Doug Winterburn without knowing what he was
saying wrote
One thing he's going to do is import those cheap foreign drugs and save us
a ton of money - whoops, there went *those* high paying US jobs to foreign
countries! I wonder what's so different in this scenario than folks
saying "buy from your local woodworking tool guy even if it costs more
than those cheap imports"?

-Doug

"...Those cheap foreign drugs" are actually manufactured by U.S.
companies (often IN the U.S.), then sold to Canadian firms at far less
than the artificially high U.S. market price. They could therefore be
"imported" without taking jobs from U.S. workers. Granted, the drug
companies would realize less than the profit "to which they've become
accustomed", but then I don't know many businesses that get the kinds
of margins they realize on U.S. sales (I've seen figures upwards of
200%). That is why they fought so hard to keep "foreign" drugs out of
the U.S. market.

These companies constitute an oligopoly, and with this
administration's help, they continue to have very fat wallets, of
which very little trickles to the workers (although I do know that
drug company sales reps in this country have INCREDIBLE expense
accounts--they routinely [almost weekly] buy very good catered lunches
for my GP's whole group--about 7 Docs, as many nurses, plus the
secretaries. And that's just his office; the building houses nearly
50 other practices and a pharmacy, and they all get visits from drug
reps.) U.S. drug company CEOs remain among the highest compensated in
the world. Now, tell me again why your parents' blood preasure meds
cost so much every month. . .

Dan