Hmm! Why would prescription drugs be cheaper in Canada? What could possibly be the difference between America and its northern neighbor, they're both equally advanced and developed. Something just makes their drugs cheaper. Weird! 🫠
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
159 points (97.6% liked)
United States | News & Politics
7152 readers
443 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Don't worry, our right-wing nutjobs are slowly chipping away at privatizing our health care system. Sooner or later we'll probably reach parity. 🙄
See also, the UK. Their healthcare system, the NHS, has been chipped away at by subsequent right wing governments. Now that there are huge waiting lists for even basic procedures and more shortfalls in services provided, right wingers are now calling for the actual dismantling of the NHS, and moving to a more American setup. They claim that centralized healthcare doesn't work and private health providers are 'more efficient'.
They refuse to acknowledge however that their repeated attempts to reduce funding and make life harder for staff is what got them where they are. Centralized universal healthcare isn't inherently bad or inefficient. It is only made bad by a lack of funding or addressing its issues. Private healthcare is not the fucking answer.
I'm not even British, I'm from Ireland, our healthcare system has a different issue, it's severely bloated by consultants, bad management and bureaucracy. It might be kinda shit sometimes, but at least, if I ever have a heart attack or a stroke, I know I won't need to worry about bills. It'll be a few hundred max.
If we sell our drugs to America on the cheap, we’ll probably end up buying them back at five times the price. Isn’t that how it works with our electricity and/or water?
It’s funny because when you realize the right wing nut jobs are really being directed and funded by billionaires it makes perfect sense.
It must be because Canada is part of the commonwealth 😏. If we had King Charles on our money who knows what great things might start happening.
I literally at least once a year lament the shortsightedness of the ultra-libertarians who founded the country. Imagine what we could have had as part of the Commonwealth over centuries!
I'm guessing:
- France probably would've sold Louisiana to Spain instead because they were enemies with England
- Spain would've controlled the West Coast, at least all of California
- Mexico might be a major power, controlling up to California and east to the Mississippi
- Hitler probably would've won against the UK, not sure if they'd cross the Atlantic
Then again, there's a lot of complexities when dealing with revisionist history.
Hitler would almost certainly have never been born, too many butterflies flapping their wings.
Perhaps, or maybe he would've been born, but he doesn't gain power. The US had a big part in the WWI reparations discussion, and the UK likely would've struck a very different deal. Hitler played off that deal to get power.
Or maybe France would've stayed a monarchy because the US didn't show that revolution was effective. That directly relates to the later conflict between Prussia and France, which could've been more or less severe.
So yeah, Commonwealth US is an interesting discussion, but ultimately very complicated.
Well yeah, when you subsidize something, it usually gets cheaper at the counter, since you're paying for it with tax dollars instead.
People who need cheaper prescription drug prices aren't paying a lot in taxes either.
Also, learn MMT. Taxes don't pay for anything when you can print your own currency.
Perhaps, I don't know much about Canadian taxes. I do know that, at least in Scandinavia, socialized medicine is largely funded by the middle class, not by the wealthy, whereas the US tax system is a lot heavier on the wealthy than the middle class or the poor.
But that's not my point, my point is that US citizens buying Canadian drugs are benefiting from Canadian taxes. I'm not sure how that works in Florida here, I'm guessing Florida gets a worse deal than a citizen visiting Canada.
The US tax system is not at all 'heavy' on the wealthy. The largest burden, proprtionally, falls on those with high earned incomes, doctors, lawyers, etc. these are the people who will be paying the higher marginal tax rates on substantial portions of their income.
The truly wealthy do not have high earned incomes, they acquire large assets and borrow against their value to pay for living expenses while avoiding taxes. This is the "buy, borrow, die" strategy, specifically designed to limit tax liability.
Yes, you're right. I was a bit loose with the terminology.
I think we should absolutely count stock options and whatnot as earned income, so CEOs and whatnot pay taxes upon receipt as the delta between purchase price and NAV. But that's a separate discussion.
I do not care about the middle class. 🙄
The majority, the working class, need socialized medicine.
The middle class is defined as the middle income. For example, for Pew Research, it's between 67-200% of the median income, so by definition, less than half are below and less than half are above.
So the middle class is part of either majority.
When the top 1% holds 15 times more wealth than the bottom 50% you can't just define middle class as "middle income." That's a child's understanding of class dynamics.
Middle class is literally that - the class between the working class and the ruling class. Managers, professionals, small business owners, etc. A middle income welder is still working class!
Nobody said there's a clear separation between "working class" and "middle class," and I think most people understand the upper end of the "working class" to be middle class or higher.
Middle class is, by definition, the people in the middle of the income scale. A middle income welder is middle class. There are managers below middle class (i.e. fast food managers probably make like $30-40k), and there are tradespeople who make more than middle class. Middle class is literally just the people who are between 67% and 200% of the median income.
The definition for "working class" is even more squishy, and it's loosely defined as people without a college education (iffy Wikipedia article, claims it contains 30-35% of the population). There's a lot of overlap with "lower middle class," and it's definitely not a "majority" by pretty much any "official" standard, though it's often the biggest group (i.e. it's a plurality). So you'll have some overlap with income-based classes since "working class" is generally education-based instead of income-based.
