringing whiners that go by the names of trial lawyers and politicians to be specific. Wouldn’t that be fun if we could survive such a test? br> — Anthony Mastroserio /p>

Doug Bandow doesn’t get it. Drug companies don’t pay for most of the research they do; you and I do by paying the taxes that support the universities where most of it is done. Drug companies make a 15% a year profit while the average profit of a Fortune 500 company is around 5%. Drug companies spend 20% of their budgets on advertising, which we pay for. Drug companies fix prices by forcing Americans, with the help of colluding legislators, to pay more than is paid in other countries for the same pills.

I was a state senator for a time. I introduced a bill that would have had consumers pay the 20% advertising cost of the drugs they bought if they chose to buy an advertised drug over an equally beneficial unadvertised drug. During the committee hearing, three committee members suddenly appeared in the room (all Democrats by the way), the Democratic chairman called the vote and the three committee members killed the bill, then they immediately got up and left. In the hall, the Pharma lobbyist, decked out in at least $3000, caught up with me and smirked, “Any other bills you’d like us to kill for you?”

I firmly believe that capitalism is by far the best of all economic engines. I also believe that capitalism is amoral, driven by the quest for profit and not by the best interests of society, and that is as it should be. It all works when there is open and fair competition. But when lawmakers are in the pocket of Pharma, and competition and fair play are cynically suppressed by their collusion, the people get a very bitter pill indeed.

p>Open the borders to drug imports. br> — Allen Hurt , MD br> New Mexico /p>

You refer to the fact that Australia, Britain, Canada, and Germany all impose price controls upon prescription pharmaceuticals. Mr. Catania’s legislative imposition of a max D.C. price of 30% over and above the prices in those countries suggests a much higher price in the U.S. for those same drugs. Also, I appreciate and agree with your argument that price controls are a disincentive to innovation and would result in less research and fewer “miracle” drugs on the market.

However, “market” pricing in the U.S. for the same drugs that are “price controlled” in other countries must result in Americans subsidizing the health care systems in those other locales. No? If there were no price controls in other countries, would the price settle at some weighted average between the U.S. “premium” price and the overseas “controlled” prices?