Exclusive - Transatlantic divide: how U.S. pays three times more for drugs

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. prices for the world's 20 top-selling medicines are, on average, three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried out for Reuters.

The finding underscores a transatlantic gulf between the price of treatments for a range of diseases and follows demands for lower drug costs in America from industry critics such as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The 20 medicines, which together accounted for 15 percent of global pharmaceuticals spending in 2014, are a major source of profits for companies including AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer and Roche.

Researchers from Britain's University of Liverpool also found U.S. prices were consistently higher than in other European markets. Elsewhere, U.S. prices were six times higher than in Brazil and 16 times higher than the average in the lowest-price country, which was usually India.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-transatlantic-divide-u-pays-three-times-more-143032639--finance.html

[Doctor_J]

1. The result of our president kicking the collective ass of the republicans in 2010

ACA is the greatest legislative achievement in history - better than Medicare, Medicaid, the voting rights act, and social security (actual posted opinion on du).

But look at the bright side - it's better than it will be when TPP kicks in

[Babel_17]

2. And its not like its a bill that gets sent only to our government

The cost is borne by some of our most tragically vulnerable fellow Americans. Skipping on doses, meals, bills, and other basic expenses, to feed the maw of this lobbied up industry.

[antigop]

3. amazing that the article would mention HRC, but not Bernie, as an "industry critic" nt

[McCamy Taylor]

4. The Guardian UK decried health care reform in the US, saying that if we

lowered the price we paid for drugs here, people in the UK would have to pay more. Should the US really be subsidizing the health care of western Europe?

[frizzled]

5. The guardian says a lot of crap, they also supported the invasion of Iraq

nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Wrong:

The deliberate scuppering of the UN diplomatic process and the launching of war against Iraq in the next few days without explicit UN authorisation cannot be supported.
...
They have no legal mandate to attack, let alone a mandate for regime change and an indefinite occupation. Rarely has war been launched from such shaky ground. Rarely have a war's proponents been so blind, so wrong and in such a rush.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/17/iraq.foreignpolicy

Mr Cook resigned not to boost his career - not even the most optimistic of the small band of Cookites seriously expects that their man will be back - but because he correctly felt that the government has failed in its Iraq policy and should be stopped, if possible, from committing UK troops in tonight's emergency Commons debate. The reasons which Mr Cook set out in his resignation statement last night could not have been more compelling. The war that George Bush is determined to launch, and to which Tony Blair is signed up, lacks either international support or, even after the interesting shifts in today's ICM poll, domestic backing.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/mar/18/foreignpolicy.iraq

[frizzled]

8. Right: www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jan/19/leaders.politics

They supported invasion when it counted.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. That's The Observer, not The Guardian

The Observer has repeatedly argued, and we continue to do so, that any such military action must have multilateral legitimacy

[frizzled]

11. Same people, same paper. Guardian also had other pro-war people like Freedland, Aaronovich

Demanding "multilateral support" for neocon wars is hilarious.

"Military intervention in the Middle East holds many dangers. But if we want a lasting peace it may be the only option"

You can't get around the fact they said that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Different people, different paper

Observer editor at that time, Roger Alton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Alton
Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Rusbridger

The Guardian Media Group bought The Observer in 1993, but it also owned the Manchester Evening News. That's a different paper too.

The editorials express the line of a newspaper, not every columnist. But Aaronovitch left the Guardian not long after, largely, it seemed, because of his disagreement on Iraq (he went to The Times, while Simon Jenkins, who was against the war, came in the opposite direction).

I think you're wrong about Freedland, by the way:

Those who want to avert war can no longer simply shake their heads and say they would not have started from here. We are here now and our urgent task is to stop the slide over there - towards mayhem and death.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/22/iraq.foreignpolicy

If this sounds like the harmless delusions of an eccentric fringe, think again. The founder members of the project, launched in 1997 as a Republican assault on the Clinton presidency, form a rollcall of today's Bush inner circle. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle - they're all there. So too is Zalmay Khalilzad, now the White House's "special envoy and ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/26/iraq.foreignpolicy1

It will be hard to say all this once the killing begins in earnest: the drama of war will make opposition look pale and passe. But doubters should hold their nerve. Our reason for opposition was never that victory would not come easily: most predicted it would. We feared instead for what that victory would cost and what would happen afterwards - and those fears still stand.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/19/iraq.politics1

[frizzled]

13. Rusbridger is executive editor of the Observer; same people. Freedland often defended the invasion.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-107266924.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. That's not a defence of the invasion; it's saying how bad it had been

Here's a copy in full (the original doesn't seem available):

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/1928535#1928535

That's definitely anti-war.

The Observer had its own editorial team, with their own editorial line. That was widely known at the time, and it's widely known now. The Iraq war was the most obvious example of it. The vastly different editorials show it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Link, please

That's such a bizarre claim that I can't just show it's wrong without some context. It's possible that they pointed out at some time that the profits for drug firms come largely from the USA, and a decrease there might make them fight harder for higher prices in the UK. But to cast that as "The Guardian UK decried health care reform in the US" is bullshit of the highest order.

So, what did you read that led to to believe that?

[frizzled]

6. The pharma sector is the only one that screws Americans, unlike telecoms, internet, finance, farming

Maybe it would be quicker to list industries that aren't corrupt oligopolies?

[McKim]

15. Spain: Ten Days of Antibiotics Costs Me .86

When I was in Spain and got an infection I went to the doctor in my neighborhood for $40 as a foreigner. When I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription the antibiotics cost me .86. Big Pharma is ripping us off and hurting poor people here.