NAFTA - Free trade, except no cheap prescriptions from Canada

Can someone explain how this works to me? NAFTA means that GM can lay off everyone in the US and move plants to Mexico, then import the cars here, but regular people can't buy inexpensive prescription drugs from Canada?

Is that what they mean by "free trade"?

Globalization is Globalonie. Only thing it is, is a better name for the rebirth of the slave trade. Except the yellow and brown people replace the black people. Plus you don't have to house them anywhere near you so if there's a rebellion you get to keep your head. Then you can use another country's army to kill off the labor rights people and their family's. Excuse me while I break something:argh:

Is it possible that the right bribes haven't gone to the right people?
Should we find out who to bribe to get the cheaper Canadian drugs?

Than us so that won't work:(

With all the hubbub surrounding the dem debates and other issues, I've forgotten to ask: Is it totally illegal for ANY US citizen to buy meds from Canada at this time?
Some of us have NO health care insurance at all. My sister being one. She makes just a bit too much money to qualify for any state medical help, BUT she can occassionally scrap together a few bucks to make an office call with her doc. She gets a script and WAS buying her meds via the internet from Canada. It worked for her but she's not having much luck now since the Medicare fiasco.
Any info out there?

See if you can qualify for Canadian citizenship:) I'm thinking about it.

....and get free medical/healthcare.

Also, their welfare state is far more generous than ours. For example, here in the USA, a single able-bodied man cannot get welfare. But in Canada it happens all the time. Welfare for a single person runs from 200-700 USD/month depending on which state.

Also, the average time period Canadians draw unemployment is over 20 months at a time. Of course here in the USA, it is 6 months max (except for a few periods of time when it is 9 months max).


Now the above may make me out to be some kind of bum, but I have worked for 26 years and have only drawn 6 months of unemployment total, and no other form of public assistance. And I look at my situation, and compare it to what the europeans have in their welfare states (which quite a bit more generous than Canada), I ask myself, why in the f*** did I invest all my working years in America, when I could have emigrated to Denmark or some other welfare state, where I could have much fewer worries about my future.....

I fact, I would advise any young person to investigate moving to NW Europe ASAP. For details as to why, search for the DU thread "fighting for the welfare state".

When I lived in San Diego, I knew several people who would go to Mexico and get cheap prescriptions.

It makes me sick, the American people are considered a captive market for the pharmaceutical industry. So wrong.

scrips online will crumble this administration like nothing else they could do--think about it.

For now, they are TRYING, with little success, to prosecute Canadian pharmacies.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/2003/11/031110prescriptions.shtml

. . .But the FDA has no jurisdiction in Canada, and its counterpart, Health Canada, has only broad authority over drug safety issues.
snip

"What they've got to understand is, we're not going away," said CanaRx's Howard. "We're going to stick to this until the laws are changed."

A growing number of lawmakers agree. "The FDA can try to lip-sync the pharmaceutical industry's line, but people are going to continue to go over the border to buy the drugs they need at the prices they can afford," said Rep. Rahm Emanual, D-Ill.

And that, said Canadian officials, is a problem no amount of enforcement may correct.

snip

As long as Canada still takes my plastic money, the bushistas LOSE!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

not the people.

among corporations. Free doesn't have anything to do with capitalism, Free is for the free labor they will get moving overseas to poor countries whose people are so desperate they would work for dimes a day to move out of their three bedroom paper egg cartons.

communicate the Democratic message.

Short, simple and substantive.

Free trade for the corporations, but not for the people.

REALLY NEED stays high-priced (like drugs, housing, transportation, insurance, medical care, etc.), while the stuff you can live without is cheap (electronics, knick knacks, plastics, etc.).

That way, Walmart stays in business and the corps. can tell you how cheap everything is for you, and how they are just doing EVERYTHING they can to serve you. :puke:

what to do...

NAFTA gives us the right to take Canada's oil and energy supplies if another crisis happens.

Pretty cool, huh?

Free trade but only on US terms. :eyes:

You know who to thank for signing it into being...

"The most liberal president ever";):eyes:

His NAFTA was called the Multilateral Agreement on Investments - and regular people DEFEATED it. The business press was screaming bloody murder that we unwashed masses had derailed their trade deal.

So we got a smooth talking southern Democratic governor who sold us NAFTA, and half the Democrats bought it hook line and sinker.

Every time prescription drugs costs are discussed, Dems should bring up NAFTA and why Republicans donÕt want Americans buying Canadian drugs, those free market, free trade hypocrites.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are just as much as fault on this one.

It'll never happen, but I wish the Canadian government would just rip up the NAFTA agreement and tell Bush to go Fuck himself.

That would mean no re-election for Bush.

and a toothache I did some checking around to see about getting the tooth pulled.
I was told that they would take an x-ray and pull the tooth for between $150 and $200...I guess it's quite an ordeal.
I went to Mexico and no x-ray was required; 10 minutes and $30 later I was asked if I wanted the tooth or did I want them to throw it in the trash.:shrug:

a safety issue.

Guess who is the largest U.S. customer of Canadian pharmaceuticals? If you said the U.S. Government, you win.

