>>>>>You cannot be serious...can you? That's not even a good attempt at spin. PMPRB is a governmental agency determining the maximum allowable price for patented drugs to be sold in Canada. On what planet is that not price fixing?
>>>>>
>>>>>Here's an example from today's news : http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=205120&Itemid=33
>>>>>The Board issued a Notice of Hearing pertaining to allegations of Board Staff that Concerta had been, and was being, sold by Janssen-Ortho Inc. at prices exceeding those indicated by the Board's Excessive Price Guidelines. On April 3, 2009, the Hearing Panel received a Voluntary Compliance Undertaking ("VCU") which proposed to resolve the issues raised in the Notice of Hearing.
>>>>>
>>>>>The VCU requires, among other things, that Janssen-Ortho offset excess revenues in the amount of $1,464,441.58 by making a payment to the Government of Canada. By Order of the Board, the proceeding into the price of Concerta is hereby concluded.
>>>>
>>>>OK, let's agree to call this a price fixing if you want. Given that, I'm still in favor of the governmental agency. I refuse to be taken in hostage by drug companies in the case that I desperatly need a given drug to survive.
>>>
>>>What if the governmental agency is the one taking you hostage.
>>>http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Arthritis-Consumer-Experts-980591.html
>>>
>>>That being said, I return to my premise. What do you think will happen if America adopts the same system and the drug companies suddenly find themselves without the American market to recover R&D costs?
>>>
>>>>>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300939,00.html
>>>>
>>>>I never said that our system is perfect.
>>>
>>>No system is perfect and that's beside the point. My questions are based what I see as obvious consequences of the US adopting a universal plan and whether or not Canadians as the nearest neighbor with an established universal plan in place are ready for them.
>>>
>>>>This is a case where improvment can/must be made. The bottom line is that thoses mothers and babies are alive and healthy today. Inconvenient? Yes. Life-threatening? Hardly.
>>>
>>>Some were life threatening. There are other examples involving surgery and cancer which can be easily googled.
>>
>>This'll scare the heck out of you. Nationalize the drug companies and make them part of the medicare system.
>
>That would scare the heck out of Jake, wouldn't it? He seems to love the status quo.

C'mon Mike you know me better than that. The current system robs the individual from control over possibly the most important aspect of their life, their own health and the health of their family. The individual and their doctor must go through at least one third party (medicare, medicaid, insurance, supplemental, health savings...) for every interaction. The system is a legal nightmare, inefficient, plagued by fraud, error and above all bureaucracy.

>And the more messed up and/or rapacious the industry is, the more he likes them! LOL. Like the government would be messing with perfection or something....

Adding more governmental bureaucracy further removes the patient their physician in addition to opening Pandora's box in terms of regulation over one's life. Numerous encroachments upon our freedom have already been made in the name of health, welfare and or "for the children" with the enforcement enacted via the threat of lost medicare payments. Once complete control is given over all aspects of one's life from where you live to what you eat and drink to activities you participate in are subject to governmental approval in the form of health care mediation and rationing. Look no further then restricted drugs, rejected surgical requests and health rationing taking place everywhere universal health care exists.

The current system is extremely flawed but the proposed solution is worse. We need to move our health model back towards a time of direct patient-doctor relationship.

Medicare and medicaid are already hopelessly over budget and get worse each year. I cannot imagine a worse idea then to turn the whole of the industry over to an entity that cannot manage even a fraction of the citizenry.