U.S. senator slams ‘parasitic’ Canada over drug prices

*Not to worry, Canada. This man is insane.*

An American legislator called Canada “parasitic” on Wednesday for siphoning U.S. dollars to Canada with low prescription drug prices while his country does “all the innovation.”

Canada benefits financially from America’s role as a world leader in medical advances, Republican Senator Bob Corker charged in an exchange with a Liberal MP as she testified before a U.S. Senate committee.

“One of the things that has troubled me greatly about our system is the fact that we pay more for pharmaceuticals and devices than other countries, and yet it’s not really our country so much that’s the problem, it’s the parasitic relationship that Canada and France and other countries have towards us,” the Tennessee lawmaker told Carolyn Bennett.

“Meaning that you set prices and unfortunately all the innovation, all the technological breakthroughs, just about, take place in our country .… You benefit from us, and we pay for that, and I resent that.”

Bennett, a family doctor and one-time minister of state for public health, was one of five people testifying before the Senate special committee on aging. The panel, chaired by Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl and including newly minted Sen. Al Franken, was examining how successful health-care systems keep their costs low while maintaining quality care.

She seemed puzzled by Corker’s remarks, reminding him that drug pricing was a global concern, not part of a plot by Canada.

“It’s the drug companies, sir, and they’re multinational — it’s nothing about the United States of America,” she told him.

Their debate comes as U.S. Democratic senator Byron Dorgan from North Dakota is preparing to make a legislative push in the days to come that would legally allow Americans to buy cheaper Canadian drugs.

Dorgan will introduce an amendment to the health-care reform legislation currently before the Senate finance committee that would legalize so-called re-importation. Under current U.S. law, only pharmaceutical companies are allowed to import prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration into the United States.

Drug companies import more than US $40 billion in drugs into the United States, while drug wholesalers and consumers are shut out of the global marketplace. Consequently, Dorgan has long maintained, Americans pay higher prices for prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world.

News of the pending amendment, to be introduced when the health-care reform bill makes it to the Senate floor, has alarmed some Canadian observers who fear re-importation could lead to shortage of drugs in Canada.

Bennett herself raised that concern in her testimony on Wednesday.

“Please don’t think that you can import cheap drugs from Canada … it will last us about 36 days,” she told Corker.

He replied: “That’s a silly way of dealing with it.”

“My goal over time is for us not to pay more than you, because you set prices and cause us to pay more when we’re doing all the innovation,” Corker added.

“In essence, the Canadian government and its citizens are taking advantage of our citizens by virtue of setting prices that are lower than competitive prices.”

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/01/parasitic-canada-drugs.html?ref=rss#socialcomments

Spread the word: Congress to fine you $3800 unless you buy insurance from private insurers

*I have pretty much had it with politics.*

Need more proof that the health insurance lobby wrote the health carereform proposals with an assist from a compliant Obama White House and a completely corrupt and indifferent Congress?

The voluntary, optional government insurance plan is off the table due to the Obama administration’s craptacular messaging on the issue.

Such a plan would compete with predatory private insurance companies – also known as leeches.

It would keep them from price gouging, harming consumers, and effectively killing Americans with their crminal stewardship of health care.

You will not get that competitive option, however, because Obama is a too cool for school weakling who does not know how to fight and who does not inspire fear in Congressional Democrats, who have entered full meltdown mode.

On the table though, thanks to the fact that Obama has outsourced leadership on health care to over-the-hill Montana Democrat Max Baucus, is a $3,800 per family fine to be levied on families above the poverty line if they do not want to purchase insurance from the private insurance leeches.

For families below the poverty line sans families, the government will mercifully lower the fine – to $1,500. For individuals below the poverty line, that fine is $750.

Yes, thousand dollar health care fines in time of recession, mass unemployment, and wage depression. And for what? The same crappy private health insurance already claiming the lives of Americans on a daily basis.

This final outrage should kill Obamacare.

This should – finally – prove that the Democratic Party leaders have completed their transformation from Truman-style muscle men to wilting tools of the Wall Street-Washington oligarchy and the enemies of working people.

Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee and thus the most important person in Congress when it comes to health care, is working hard on the issue, but like anyone who stays in D.C. too long he cannot help but be corporate hack.

Let’s not mince words: Baucus deserves to be tortured on the breaking wheel for proposing this travesty. This is nothing short of health care terrorism.

Obama, though, is not without blame – for it was his bright idea to farm out health care reform to the corporatists while he went on vacation and held beer summits instead of putting his butt to the grass to make the case for real reform to the American people.

We are not going to get progress on health care reform from the current leaders of the Democratic Party: whether by misguided intentions or rank complicity they are quite simply going to make Americans slaves to private insurance emperors, because they are too wimpy to stand up to the leeches.

Baucus: thank you for trying, but you stink to high heaven as a politician. Retire, and regain what little dignity you still have.

Harry Reid, you are probably a nice guy, but you are as politically worthless as the Republican Party and should go home before embarrassing yourself in next year’s election.

And Obama, poor thing, you stink the most, for letting these fools stink up your Presidency.

You really, really would have done better as Vice-President to Hillary. You could have learned a thing or two about boxing.

A $3,800 fine??? Really, you think the American people will go for this?

Hang it up, fellas. You have ruined health care reform. We tried and we failed miserably. Let’s give it another go in 2032.

http://www.examiner.com/x-19823-PostPartisan-Examiner~y2009m9d9-Spread-the-word-Congress-to-fine-you-3800-unless-you-buy-insurance-from-private-insurers?cid=email-this-article