If he thought about this for two minutes (OK, maybe ten minutes), he would realize that the Canadiens' deal is contingent on the drugs not coming back into the U.S. The language is in the purchasing contracts signed by the Canadians. Major U.S. drug manufacturers have announced that they will withdraw their low price deals if their drugs find their way back here.
From Harvard Econ professor Robert J. Barro:
Another point is that drug companies sell at 50% off in Canada only
because they can reasonably well isolate the Canadian market
from the U.S. one. Policies that facilitate reimportation of drugs make it harder to separate those markets. If the leakage to the U.S. became large, as it would if
reimportation were fully legal and convenient, drug companies would be unwilling
to sell in Canada at 50% off. The companies would insist on 100% prices or
else would not sell there. Thus, Canada has the greatest self-interest
in preventing massive reimportation of drugs to the U.S.
Kerry (and others) are asleep at the switch on this one.http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/barro/bw/bw_04_0830.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment