Sen. Dodd when on Martha's Vineyard allegedly filled his pockets with Green from the Pharmaceutical Company's, so that as part of Obama Care, on whose committee Sen. Dodd sat, would allow the Companies to keep their prices high for 12 years.....I believe that failed, so instead, It is my belief that the Companies then created the "shortage"....

It's an absolutely broken system where big pharma is not regulated and has no obligations to do anything but make a fortune off of the pain and suffering of people.

Thank you congress persons of the last 30 years for allowing these monsters to grow so powerful they even own you.

Why is there a shortage? I'm guessing it MIGHT be related to the shortages in various crops that have help raise grocery prices - those drugs are manufactured from SOMETHING! But that's just a guess - I'd like to know the answer to that myself!

For-Profit Health Care Systems work like this.

You COULD have a government which uses common sense, by regulating markets that directly affect your well being, and de-regulating those which do not. But don't tell TEA BAGGERS and WALL STREET DEMOCRATS that. Because you either have to reach inside your home to stop you from eating a piece of cheese (because it is fatty, Oh cry!) OR you have to deregulate the water safety rules because the free market would then allow you to buy disintery causing water for a low low price!

Welcome to the modern, stupidly angry, red-faced mouth foaming society. We don't do math or science, we yell and scream instead.

Total agreement with all the comments regarding greed and corruption, and the inability of anyone to not be a huge jerk, solve problems like adults, or stand up for themselves, their constituents or even their own values.

Big Pharma holds a special place in my heart, along with big telecom companies. I imagine that the heads of these business all meet at a bar in New Yord every other day to laugh with each other about the crazy @!$%# they get away with and the ridiculous influence they hold. If I was them I'd be laughing all the way to the bank, then all the way to my lobbyist meeting, then even harder when my lobbyists get what I want even though it is clearly hurtful to everyone else in the country, and helpful to my pocket book, then I laugh more on the way to the bank again.

We should remove patents from any drugs the manufacturer is unable to keep a supply of.

Another way for the medical industry scam artists to make a dishonest buck

Yes - Obamacare will eat into their profits, so they are sticking it to the American people. After all Bush gave them the high price non-negotiable contracts in 2002.

Solution to the problem - allow importation of these drugs. There is no shortage of these drugs in the rest of the world. This will shut down the gray marketers (where do you think these crooks are getting their drugs from?), and teach local pharma that they can not hold the country to ransom!

Drugs are typically artificially created and not seasonally dependent on the environment so if there is a shortage usually it means manufacturers aren't producing like they normally do. Creating a shortage would benefit them due to economic laws of supply and demand - what better way to justify increasing your profit margin in a recession.

Creating artificial value & manipulating supply & demand is the hallmark of every business the TP wants "deregulated".Oil speculators taught the other industries how to work the American public - start by creating shortages, demand fewer regulations, ramp up the price anyway. We'll all forget about THIS problem when the next war gets underwritten - or another Kardashian gets married...

C'mon, Eddie....don't single one out. There is definitely a band of hoodlums associated with this over the years from every walk of political life... Name them all or we might get a scewed view of the problem.

how funny the conservative blame obomacare but what has really happend is the bush medicare pharmicutical coverage has sucked the supplies out of the system was not payed for hint hint. for the pure profit of the large pharma companies. also drunken doctors writing every pascription they can and charge medicare outrages fee's for 15 minute visits. now you know really how medicare is making us bankrupt.

conservative unfunded laws from the past 8 years. Some of those drunken congress and senitors are still in office crying balance the budget, and what about the debt know. What b.s..

Most financial experts will tell you that THE most profitable business to be in is Pharmaceuticals. To "create' even more wealth for these Big drug companies, all one has to do is decrease production (or slow distribution) of the most used drugs in your inventory to drive prices up. The people at the top of the corporate ladders know their economics lessons very well. And the hell with you and your family. Why do you think those Congressmen and Senators with connections to the drug industry FOUGHT legislation that would require the Federal Government to seek better and cheaper ways for them to acquire drugs for Medicare and Medicaid programs? It's the VERY reason drugs are cheaper in many other countries. The drug companies have to bid for the business.

And people wonder why Marijuana is still illegal, well we can't have a drug that actually works, is readily available, and wont be in a short supply ever. And we can't have that "Drug" eating in to the greedy hands of wall streeters and their share holders now can we. This is for all of you cons(repubs and teabaggers) out there, stop acting like the sheeple that you have been trained to be and help LEGALIZE IT already, before there is nothing left. And the nothing left thing is coming full speed ahead, oh well, it was nice knowing you America, guess it is time to turn out the lights, cuz the party is over.

The article stated why shortages occur - it's not just "anonymous commentary". All of those issues are real. Why should a company continue making a product they can't make money on? Just because it's a pharma company doesn't mean they have to do it at a loss - there has to be some market incentive.

There is no shortage of drugs. These are basicly scalpers sucking up some of the supply for the expected demand and reselling high. This is the free market regulating itself.

There are many facets to the drug shortage. Part of the problem lies in the fact that most stateside suppliers resort to their normal sources. The reason being that they say the vendors are providing safe, top quality drugs. But the counter to that is where are all of the bad and lower quality drugs going? If they are being sold to other countries, where are all of the deaths/illnesses as a result of the lower quality/contaminated drugs? If they are being destroyed by the manufacturer, then aren't all drugs released by the manufacturer of the same quality (thus negating the claims of lower quality drugs in any supply system)?

A second reason for the low levels of supply could be that most drugs have a "shelf life". So if a drug has a low usage or a sporadic usage, it may be tough to predict when the need for that particular drug surges.

A third reason for perceived shortages is the induced shortages. One recent example of this is the "flavor of the month" flu strain. Most people remember when the U.S. was going to have an epidemic that would wipe out a majority of the population if EVERYBODY wasn't inoculated. It turned out to just be a Chicken Little cry. When the existing supply was destroyed because "it may have lost its potency" and it took months to create a new supply, people looked at the reality of the situation. There weren't mass graves being dug to inter the hordes of dead bodies. And when the new supply was available, what was once selling for $100/shot to "existing patients" couldn't be given away.

How many hospitals do health insurance companies currently own?

Coupled with the trend - Downsize Merger Downsize Outsource.