Middle class is, by definition, the people in the middle of the income scale.
Here is the definition from the The American Heritage Dictionary:
The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class, usually including professionals, highly skilled laborers, and lower and middle management.
A social and economic class lying above the working class and below the upper class.
The groups in society composed of professionals, semi-professionals, and lower-to-middle managerial level workers.
Class is not just about income. It's about social hierarchy as well, and not bothering to capture that is really missing the point.
There are managers below middle class (i.e. fast food managers probably make like $30-40k)
They actually don't. The annual mean wage of a restaurant food manager is $63,820.
American heritage dictionary
That's an extremely vague definition, especially when "working class" and "upper class" are also very vague.
Here's the calculator Pew provides, along with its definition, and AFAIK that's what's used in articles like this that discuss the shrinking middle class.
There's no objective definition everyone agrees on, but I think Pew's is fair and makes things really objective and easy to track, and it seems a lot of news agencies use their definitions, so I will too.
mean wage of a restaurant food manager
Mean is not median, so this is lumping in regional managers and whatnot which skews it heavily upward. I'm talking about the shift managers at a single store, someone hired by a franchisee to handle day to day operations. They won't be there flipping burgers unless they're severely understaffed, so they're firmly in "manager" territory.
I use "median" when I talk about averages in terms of demographics, because that has the nice property of splitting a group into two of equal size.
That’s an extremely vague definition, especially when “working class” and “upper class” are also very vague.
Welcome to political science, where there aren't neeat and tidy financialized definitions of every word we use. I get our disconnect, though, you're hung up on numbers and I'm hung up on words and we're just talking past each other.
And that's why the numbers exist, no? So we have a common, objective common ground?
Something vague like "worker" can be interpreted however you choose to suit your argument. Are doctors and surgeons "workers"? They work with their hands. If we limit it to uneducated people, what about professional athletes drafted from high school? Maybe playing sports doesn't count. What about landscapers or general contractors, some can make hundreds of thousands if they service high end customers. Ok, maybe limit it to hourly employees, not small business owners. There are also lots of apprenticeship-based jobs that can pay six figs for highly proficient individuals.
It makes a lot more sense to just use income ranges for class segmentations instead of something vague that can be manipulated based on the discussion.
No, numbers exist to measure and count objective things. How much numerical comfort do people need or deserve? How much free time? How much happiness? Ridiculous
Yes, like "how many people are middle class vs working class?" or "how much does the typical person earn?"
Free time is something that can also be objectively measured, just look at psychological profiles of people who are burned out, depressed, etc vs those that are happy with their work-life balance. Take the standard deviation of that and time off should be above that.
Happiness isn't really an objective thing, but there are lots of factors that can be objectively measured, like correlation between income and self-reported happiness.
If we're talking about public policy, we need to be objective, we shouldn't just make policy based on feel.
Free time is something that can also be objectively measured, just look at psychological profiles of people who are burned out, depressed, etc vs those that are happy with their work-life balance. Take the standard deviation of that and time off should be above that.
This is quite telling.
First, you presuppose that we should work people right up until the limit of psychological stress. Find out how much is too much work and then make them work slightly less than that.
Then, you presuppose you can just prescribe a one size fits all solution. As if we all burn out at the same rate, as if every job has the same burnout rate, it's all very mechanical and neat.
Further, you presuppose that you can even objectively evaluate psychological profiles!
You even presuppose that free time is value neutral, so that the quality of free time is irrelevant and only quantity matters.
Basically, by only sticking to numbers, you failed to do the most basic thing: ask workers how much free time they would like. You don't care what they want. You think there's an objective answer that can be arrived at mathematically.
First, you presuppose that we should work people right up until the limit of psychological stress
I didn't say that.
I said that's the minimum time off.
Then, you presuppose you can just prescribe a one size fits all solution
Again, I didn't say that.
I didn't suggest any solutions, I merely gave objective measures for the examples you gave. Those are useful at a high level for policy decisions and whatnot, though any kind of broad measure will break down at the individual level. We're not talking about individuals here, we're talking about politics.
objectively evaluate psychological profiles
Again, I didn't say that.
I said that psychological profiles can be used to draw statistical conclusions. Individual psychological profiles are inaccurate, but over a sufficiently large, random sample, they should average out to a useful metric for a given study.
free time is value neutral
Again, I didn't say that.
I'm talking about broad metrics across a population, not at an individual level. Individuals should negotiate something that works better for them. I personally value time off more than equivalent pay, while several of my coworkers feel the opposite way.
ask workers how much free time they would like
Sure, that's what a usual metric, especially if you compare current time off vs desired time off, along with the rest of the data (e.g. do people who burn out want more time off, or are they not using the time they have?).
When trying to solve systemic problems like depression, reduced productivity, or high turnover, more data is almost always better.
I didn’t say that.
You did! You said "Take the standard deviation of that and time off should be above that." How am I supposed to read that as anything other than "look at what level of work causes burnout/depression/etc. and then give them enough time off above that"?
