[jfnixon]

You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price. This will help shift R&D costs onto Europe, Canada, and Asia, because Big Pharma will of necessity spread that cost around.

[tzs]

> You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price

So if a big drug company sells a drug very cheap in some poor third world country, they have to sell it for the same price in the US?

Wouldn't the most likely outcome of that be that they stop selling their drugs in poor countries?

[isostatic]

> Wouldn't the most likely outcome of that be that they stop selling their drugs in poor countries?

And the poor countries would just make knock-offs, and sell them to other poor countries. The US as a whole would lose out because much of the US economy is based on the dubious concept of 'intellectual property'

[tptacek]

Yes.

[jfnixon]

Why is a poor family in Appalachia less deserving of inexpensive drugs than a poor family in, say, Venezuela, or Somalia?

[chimeracoder]

> You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price. This will help shift R&D costs onto Europe, Canada, and Asia, because Big Pharma will of necessity spread that cost around.

A way less intrusive way to ensure the same end result is to allow reimporting of prescription drugs.

There was a bill to do this last year, but unfortunately it was killed in the Senate.

[jfnixon]

How is this less intrusive? I'd just reimport the hell out of drugs from the cheapest country I could find.