5 ms·

> we have a ban on re-importing cheaper drugs which our companies produce. This continues to be one of the dumbest arguments on this topic. If you want the lo

by basch 8y ago

> we have a ban on re-importing cheaper drugs which our companies produce. This continues to be one of the dumbest arguments on this topic. If you want the local price to change, change the intellectual property law that inflates their price in the first place, dont repeal bans that circumvent the intellectual property laws.

SkyBelow 8y ago
If we ban the flow of physical goods to uphold IP laws, then would you also support banning the flow of digital goods to uphold IP laws? Imagine if we couldn't buy any electronic media that wasn't created in the US because it might break an IP law.
- basch 8y ago
  A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. The question is more like "if Disney sets avengers to $3 per view in American and $1 in Canada, is it legal to use a VPN to appear Canadian, and pay the Canadian licensing price." If the answer is yes, then why not just let American's pay the Canadian price vs the ruse of streaming the data from another country and pretending the transaction is hunky dory. If impersonating a Canadian to watch Avengers is intellectual property infringement, underpaying the license in your country, the same logic should apply to other intellectual property.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. This thread is talking about reimportation of brand-name pharmaceuticals. In many of these cases, it's the same manufacturer producing the same physical goods at the same factory and selling them for two different prices on different sides of the border. This is not an "intellectual property" issue; it's a trade issue.
    - basch 8y ago
      It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Trade is a way to circumvent the pricing set, it doesn't address the underlying exclusivity.
      - chimeracoder 8y ago
        > It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. The exclusivity isn't what lets them maintain different prices in different countries, which is the problem at hand. Those different prices are only feasible because of artificial trade barriers, as evidenced by the fact that these price differences also occur with generic medications, which are not subject to exclusivity protections. > Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Because "intellectual property" is a highly controversial term which conflates three complete unrelated categories of law that each have different origins and underlying justifications.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> If you want the local price to change, change the intellectual property law that inflates their price in the first place, dont repeal bans that circumvent the intellectual property laws. The ban doesn't circumvent "intellectual property" laws; the ban is what allows enables those laws to be effective at raising prices (which is the entire goal) in the first place. Reimporting prescription drugs from other OECD countries would be the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for prescription drug pricing problems in the US. (That's not the only problem, but it's a massive one).
- basch 8y ago
  Why would we waste the money importing them when we can just change our intellectual property laws to match their prices.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    The "intellectual property laws" you're describing are, specifically, the trade barriers. Unless you're comparing to countries which don't honor US drug patents at all, which is a valid argument but a pretty radical one. > Why would we waste the money importing them when we can just change our intellectual property laws to match their prices. You're missing the point. Nobody would import anything. The price differences on either side of the border only exist because of the artificial barrier to trade. Allowing drug imports from other countries establishes an upper bound on how much the manufacturers can charge for those same drugs in the US.

by basch 8y ago

SkyBelow 8y ago

If we ban the flow of physical goods to uphold IP laws, then would you also support banning the flow of digital goods to uphold IP laws? Imagine if we couldn't buy any electronic media that wasn't created in the US because it might break an IP law.

basch 8y ago
A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. The question is more like "if Disney sets avengers to $3 per view in American and $1 in Canada, is it legal to use a VPN to appear Canadian, and pay the Canadian licensing price." If the answer is yes, then why not just let American's pay the Canadian price vs the ruse of streaming the data from another country and pretending the transaction is hunky dory. If impersonating a Canadian to watch Avengers is intellectual property infringement, underpaying the license in your country, the same logic should apply to other intellectual property.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > A pill isnt a physical good, its a formula. You are paying for the intellectual property not the manufacture. It's not like the pills are substantially cheaper to manufacture in Canada, its different licensing costs. This thread is talking about reimportation of brand-name pharmaceuticals. In many of these cases, it's the same manufacturer producing the same physical goods at the same factory and selling them for two different prices on different sides of the border. This is not an "intellectual property" issue; it's a trade issue.
  - basch 8y ago
    It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Trade is a way to circumvent the pricing set, it doesn't address the underlying exclusivity.
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > It's an intellectual property issue, they have the exclusive rights to produce the pill. It is illegal for any other company to make the same product. That exclusivity lets them set the price. The exclusivity isn't what lets them maintain different prices in different countries, which is the problem at hand. Those different prices are only feasible because of artificial trade barriers, as evidenced by the fact that these price differences also occur with generic medications, which are not subject to exclusivity protections. > Why do you have "ip" in quotes, its literally the single most important thing in this conversation. Because "intellectual property" is a highly controversial term which conflates three complete unrelated categories of law that each have different origins and underlying justifications.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> If you want the local price to change, change the intellectual property law that inflates their price in the first place, dont repeal bans that circumvent the intellectual property laws. The ban doesn't circumvent "intellectual property" laws; the ban is what allows enables those laws to be effective at raising prices (which is the entire goal) in the first place. Reimporting prescription drugs from other OECD countries would be the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for prescription drug pricing problems in the US. (That's not the only problem, but it's a massive one).

basch 8y ago
Why would we waste the money importing them when we can just change our intellectual property laws to match their prices.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  The "intellectual property laws" you're describing are, specifically, the trade barriers. Unless you're comparing to countries which don't honor US drug patents at all, which is a valid argument but a pretty radical one. > Why would we waste the money importing them when we can just change our intellectual property laws to match their prices. You're missing the point. Nobody would import anything. The price differences on either side of the border only exist because of the artificial barrier to trade. Allowing drug imports from other countries establishes an upper bound on how much the manufacturers can charge for those same drugs in the US.