I didn’t suggest any solutions
We must have had a miscommunication because, again, it sure sounded like you were proposing how much time off people should get i.e. "Take the standard deviation of that and time off should be above that."
Individual psychological profiles are inaccurate, but over a sufficiently large, random sample, they should average out to a useful metric for a given study.
I’m talking about broad metrics across a population, not at an individual level
So what do you do with people who fall outside the normal standard deviation? If someone needs more time off than average, what do you propose we do with them?
Sure, that’s what a usual metric
imo the usual metric is the market rate. You get as much time off as the market will allow.
Seems oddly progressive until you take into account the high percentage of Florida's population that's retirees and boomers who are probably heavily medicated.
Just goes to show that Florida's regressive legislators know what side their bread is buttered on. We always knew that Republicans don't actually believe in anything besides staying in power at all costs, but this is interesting in that someone crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that they had to actually appeal to the voter base instead of allowing their constituents to be fleeced by pharmaceutical companies who undoubtedly lobbied against this. Hopefully this is just the beginning and causes inflated drug process in this country to normalize a other states adopt this
Worse: you don't even have to go that far back to see Republicans sabotaging the needs of diabetics because they were angry at Biden.
No no, you don't understand, this is a different country's government healthcare so it's all good. It's only US government provided healthcare that's evil.
/s
Seriously though, the mental gymnastics that Republicans need to engage in to justify their crap policies is mind boggling. They create problems, partially solve the problems they created in the worst and/or most corrupt way possible, and then have the gall to take a victory lap over it.
As a Canadian, I can't see this not fucking over our own access to medication that we need, especially when our own governments are actively trying to dismantle what little socialised healthcare we have. It's going to be like the Ozempic weight loss craze depriving diebetics of the drug, but for every drug. You're one of the wealthiest states in the single wealthiest country in the world, surely you have the means to provide your own citizens with affordable medication, at least much more so than Canada with our tiny population density and comparatively low GDP. To put it not so politely, we shouldn't be punished and forced to take on the burden of providing medication to you simply because you choose not to.
Look we've been trying, the private insurance companies aren't budging. Single Payer is the goal, but we're gonna need to not die in the meantime, so hand over the affordable insulin.
so hand over the affordable insulin.
Because Americans are somehow more deserving of not dying than Canadians? If a Canadian diabetic suddenly can't afford Insulin because it's all going to the US, that doesn't matter to you? Should every country be obliged to pitch in to make sure the richest country in the world has enough resources to sustain itself even at the cost of their own citizens' lives, then?
Also, if you recognize that you need Canada's help to, quote, "not die," maybe demanding we "hand it over" isn't the best way sway attitudes about this over here.
You act like scarcity's real, take it up with the 1% who create it artificially and stop victim blaming.
And while you're gone, we'll be using dat insulin, because I'm tired of reading about what a bright future this teenager had if only he had just a few million shillings more for this medicine that is pretty much not even slightly hard to obtain in literally every other country.
You act like scarcity’s real, take it up with the 1% who create it artificially and stop victim blaming.
And this does not apply to Americans too? What's stopping Americans from taking it up with the 1% that artificially create scarcity for you then? And if you can't, what makes you think we can? You think the Canadian 1% is somehow polite and apologetic compared to yours? You just stated that your 1% won't budge when you tried to change them, yet your apparent solution is for us to do the same thing which didn't work in your country?
You tell me to stop victim blaming yet you seem to have no sympathy for how this will affect average Canadians, who are as powerless to do anything about this as average Americans. We're not some bastion of socilaized healthcare, in fact we're considered low tier in terms of the extent of socialized healthcare we have compared to the rest of the world. Canada is as capitalist as the US so this will negatively affect our (the average Canadian's) access to life saving drugs. If you're so against victim blaming then why are you blaming us for being bothered by this when we didn't create the problem and are also victims of the same thing? You rightly make it clear you won't accept this, so why should we?
To be clear, I hate the fact that the average American doesn't have access to medication as much as you do. I don't personally blame any individual American, you or anyone else, for buying drugs from Canada, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with the broader concept as a whole, I should have made that more clear and I apologize for not doing that. The solution should be improving the US's healthcare system and not leeching off Canada's, and again, it's not like there's a lack of resources to do that in the richest country in the world, you're the furthest thing from a developing country. If you said that we should work together to implement non profit-motivated healthcare for both the US and Canada and beyond, I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Maybe that's what you meant, but the way I interpreted it is that you feel entitled to our (somewhat) affordable medication just because we have it and you don't, and we should simply take a share in your problem to lessen it for you while making it worse for us, instead of actively working to make yours or everyone's more affordable.
We've BEEN trying to get improvements to our healthcare system, you guys already have single payer. Your insulin's free, you're complaining for nothing, it's not the end of the world if your people are selling to our people. That's how commerce has worked for millions of years.
Florida no!
Wait... wait, no this is a good thing, sorry, force of habit. Carry on
So, we've just been doing this illegally all these years?
Who's that mobster down there? Desantis? Ain't that his name? Yeah. That's it. What's his cut going to be?
His cut from what? Canada?
Do you understand how today's modern mob works? He'll be shaking down Canadian drug firms with his special 'tariffs'.