Medicare for all is the answer to many of these problems

Why is there a shortage? Hire more people? No. It is not a shortage of workers, if so they would just hire more. Unfortunately it would not help our economy because most likely the drug is made in Canada, Ireland, Germany or Puerto Rico. It's not available anymore because it is probably a drug you can't make a profit on, or they are getting sued by one of the hundred or so lawyers on TV talking about if you had a side effect from the drug (that was probably listed on the warning label when you bought it).

Doesn't matter what I think!

Medicare for all can be as destructive as the current.

Medicare for all + Health Insurance Companies.

Once a drug dealer. always a drug dealer.

No difference between the two other than one uses the law to CYA.

Did you people read the article? The "grey market" drugs are coming from unknown sources. Not the reputable drug companies. They have had raw material shortages, production problems and have stopped producing. The last being subject to claims/lawsuits the cannot be paid from their profits. The drug industryis the most regulated. The distribution may not have the same level of regulation.

Orphan drug research has been dramatically curtailed so you have those drugs not available.

I would be willing to bet these drug shortages and steep price increases is an effort on Big Pharma's part to play into the GOP story that ObamaCare will make your health insurance more costly.

See, its already happening - and until someone destroys ObamaCare, its only going to get worse!!!! (panic, run around with hands up, quick somebody, kill ObamaCare before it kills us all).

Once ObamaCare is destroyed, Big Pharma will ramp up production, lower costs...and all will be right in the world, all will be saved.

Doesnt it feel good to know that Big Business runs our nation/govt?

By the People, For the People, Of the People.

DUH, BUSINESSES ARE PEOPLE NOW...what was I thinking.

No government regulations at it's best. Free markets to left regulate themselves. Capitalism at it's best. The corporations, Oh I mean people will impose self government policies. NOT. The Rich get greedier and resort to extortion by any means necessarily. This is what the TeabagRepublicans want. So if you are a Republican vote for them so they can increase your medical costs to the point were you can't afford it. Which means vote against your own interest. FOOLS. I can't see how anyone can call themselves a TeabagRepublican. Putting extreme policies in place that actually kills people some how should be good for America. WOW.

eddie s,

Your post #1.1 is a fine mix of fiction and more fiction. Care to share the source of your alleged pharmaceutical "kickback" to Senator Dodd? I thought NOT! You know eddie, 90% of all mental illness starts with lying! Sooner or later the lier does not know the lies from the reality. Know what I mean?

Drug shortages have happened in every generation, no matter who is in power. Reason is the tightening regulation puts the squeeze on ability to manufacture. Look at the FDA approvals of NDA, they have dramatically decreased over the past decade while costs associated with drug development have increased. One reason is that a whole new class of drug...the small biotech biologic...has been invented requiring an entirely new form of regulation. Then look at logistics...the cGMPs that no other industry is held to, the ability to obtain, transport API and excipients, not to mention distribute the final product, costs more than it ever used to as oil prices rise. Next look at the changing climate in congress surrounding fast track status for generics and biologics. Lastly, look at the number of M&A deals happening since mid 2000's and the amount of regulatory oversight that has required.

The reason for these shortages is the unattainable, unenforceable regulations imposed because of the "public outcry" without stopping to think about downstream effects. The changes the industry has seen the past decade has put intense strain on not only the company, but the regulatory agency too...the FDA. That causes massive problem where no check nor balance can take place. What we need is an overhaul of the system such that rules already in place can be followed and enforced. That wont be popular, but it is the truth if anyone cares to learn about the industry and not make uneducated, knee jerk reactions any time a story with the word "pharma" runs.

Sen. Dodd when on Martha's Vineyard allegedly filled his pockets with Green from the Pharmaceutical Company's, so that as part of Obama Care, on whose committee Sen. Dodd sat, would allow the Companies to keep their prices high for 12 years

Do you even have a clue what you are talking about? That 12 years you claim that these companies get to keep their prices high is in fact simply that a company who develops a treatment or medication, gets 12 years before generics can be made of it. Why is that unfair since these companies also spend billions of dollars to develop new stuff, then jump thru all the hoops involved in getting it legally to market?

Some of you guys bitch and moan and yet 90% of those complaining haven't a clue what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act actually involves. Did you know that the Congressional Budget Office says that this will actually lower the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years? The CBO, not Obama's spokesmen.

The US Drug "Cartels" don't want to import drugs from other country "Cartels" to cut in on their "turf". So they get the FDA to say that imported drugs are "unsafe". Now whose playing Monopoly. All the other tangible goods have to deal with the onslaught of imported goods except the Drug "Cartels" Time to let the free market really play out in this arena

What the corporate free market thugs don't want you to know. They're bastard people out to make a killing.
Pharmaceutical supply is the same as energy supply is the same as electronic components supply. The way it works in electronics supply is the manufacturers don't care who they sell inventory to and the middle man shady distributors watch the stock (they get quotes from the manufacturer or it's listed online so they know price and lead time) and when they can see there is a lull?? in supply they buy it up. Then if anybody is searching for the component they know they're the only ones with stock and if you want your job to ship, you will pay 2,3,10 times what they paid for it, see supply and demand, they've got the supply and they demand your money or else forget it. BAD when it happens in electronics, criminal when peoples lives are on the line. Of course the manufacturers know this, they split the profits. People in California will tell you how Enron screwed us with the same BS. Who among us believed that there was a real shortage. Funny thing though, when CA. asked the Bush administration energy dept to look into it they were told to pound sand. Of course the truth finally came out and of course CA WAS RIPPED OFF TO THE TUNE OF 4 PLUS BILLION DOLLARS.

Have a nice day.

Chris -

You are wrong about them spending millions/billions. Most drug companies acquire a drug after the govt provided the grants fo research. They only take over when its in the final stages. They do not have most of the out of pocket expense. The highest expense is bidding to buy the research and patenting it.

Gini L:

I was with you about digging deeper into the matter. Of course, then you announced you conclusion. It is all about greed. Perhaps your opening comments were nothing more than fluff. It is your kind of "digging deeper" that serves no one well.

Next time, take your own advice.

I am disappointed in such laziness.

Um no.

