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> 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 th
by chimeracoder 7y 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 7y agoWhy would we waste the money importing them when we can just change our intellectual property laws to match their prices.
- chimeracoder 7y agoThe "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.