The Department of Defense and the VA are allowed a special waiver to purchasse drugs from Canada or any other country.

http://www.rense.com/general46/drugs.htm

Under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement, Canadian pharmacies could be suing the hell out of the US for trade infringement, having the case heard by a secret Trade Court of in Europe(the Hague, if I remember correctly) where we have no representation, the Court has found against us, and we the US taxpayers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to Canadian pharmacies without even knowing it. Don't laugh or scoff, it has happened before.

instead of "free trade agreements" since they have next to nothing to do with free trade, and everything to do with creating special rights for rich people.

That and if we all bought our drugs from Canada no US company would ever bother making any ever again either.

Those Canadian companies that "haven't made a medical innovation ever" are paying big money for those Canadian-taxpayer-subsidized bulk orders. In return, Canadian (and Mexican) retailers get to make money off of Americans, who are screwed into paying inflated prices for pharmacuetical products locally.

By the way, I suggest you do a google search for "Canadian medical innovation" and see what you find.

For example,

"Canadians may start seeing Cholesterol 1,2,3 tests in their doctor's office and pharmacy as early as this spring," said Dr. Brent Norton, President of IMI and a family physician. "The research presented at the AHA will form the basis of our submissions to both the Canadian Health Protection Branch and the American FDA."

"At the same time, we are continuing research to confirm that skin cholesterol can be used to monitor a patient's response to cholesterol-lowering therapies used by hundreds of thousands of Canadians. That could also lead to a home version of the Cholesterol 1,2,3 test," said Dr. Norton.

IMI is a Canadian and world leader in predictive medicine, dedicated to developing innovative products for the rapid and early detection of life-threatening conditions, particularly cardiovascular disease and cancer. IMI is located in Toronto, with shares traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/subject.gsp?subjectid=37417

When do you suppose Americans will get access to "Cholesterol 1,2,3"?

Next they will tell us about all the Canadians who come to the US for doctor's visits. Some people never learn. :shrug:

http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/canada_medical_inventors.htm


The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame:

http://www.cdnmedhall.org/inductees.htm

Check insulin, and then take your ignorance elsewhere.

Sid

so tired of the wing nut talking points.

The rich get richer.

We get cheap trinkets... and reamed.

Good thing these trade agreements aren't a big issue on the campaign trail!

I watched the committee hearing one night it was the biggest load of bullshit ever. Dick Santorum seems to think that allowing seniors to go to Canada will cripple the drug companies' ability to make money and produce new cures, yet he insists that he does not represent the drug companies. I'm sure he supported NAFTA. Pennsylvania is a fairly split state so we should be looking to pick up this ass-hole's senate seat when he's up for re-election. BTW we need to make this a huge issue in northern border congressional districts.

to live a decent and a happy life? I hate them myself, especially now when I realize what they have become--ruler os our lives with their advertisements that are geared to get into our brains and to sway our sub-conscious minds.

What do we do?

I suggest that anyone who wants to be independant as much as possible, buy some land--work it, even if it seems primitive. There is great satisfaction in doing that. Do not give these corporations the right to run your life.

I don't mind people buying drugs but this can very well come back and bite americans in the end if applied to large coporations and state gov'ts.

What I would like to know is when does it end...next if mexico is cheaper do we buy drugs there? What if China or mongolia have cheaper drugs? What happens when some 3rd world "generic" drug is even cheaper still... Is my grandmothers pills going to come to her without any guarentees of public safety?

I like my protections and legal options right here thank you.

What I would like to know is why are drugs cheaper in other countries? Is because of price gouging? Maybe insurance cost are higher? Maybe legal protections aren't as strong... If it's price gouging I think a canidate could draw attention to it but to say a blanket statement that we just put our drug policies in some other countries care....WE CAN FIX THIS!

They are protected under Bush's umbrella. Plus they got a great deal with the Medicare prescription bill where we have to take their drugs at their prices where we are forbidden to negotiate. Of course to get that deal, where they will take billions from taxpayers, they gave millions to Bush & Co.

US Drug companies are our friends. Not!

The other half is that all of the research and development is done by US companies. Foreign companies get to produce generic drugs without paying for all that research etc. I'm fairly sure this is the case but PLEASE refute it if it's not.

Not ALL the medical R&D is USian. Nor is all USian R&D done by private companies -- there are plenty of publicly-funded research grants to universities that produce data and innovation useful to the pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, the pharmaceutical R&D from US companies funded from their own pockets is a subset of a subset of a subset of the pharmaceutical R&D done worldwide. I'm not sure what the percentage is, but that statistic may not even be available.

This is not to say that the US pharmaceutical companies are not extremely proficient researchers. They are also highly proficient marketeers -- about twice the budget allocation for R&D goes to marketing in the bigger companies, and when you consider they run about 20% of the budget in pure profit taking, they're really quite successful.

What the pharms appear to be especially good at is
1) turning patent into mass product
2) getting their key markets approved by the FDA
3) lobbying politicians for favorable regulations and contracts

Anyway, there's a thread I started this afternoon on Canadian medical innovation. Perhaps you'll do me the favor of googling "Canadian medical innovation", finding something the Canadians have R&D'd that interests you, and writing about it in that thread.

Canada's drug industry is highly subsidized by their government so it provides an unfair advantage against competitors in other countries. Jim Hightower criticizes this because he's stuck in the past and hates free trade.

Cough up some details. Then we'll talk.

Oh yeah, and please educate us as to which companies comprise 'canada's drug industry'.

For my part, I offer a cute little .pdf flyer about how much US taxpayers subsidize our pharmaceuticals.

Taxpayers Fund Pharmaceutical Research, but Don't Reap Benefits