"Currently, the research and development cost of each new molecular entity (NME) is approximately US$1.8 billion"

The National Institute of Health, from which these grants for research come from, has a maximum grant amount of $200,000 per year. So please explain to me how .0009% of that $1.8 billion could have any effect on bringing something to market?

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm

Please, feel free to look it up yourself. Don't take my word for it.

Also, to learn the basics of how it works try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development however be advised that the wiki article has multiple values given for overall costs, varying from $55 million to over $2 billion. My info came from the NIH site.

emma you are 110% wrong, so wrong in fact, it demonstrates how little the general public knows about drug development....which is completely different than drug discovery. First about discovery, this is where 10's of thousands of potential molecules are screened down to about 10. Costly and time consuming when the pharmaceutical company does it, which is most of the time. The companies can reduce discovery costs by in-licensing the target molecule from another research institution if it has been demonstrated to have clinical utility. This is not always the case, and besides, have you ever talked to a tech transfer office? Not cheap!

Now, the real cost is in the drug development. This is taking a target molecule through Phase I-III clinical trials which are regulated by the FDA. Trials can involve hundreds or thousands of patients, and take up to 10 years. The expense of performing clinical trials over this time, coupled with cost of running the company over this time, compensating employees, compensating research participants, developing marketing programs, etc., usually adds up to over $1B. The balance sheets are available for publicly traded companies and you can look these up if you care to do your own research.

I'll make this short. Time to nationalize Big Pharma. They're killing us.

Jessica, post 1.25 - good post! In the "olden days" when Pharma was more regulated and COULD NOT ADVERTISE - their biggest cost was "research and development". Now that they can advertise, the advertising makes the "R&D" look small by comparison. There is no necessity for all of the exorbitant charges - AND PROFITS - of the big Pharma! There is claim this is costing them so much - if that is the case then why do their profits keep going up, Up, UP, UP!!!???

Another possibly little known fact is that the Pharma companies can only charge the U.S. citizens for their R&D costs, and cannot pass those on to the foreign countries they sell to. That is why they can sell to the foreigners for a much smaller price than to us. Unfortunately they are also passing those advertising costs on to us. We are not doctors nor do we have the medical schooling to judge which drugs would be good for what ails us. Let them go back to educating the doctors about new drugs and get those ads off the TV, out of the magazines and newspapers and all other forms of media!

The problem is NOT ENOUGH REGULATIONS. During WW II there were controls in place so that the companies could not rip off or deprive people of the things necessary for continuing life. Too bad we don't have some of those regulations now - it has come to the point where many of us "ration" our drugs because we can't afford them. When my doctor wants to prescribe any medication, my first question is cost, and if one of the more expensive drugs, I ask if there are alternatives that are generic. (My doctor is very conservative in prescribing, but I often get the prescription changed to generic which so far have worked fine for me!)

there is no profit in a cure, teach a man to fish, you lost a great business opportunity

looks like pat in socal beat me to the punch.

They have had raw material shortages, production problems and have stopped producing.

as Pat noted, that sounds an awful lot like the BS line that Enron used to manipulate the markets.

Chris: "Once a drug dealer. always a drug dealer."

Hate to break it to you, but in that case, a drug dealer saved your wife's life by coming up with taxol for her breast cancer, imatinib for my son's chronic myelogenous leukemia, and nilotinib in case he was unresponsive to that imatinib. Gefitinib is currently in clinical trials for your neighbor's lung cancer. The list goes on. I've stopped even reading Newsvine when it comes to these kinds of articles.

Yes, everyone hates big pharma, until dad's shortness of breath turns out to be lung cancer, or my neighbor's daughter's so-called "mole" turns out to be melanoma. It blows my mind that the average American has absolutely no clue how much it costs to make each drug, go through years of clinical trials, and then just hope it eventually gets approved.

Why in God's name would these companies want to make more drugs when there is no profit from that? Let me guess: they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts, right? Maybe you and I should both quit our jobs in that case, and just take the next flight to Sudan, and start volunteering there. Out of the goodness of our hearts.

Next time you go to Walmart and pay $4 for dad's allopurinol, please pause for just one second, and think to yourself how many years hundreds and hundreds of people went to school to get their microbiology and molecular biology PhDs and MDs, and how many millions of dollars were spent in research (which could have been futile!), just to come up with something that had a shot at your dad or my dad's gout.

While I have no love for Big Pharma, I am afraid that kidsdoctor has some great points. The research and development for drugs is no joke.

Could not agree more. Yes, the drug manufacturers spend alot of money on research and developement but they also spend alot of money on advertising to the public. The US and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow drug companies to advertise directly to the public and we did not always allow it. Doctors need to be making drug prescription decisions not patients. And yet we all know people see these advertisements on TV and then demand that their doctor write them a prescription for that particular drug. Of course, the doctor can refuse but I will bet the patient just goes to another doctor until they get a prescription. And yes, Medicare Part D passed by a majority Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President does not allow the US Government to bid with pharmaceutical companies to get a lower price due to the quantity they are purchasing (the Veteran's Administration does just that and so do most other countries which cover prescriptions under their single payer systems.) We are the only idiots on the block who insist on paying close to full price - no negotiating. And you can bet pharmaceutical companies doing business in the US do not want their US customers purchasing drugs from Canadian pharmicies at a reduced price.

Thank you Kyle. Please don't get me wrong: I am not a huge fan of Big Pharma either, but it does kind of irritate me that they've become like lawyers: everyone hates them until they need one.

This is a bunch of BS. Isnt' it funny that the drugs that are in shortage are those needed for emergency and critical care? Hey, MSNBC, ever hear of investigative journalism?

Years ago, seniors used to travel to Canada and Mexico to buy their prescription drugs at lower prices. Big Pharma immediately issued warnings against buying drugs out of market, stating that one could never be sure of what those drugs were. Now hospitals are buying gray market drugs.

It's all about profit. Let's find a way to get even more money out of these providers, especially since some of these drugs are going generic, so we'll lose billions of dollars. Oil shortage, food shortage, drug shortage--all created to get your measly dollars. A payroll tax cut doesn't go to far, does it?

Isn't R&D part of the normal Pharma budget? I find the rationale that some drugs cost some $100,000 a year because of the research expense hard to believe. I'm grateful that we have the drugs we have, but just can't understand why my overseas and Canadian relatives don't have to pay the phenomenal amounts we have to pay. Also, I've heard of no shortages in those countries. Big Pharma, for-profit hospitals and health insurance companies are taking us all for a ride and so are the politicians who are getting fat from their lobbyists; but until we start using our brains when we vote, this "great" system will no doubt continue.

Its very simple to raise the price of drugs, or anything else for that matter. All you have to do is buy all you can, preferably all there is for sale and then resell it at a higher price. If you know it's a drug that isn't mass produce and flooded into the market you've got a winner. You could even go as far as to set up a phony pharmacy and only order the drugs you can make the most with in the gray market. It really sucks that there are people that would stoop so low as to make money off of a sick person but that's not how they think of it. Medicare pays the price. Medicare regulates the price doctors can charge who is monitoring the prices pharmacies charge? Here's a good example of Medicare fraud: Walgreens sells diabetic test strips (Walgreens brand) for $52.00 per 100 cash but if you go to the drug store with a prescription they bill the insurance/Medicare $140.00+ for the same strips, I know this because my insurance company did not want me to use Walgreens test strips. They told me they are the most expensive of all the brands but the cheapest if you pay cash for them. How can that be possible? Medicare doesn't go in the store and look at the prices of the medication or other items they pay for. I have never been able to figure out how a pharmacy prices its pills. My doctor tells me they sell per pill but if that is the case why is your co pay the same price for 5 as it is for 90. The example medication I am talking about sells for 50 cents a pill so you see 5 pills shouldn't cost $5, $10 or sometimes $15 or even $20 co pay but they do. Next time you are in a pharmacy ask what your medicine is cash versus insurance. Many times your cash price will be below your co pay. In my case for one year I paid cash thinking I was saving my insurance company hundreds of dollars only to find out that not only was I paying cash as I requested but they still billed an insurance company (not mine) for the medication also. It was paid by the insurance because they in turn billed Medicare (I did not have that either). So who is stealing from Medicare?

Chris, you get your information from Wikipedia? There's a reliable source.

Jessica-1170252 - Oop, I re-read your comment and realized it was satirical. :) Editing my post to say that I agree with you - so many people seem to think that all the current problems with our current healthcare system came into existence with "Obamacare". The truth is, the system was broken long before he came into office. This issue has little to do with politics, and more to do with the fact that pharma companies can charge whatever the heck they want and no one can do anything to stop them.

Twenty years ago it was illegal for Pharmaceutical Companies to advertise. Today they mislead the public with diagnotic related symptomology just to sell their latest product. There is no shortage of Prescription Medications. This is a way for Corporate Hospitals to treat cheaper without the use of BIG PHARMA...one of the largest political lobbies in D.C. Hospitals are about running on the cheap. Very little is done to consult with the actual professionals who prescribe and administer drugs and treatments. Unless you are affiliated with a Teaching/Research Institution for Hospitalization and treatment, forget it, you won't receive the better treatments out there. Insurance Companies are second if not equal to Pharmaceutical Co's. in determining who gets what type of care and treatment. They aren't regulated. Nurses, who originally managed Hospitals, are now managed by CEO's. We can only practice defensively as Licensed caregivers, prescribers, teachers of health information and the distribution of that information. It is a crime to allow Pharm. Co.'s to literally diagnose, prescribe and treat which is what they ALL do now. They are teaching the American Public to be ill. Its a Market. Beat the market by staying well, listening to your body, if you have hereditary factors do your part to lessen the environmental triggers to those hereditary factors and stay out of the system. Accidents occur, but that is and has been the real reason for Health Insurance. Not a Marketing tool. Insurance companies, Worker's Compensation included, make billions per quarter if not annually and control who gets paid for what and when including certain physician groups who get "rewarded" as well as their hospitals for discharging patients too early so they are readmitted for a differential diagnosis. Humanity has nothing to do with the "Health Care Industry" unless you are delivering care responsibly, compassionately, skillfully as a direct care provider in this Country and that is about to be compromised with the Nursing Shortage, due to a decline in highly educated Nurse Educators at the University Level. The Educational "Soul" of the Nursing Profession has been sold to Private Fast Track Programs that feed into the dysfunction and do little to educate Nurses Professionally. The entire process of caring is being compromised.

GOOD GOD PEOPLE, LOOK UP SOME THINGS ON YOUR OWN INSTEAD OF BITCHING!!!!!

Jeez, you Liberals sound like a bunch of 5th graders that didn't get a Jell-O treat in your lunch. I know you all have to wait for Barrack, Nanny Piglosi or Chris Matthews to drop the lastest talking points on you, but this is getting ridiculous.

Just go to the Department of Health & Human Services site, look up FDA and you'll find this.

Frequently Asked Questions About Drug Shortages

The following questions are those that are most frequently asked of the CDER Drug Shortage Program along with answers.

Q. How many drug shortages were there in 2010? And do we expect less, as many, or more shortages in 2011?

A: In 2010, there were 178 drug shortages reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 132 of which involved sterile injectable drugs. In 2011, FDA has continued to see an increasing number of shortages, especially those involving older sterile injectable drugs. These shortages have involved cancer drugs, anesthetics used for patients undergoing surgery, as well as drugs needed for emergency medicine, and electrolytes needed for patients on IV feeding.

Q. What is the major reason for these shortages?

A: A major reason for these shortages has been quality/manufacturing issues. However there have been other reasons such as production delays at the manufacturer and delays companies have experienced receiving raw materials and components from suppliers. Discontinuations are another factor contributing to shortages. FDA can't require a firm to keep making a drug it wants to discontinue. Sometimes these older drugs are discontinued by companies in favor of newer, more profitable drugs.

With fewer firms making older sterile injectable drugs, there are a limited number of production lines that can make these drugs. The raw material suppliers the firms use are also limited in the amount they can make due to capacity issues at their facilities. This small number of manufacturers and limited production capacity for older sterile injectables, combined with the long lead times and complexity of the manufacturing process for injectable drugs, results in these drugs being vulnerable to shortage. When one company has a problem or discontinues, it is difficult for the remaining firms to increase production quickly and a shortage occurs.

