Meanwhile, Canada's Health Minister advocates lowering their Pharma costs

[suffragette]

While we in the United States are caught up in how much our health care is about to be cut and in arguing about votes on bills whether or not to import Canada's marginally lower priced pharmaceuticals, Canada has moved on to seeking how to lower their drug prices to bring them more in line with other countries.

I was flipping channels the other day and caught a small segment of a Canadian program in which their Health Minister was speaking about the need to lower their drug prices.

I searched for more information and found some in this article.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/health-minister-jane-philpott-drug-prices-1.3932254

Patented drug prices in Canada are regulated by comparing what we pay to the average price paid by seven other countries. As long as our prices are in line with that average, no action can be taken.

The problem, Philpott said, is the United States is one of those seven countries, which skews the average high because the United States has the highest drug prices in the world.

She wants to remove the United States from that list and replace it with a country like New Zealand, which has some of the lowest drug prices in the world.

"We are going to be introducing some of this work in the coming months," she told the fifth estate.

What's stunning to me is that we are so far behind the curve in the United States on having affordable health care which should include the cost of necessary medication that we have to fight about small measures to allow importing/reimporting drugs from the 2nd most costly nation.

Meanwhile Canada is seeking to bring their costs down in line with other countries that have more comprehensive coverage/care and the debate there is whether they keep their current system and reform it as above or change to adopt a system closer to New Zealand's which provides lower prices for its citizens.

Note that I am not blaming our Representatives for trying to at least mitigate costs by working on legislation to allow us to import from Canada. I'm glad they are trying to effect that small change even as they are not in full agreement on how to accomplish it. I'm just shaking my head at the American exceptionalism that has created this situation in the first place.

[George Eliot]

1. Watch The National on CBC and you'll learn how unexception we are

Or perhaps how "exceptional" we are in a negative way. A few weeks ago Canada ruled the internet a basic service. Thus, the country will be networked and government will get it done. No more have and have-nots. The smallest community will have service.

Canada is not held hostage by corporations yet.

[suffragette]

3. I watch it off and on. Missed that, though. Thanks for posting it!

I think one of the factors in Comcast hiring Fox reporters for NBC/MSNBC is their shared fight against net neutrality.

What a contrast to ruling the Internet is a basic service.

And yeah, I agree these show our exceptionalism as a negative.

[FarCenter]

2. Since the US spends the most taxpayer funds on medical R&D, we should pay less than the world averag

[suffragette]

4. That is a really good point. Wyden is correct in calling this out as dysfunctional.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651

"I think this system is dysfunctional," said Wyden, who sought the investigation. "How many times should the taxpayer pay again and again?"