Prescription Drug Cost Nonsense

I'm listening to the debate and a few minutes ago the subject of the high cost of prescription drugs was brought up again. The usual answers were bandied about and of course the ever-present reply of opening up purchases from Canada came up again.

Now this annoys me because its the wrong answer. There is not one single reason on the face of the earth that prescription drugs can not be produced as inexpensively in this country as anywhere else on earth. ANYWHERE. This is not a labor intensive industry, the high cost of drugs is not in their production, and if it were then let the Government subsidize virtually ever dime of labor paid out in the drug production industry. For goodness sakes, we're not talking about as many people employed as in one good sized GM production facility.

My point: There is not a single good reason on this earth for Americans to have to go outside of our own national boundrys for drugs if the Congress would pass laws stream lining the production of drugs in this country and their distribution without the scalping that is going on today. By goodness, this is something that CAN be legislated, there is no systemic problem that can not be overcome here.

Thom

My least favorite phrase in this area is that Canada imposes price controls. This is totally bullshit. Canada negotiates prices with the drug companies. This country is banned from doing so by the Latest Medicare drug bill.

to Canada and Mexico for less than they are sold here. The excuse the companies offer is that someone has to pay for the research. I don't have the words to express how I think this should be handled.