And they have many more explanations for you if you'll JUST LOOK FOR THEM!

This is YOUR government explaining the reasons, simply and accurately. STOP reading PMSNBC propaganda.

But I'm sure you'll all come up with your own little conspiracy theories regardless of facts. That's what you do.

You just read the article, didn't you? or are you just punishing people for publishing their thoughts?

Hmmm. I can't help but wonder. Of course it would be too funny if it were true.

So called Big Pharma has been chastised over the past decade for prices being too high, being greedy, and the government should take over. What if Ayn's book were coming true and the drug companies are "going Galt?" You blame them for being evil and making too much money, but never stop to think, "hey, the service these companies are providing are saving lives and improving lives, and we should thank them for what they do." But no, you demand that they provide you with the medications you want and you demand a lower price or get it free because "it's your right." What will you do when they do "go Galt," and leave you without the means to get these drugs. You don't appreciate them or what they provide, you demand it. Will you be able to produce them yourselves? Do you think the government can effectively run manufacturing plants and distribution channels? Good luck with that.

Just a thought.

Whitefeather

You just read the article, didn't you? or are you just punishing people for publishing their thoughts?

If this is directed at me, no. I'm punishing all you whining little children who come on here day after day and complain about the very thing you all want. The problem is, you Liberal Progressives want everyone else to do all the work and then give it to your for free. Your little minds have become so disoriented and paranoid you think every corporation or rich person is out to get you or your money. Your indoctrination is so overwhelming you can no longer think rationally.

You all sit on your fat a$$e$ and complain. Then at the first sign of problems, you sue. Just like the Dow Corning breast implant hoax in the 80's and 90's. The company was in bankruptcy court for 9 years. Did any of the liars who claimed everything from ingrown toenails to hiccups give any of the money back? Hell, there are YouTube video's that tell you how to sue pharmaceutical companies. Do you honestly think the CEO or some upper management schmuck pays for all these frivolous law suits out of pocket?

NO, YOU, YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN WILL PAY FOR IT!

Why don't you Liberal Progressives just take over all the Forbe's 2000 corporations and turn them into your socialist Nirvana of social and economic justice for the collective? You won't because you want someone else to do it because you're too busy in your little pity-me world of feeling exploited. Go to school for 18-20 years, get a degree in biomolecular engineering or nanotechnology. Start a business and develop a few drugs to get your company started. But don't worry about all the red tape and regulations holding your R&D unit from moving along it will only get worse. And of course don't worry about being sued, you can pay that out of your kids college fund, right?

Get a grip. You want the best technology and outcomes but you don't add a single benefit to the system other than whining like a bunch of children. It's time you all grow up and make yourselves useful to society or get out of the way and let the adults continue to make America the Shining City on the Hill.

AtlasWillShrug

BRAVO!!!!

I don't know about you, but I can't wait until the state run pharmaceutical companies administered by the bourgeoisie operate as well as our postal service. Or maybe the clandestine GSE's should be the blueprints. I'm sure the proletariat will be happy with their "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his wants", slogan hanging over each door in the country.

Mark- I know it's cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I can't help but hope that key industries "go Galt" and watch the country collapse as the people's dreams of destroying business comes to fruition. Then I will laugh all the way to my miserable death, hoping that my children will come out of it with a devotion to individual liberty and a desire for true capitalism instead of this BS mixed economy hell we're living through now.

Collective rights and political correctness are destroying our country.

Atlas - you need not worry that the Pharmaceutical Companies will go bankrupt. You forget the "Middle-Men & Women" who sell for them or "represent" them. It is a HUGE conglomerate as well as legitimate research system. Companies purchase the rights or the patents competetively to a particular molecular structure when the research looks favorable for efficacy. This process starts early in the structure of a drug component. How do you think Refecoxib and other "cox2" inhibitors passed through the FDA until Physicians who did not do enough research and began prescibing to out of recommended parameter patients for use in Arthritis Pain Management? Those with a history of Heart Disease were at risk for Stroke, MI, Fatal Heart Infarct over a particular age cohort. That enzyme blocked for pain is essential to normal cardiac function in Known Cardiac Patients. That's why "Bextra" and "Vioxx" were taken off of the market and many personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits were filed against Merck Parmaceuticals. But, rest easy. Merck, like other phamaceutical companies also manufacture and distribute medical supplies, surgical supplies, procedural implements, urinary catheters, bandage materials, casting materials,...

Mark- hell of a business idea. Manufacturing the signs to sell at the DNC. We could make millions!

I'm not a big fan of any corporation or industry. That said, we have a federal government collecting trillions in taxes each year, overspending by more than a trillion each year, and we have a department called the FDA.

Now what is their excuse?

Federal Food and Drug Administration officials have struggled with the shortages. The agency has no power to compel manufacturers to make certain drugs, or even to inform health care providers in a timely manner.

Now here's the thing - why the hell can't the FDA protect us, isn't that their damn job?

We are talking about 180 - 220 drugs. What, maybe 20 manufacturers? Even if it were 200 companies. You or I could keep track of these details and issue timely warnings as well as threats to manufacturers from our home office!!!

Our entire federal government is filled with incompetence, fraud, laziness and is for the most part good for absolutely nothing, and yet they are the largest organization when measured by revenue on earth. It makes me absolutely sick.

AtlasWillShrug

Unfortunately your Doomsday scenario may not be that far away. I honestly believe that the only way we can ever recover from this economic collapse is if the system just bottoms out. I think we're seeing the last dying gasps of Keynesianism. Bernanke's submission that "Time will heal the economy's wounds", is pure free-market economics. Unfortunately they didn't let this happen from TARP on through all their monetary and fiscal malfeasance.

We still haven't seen the bottom of the housing marke. The monetization by the Fed (QE1 and QE2) has been propping up the martket and all the REIT's that will soon have to collapse the commercial real estate market. Today's revised growth rate down to 1% is very dangerous. Also the unusual admission that the Fed will just let overnight interest rates stay at 0-1/4% for two years is further proof that the Krugman idiocy is finally waning.

Had we allowed the Too Big To Fail banks collapse the initial downturn would have been more severe but we wouldn't have inflated our dollar to the point of worthlessness and our Debt wouldn't have been so bad. The recovery could have been based on pure market forces rather than government intrusion. There can NEVER be any entity that is Too Big To Fail. This includes our government.

Hopefully this will finally expose the nearly 100 years of Progressivism that has created 95% of our monetary and fiscal problems. Margaret Thatcher's prognostication keeps becoming clearer everyday.

Chris, you get your information from Wikipedia? There's a reliable source.

Aww Ben, do I need to make you look like an idiot here also? My actual info comes from the National Institute for Health. The Wikipedia link is simply to explain a definition to someone who obviously needed it.

Oh and yes, I do tend to reference Wikipedia often. I'd rather use something that's peer reviewed hundreds of times a day for accuracy, than something a single person or group puts out with no ability for someone on the outside to add additional input.

Feel free to continue stalking my posts. Just remember it's not me that is collapsing them, it's the other folks around here that think you should stay off the internet before you hurt yourself.

Mark- well put.

TARP was the final straw for Bush and his allies in my mind, "We have to abandon free market principles to save the free market." Fraud.

Practical Libertarian

Now here's the thing - why the hell can't the FDA protect us, isn't that their damn job?

ROTFLMAO!!!!

If I can borrow a line from Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain".^{[citation needed]}

One possibility for the problems we see is that the FDA has no less than 53 different Divisions, Offices, Teams and Centers. If you remember the recent GAO's report about redundancy in our government, here it is. As Ronald Reagan so prophetically stated;

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

Many have been calling for both a "Sunrise Before Signing" clause of 4-6 weeks so all this bureaucracy can be properly vetted before becoming law. Also a "Sunset Provision" be added to all legislation and regulations of 5-10 years so this endless expansion of government can be eliminated.

Of course we could make it much easier by just requiring that the Constitutionality of any government legislation be strictly adhered to.

Gray-market suppliers take advantage of the ongoing shortages, monitoring drug availability and then exploiting the vulnerable supply chain....

Wait; gray-market suppliers are capable of monitoring drug availability and manipulating the supply chain, but apparently neither the FDA, other government agencies, the hospital chains, nor legitimate suppliers are capable of the same monitoring in order to insure a steady supply?

Someone enlighten me on this, puh-leeeeeeeeez!

Well remember those cuts the congress finally agreed on , well here they are coming full circle...... Sorry to say this is going to get worse before it gets better..... When greed is no longer the pursuit of the corporations creating the medication then maybe we can get back to helping the people....

I don't care what you guys think. More government intervention is needed.

The drug company's lost their patents on some of these drugs and their profit margin dropped so they quit making them and remember how the GOP made it ILLEGAL for the largest purchaser of drugs in the world to negotiate for lower prices.

America pays more for their own made drugs than any other country does.

Jallen and Chris Wanker both of you are right but now the TP thinks its better to lose more patients then give them the care thats needed so they went around the regulations that are in place and used the parts of the system thats not regulated to drive up the costs. Just a few yrs. ago the doctors that pushed the drugs the companies wanted to make higher profits got kickbacks now its the opposite way around and the companies are getting the kickbacks. I wonder how many TP members have a few dollars in the medical companies now to be able to control the sales of the drugs to who they want? If they don't have their money in there then its their friends that are helping them do it, but either way you see its getting done exactly the way they want it too. People now are a little above the level of cattle to the TP members and dead is a lot better to them because its cheaper. How wonderful the TP members are and how much they care for people is just beyond my capability of thoughts. They know you won't be able to get or pay for the meds but they can, reguardless of getting them in different countries or the black market. Now another point here is how do they get the drugs from different countries without the government breathing down their necks? And they call themselves people.

This is a perfect example of why Medical Care should not be "FOR Profit".

We need full blown Single payer health Care and we need to Nationalize the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Government Grants are what fund most of the real pharmaceutical research today any how. So tax payer dollars fund the development of these drugs then Big Pharma manipulates the markets to get maximum dollars out of Taxpayers on the other side as well.

Chris from Yucaipa

So Chris, when others mention Wikipedia, it's an unreliable source, but when you do, they've suddenly become reliable? That's very convenient for you.

Just remember it's not me that is collapsing them, it's the other folks around here that think you should stay off the internet

It seems that we have a bonafide government agent in our midst. Chris and his friends like to censor free speech and they are very good at it, but now Chris doesn't want full credit for his work. He believes that some of us should not be allowed on the internet. Interesting.

Kudos Chris, you're doing a great job.

spg64-1292127

This is a perfect example of why Medical Care should not be "FOR Profit".

HELL YEAH!!!!

But let's not stop there. Let's nationalize the food industry. You spend a whole lot more over a lifetime for food than you do for healthcare. Let's stick it to those greedy farmers. NO MORE PROFITS!

FOOD SHOULD BE FREE!!!!

Let's keep going. Housing. Everyone needs somewhere to live. Stop subsidizing the housing and rent industries. Take them over and just give a house to everyone. How about cars, gas, clothes, furniture and of course vacations. We all need a vacation don't we?

Let's just nationalize everything and give it away.

Ahhhhhh socialist utopia!

Or is it Marxism? Maybe even Communism.

Liberals, sheesh.

Steve-543647

remember how the GOP made it ILLEGAL for the largest purchaser of drugs in the world to negotiate for lower prices.

Pssssst. You know that Obamacare deleted the section where Medicare was going to be able to negotiate lower prices right? Drugmakers agreed to forgo $80 billion over 10 years as part of reform efforts to reduce costs. But negotiations were eliminated. The Senate Finance Committee recently approved health legislation, and nothing in there allowed Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices nor another measure to allow consumers to buy imported prescription drugs.

When are you Liberal progressives going to learn that government is the problem, NOT THE SOLUTION!!!!!!

You and I know that these changes have guaranteed certain Congressional members nice cushy spots on the Board of Directors or as Lobbyists once they leave office.

You Liberal Progressives have to learn that the corruption in this country can only exist if it starts at the top. The top being our criminal government.

Part of the reason for high costs are the quality requirements. Part of it is clinical trials. I used to work for a company performing many trials. It is expensive to get a drug approved by the FDA. If you deal in this industry, the FDA will put you through the ringer. You also have to get patients willing to sign up as well as the doctors. This means support call centers to record adverse drug reactions, educational materials, shipping, systems, etc. In addition, not everyone can participate in performing the trials. Outside of staff doing what I was doing, everyone else has medical training. They don't come cheap. Not to mention the drug is provided to the patients free of charge.

Now onto newer drugs. Many of the new bio-tech drugs are expensive to produce. The raw materials used are not easy to cultivate. They also have a very short shelf life. If that is 6 weeks, this means the drug has to be used within 6 weeks. After that, the drug is really no more potent than a placebo. I hate to be the person to defend the drug industry, but that is reality.

I think we just have to regulate you, markmich, so actual conservatives can get back to work rather that whatever rant you did there that makes you think you are different from the ranting liberal you so hate.

Markmich,

Why is it that when right wingers cannot argue a point they simply blow it up into some ridiculous BS(AKA a Red Herring).

I suggested Nationalizing Medical Care because it is to easy to manipulate a "Market" where the "consumers" do not really have a choice.

You could not make a lucid argument, so you made this asinine statement!

"Let's just nationalize everything and give it away.

Ahhhhhh socialist utopia!

Or is it Marxism? Maybe even Communism.

Liberals, sheesh."

Go do some research and at least try and make an argument.

Dear MSNBC.... so you are now a tabloid? Great news story ...but already covered by the National Inquirer.

You guys make Rupert Murdock look like a journalist.

M Goosestepper,

So how does one think that we should NOT be discussing topics such as this!

Topics like this should be getting huge headlines!

Well sir the market is made up of many players. As you probably read, the article noted that several reasons caused shortage.

Those things happen. Don't be so dramatic.

Let's solve this problem with even less regulation or more to the point, how about a tax cut for anyone using a hospital with income in the toe 2%?

No another example of graft and corruption....

Does anyone really believe that the "poor" Pharmacists are between a rock and a hard place? My guess is they have their own racket going on or they would do the right thing and turn in the criminals.

Obviously no shortage when "gray or black" markets are thriving.

Those things also are planned out on the greens of very exclusive golf courses by execs of different companies to drive up profits. Is it any wonder that hospital bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US?

When medicine and healthcare is a "for profit" industry, this is what happens. This is too specialized of an industry with far too high of a potential for abuse to not have government oversight. Hospitals pay the extra cost because they know it will be passed on to the patient anyways. The grey market is like that skeevy ticket scalper outside the concert that bought up all the good seats the moment they went on sale.

Jon, I don't think he is being dramatic. This is exactly the kind of BS that occurs when you don't regulate a vital market enough.

And it goes back to the same thing every time. Most people cannot be trusted to do the right thing when money and power are involved. Or people are scum who will screw over their fellow man for a couple of dollars.

If these companies can not make or will not make enough of a vital medication then their patents should be pulled and made available to any company who will.

I know that everybody is going to call me a teabagging repuglican, but I'm always hesitant for more regulation on anything. I believe overlegislation is one (1) of the main reasons all our jobs have moved overseas. That said, it is clear that Big Pharma needs a few more rules. I hate to say so, but I am forced to agree with those calling for more regulation on the drug and health care industry.

Also, the ground-level pharmacists working in the hospital pharmacy, CVS, walgreens, your mom and pop drug store are just normal people who work for a living. They don't have any control, influence or input in any of this, just trying to work hard and live like the rest of us average people. Please point your finger a little higher up the ladder even if it makes your arm tired..

Kyle

To add to your post

Capitalism is also about market efficiencies. Why will the USA spend 16% of it's GDP on healthcare this year, where-as Japan, with a higher percentage of older people) will spend just over 10%? Note that all countries that have socialised healthcare will spend in the region of about 10%. Shouldn't we be lower than that?

Yes, you are right. We do need to point our fingers at the top. This is where the money and power are. Your mom or pop might not act this way if they were sitting in that chair but it is for that very reason that they would never reach that chair in the first place.

I've made this distinction in the past. It the very people who want to step on the necks of their neighbors to climb the corporate ladder that we need to keep off the ladder in the first place. Maybe if the corporate world was not such a cesspool we would have a better quality of people willing to play the game.

But don't hold you breathe.

Yeah right JohnCarter - unscrupulous suppliers are marking up drugs that are in short supply by !,000% - because they can. The drupgs are in short supply because the manufacturers purposely make them in short supply - because it's their perogative to do so. You don't think there's any collusion and kickbacks between the two groups? My guess is that you are part of one of the two.

JohnCarter...

You don't need a lot of production managers at a totally automated pill factory. You do need a lot of lawyers to counteract the lawsuits from people that end up getting f'd up with undocumented side effects of the drugs you make. They can afford all the lawyers with all the profits, right?

There is no shortage of drugs. These are basicly scalpers sucking up some of the supply for the expected demand and reselling high. This is the free market regulating itself.

Future History (re: 2.5) Actually hospitals are often forced to pay those outrageous markups because unreasonable physicians insist on ordering a brand name drug when a generic equivalent would work just as well. Also, in most cases hospitals cannot pass along this increased cost to the patient. Most hospital inpatient bills are paid based on a DRG (Diagnosis-Related Group). What that means is that if you are admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, the hospital is paid a predetermined rate regardless of the actual cost of providing care. So if the hospital has to pay 10 or 20 times the contract rate it has with its usual drug supplier to get your antibiotic on the grey market, the hospital simply as to eat the extra cost. Hospitals have virtually no ability to pass along increase costs because hospitals are not is charge of how much they are paid. The amount they are paid is dictated to them by insurance companies and the federal government. And it is ridiculous to think of healthcare (at least care in hospitals) as a free market industry. Healthcare providers work in the most heavily regulated industry in the country with the possible exception of the nuclear energy industry.

joemike,

And it is ridiculous to think of healthcare (at least care in hospitals) as a free market industry. Healthcare providers work in the most heavily regulated industry in the country with the possible exception of the nuclear energy industry.

And yet a dose of tylenol in some hospitals will cost your insurance company $7, and an overnight stay will cost several hundred to thousands of dollars. Can you imagine what it would be like if there were even less regulation? This country's medical care situation is so ridiculous that people are actually saving money on surgeries by flying to India to have them done in nicer facilities by competant doctors that don't demand to be paid like royalty. There are many crooked players in the game, including healthcare insurance providers, malpractice insurers, attorneys, big pharma, doctors with ownership in laboratories, etc. - but hospitals are hardly innocent in the shananigans.

Corruption and greed at its finest, free market my asp these people should be hung from the nearest tree. 650% mark-up is criminal when it comes to life saving drugs.

The only way for American health consumers to get actual free market rates is to go overseas, where our meddling government can't rig things so drug dealers and hospitals and insurance companies can conspire to rip us off. Those saying it is a conspiracy are right, but it isn't a free market conspiracy. Government is right square in the middle, rigging the market so that it isn't free and open. It is actually government preventing the free market from functioning which allows the sort of price gouging we experience.

I guess this must be one of those over reaching regulation things ??

deregulate the entire industry, that'll fix it ....

Why is this such an issue? Because it impacts a majority of the people?

Let's compare this "scalping" to the rock concert industry and the sports industry. When concert tickets go on sale, there are going to be a number of people who will pay top dollar to get good seats. They will hold those tickets until the concert sells out and then offer them at a considerable mark-up. This is all based on the basic laws of economics - supply and demand. Many cities have tried to enact laws to prevent scalping by only permitting a maximum mark-up over the face value.

The same holds true for the sports industry. The owners sell seats in the arena for some given prices. If the team goes into post-season games, the owners now become scalpers. They offer the season ticket holders first right of refusal to purchase a full slate of post-season tickets despite the possibility of elimination before all of the games are played. Of course these seats are "worth more in post season play" because the team was successful. When the season ticket holders decline the post season tickets, the owners then sell them on the open market for even higher prices. They justify this because they say that they have to cover the potential of not filling the seats - vacancy rate. Yet many owners try to prevent "outside scalpers" from reselling their tickets within a certain distance of the arena (competitive scalpers).

Why we don't treat life saving drug manufacturing the same way we treat utilities like water and power is beyond me!

We need to regulate drug manufacturing so that there is never only 1 entity assigned to making a drug, and that the entities must not be associated directly with the patent-holder of said drug.

All that would need to be done is require that pharmaceutical companies must license the manufacture of their drugs to more than 1 supplier, and one supplier out of at least 2 will be a government-run facility (similar to the way the post-office works) that will produce the product en-masse at a basic cost-plus profit to cover the costs of the establishment.

If you take the manufacturing away from the patent holders of these pharmaceuticals, they cannot create artificial shortages...it's really that simple!

Future,

There is not one single insurance company in the United States that would pay $7 for a tylenol. The hospital might charge $7 for the tylenol but they won't get paid for it. Hospital charges bear little if any resemblance to what hospitals are paid. Yes, you can ask for an itemized hospital bill and it will show your $7 tylenol. You'll look down at the end and the total charges for your admission will be $25,000. Then you look at what the hospital actually gets paid by you and your insurance company and its maybe $5,000.

I would never suggest that there aren't crooks in the healthcare industry, but then there are crooks in every industry known to man.

A person's need for a particular drug is most often determined by his circumstances, not by his choice. Fundamentally, water and air are similar resources - people do not have a choice in requiring them. By one way of thinking, resources which are required by every citizen should therefore be the property of every citizen. Ideally, the most qualified administrators would be elected to manage the development and distribution of choice-exempt resources to the greatest benefit of all. Water, air, and healthcare would not be owned or distributed by those who have private profit motives, since the population has no choice in requiring them (i.e., they are resources, not products). At the same time, those who innovate would be compensated according to the standards the electorate has put forth for their efforts.

joemike - while the insurance company will not pay the $7, that does not change the fact that it is the hospital that is asking $7 for tylenol. If you don't happen to have insurance, then you are paying $7 for tylenol at the hospital. And yes, there are crooks in every industry - but simpler, nuts and bolts type industries regulate themselves much more effectively. If I own a dairy farm and decide to up my price on a gallon of milk by 800%, I will be out of busniess very quickly and a host of fair competitors will get some new business. However, manufacturing drugs is not as simple as milking cows, and therefore leaves less room for competition to self regulate the industry.

failure of the free market?

When was healthcare a free market? This industry is regulated to death, with government regulations, insurance rules, reimbursement rules, FDA approval processes...etc.

This is the least free market industry in the nation- with the exception of utilities which are outright monopolies...and even they are tightly regulated. And maybe banks...which are about to get regulated right out of business after we spent billions saving them.

@Future History
Barak? Is that you?

Future - Sorry to further disagree, but as I said earlier, that's not how hospitals get paid for most inpatient care. Its not like going to the supermarket, filling your cart and checking out at the front of the store. Hospitals are paid a fixed rate (individually negotiatiated with each insurance company) for your stay in the hospital. That's true regardless of the source of payment. If you are self-insured then the hospital normally negotiates with you to accept either the medicare or medicaid rate that you would be charged in you had coverage through those programs. The collection rate for most self-pay patients runs about 5 to 10 cents on the dollar if the hospital is lucky, so ain't no one paying $7 for that tylenol.

Capitalism in all its glory.

Texas mom 2.3, It isn't the pharmacists who are making the bucks, it is the Pharma companies manufacturing the drugs. The pharmacists/drug stores pay based on their size, hospitals get the best price, then the big box/big drug stores, and down to the local pharmacy who pays the most.

It is the BIG DRUG COMPANIES, Pfizer, McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, etc., etc., go to "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies" for a more complete list. These are the companies holding the consumers hostage for the highest price and withholding generic drugs for the longest possible time. Yet much of their R&D is done with federal tax dollars - that we pay!!

Actually Grandma numerous medications on the "shortage list" are generics, no longer produced by big pharma, profits no longer going to big pharma. And if you do not like the current IP law situation, look to the USPTO to make the change...of course that will also affect patent protection for technologies you LOVE over paying for like you $299 Motorola smartphone or $399 Apple ipad2. Lastly, your assertion that R&D is done with federal tax dollars is laughable. NIH grants cap at $200k. R&D for the average blockbuster drug is about $1B. So our tax dollars may account for roughly 0.02% of R&D costs. If you don't believe me, look it up on the government's very own NIH site, or go look up any balance sheet of any publicly traded company.

Free market my hind quarters. Do you have a clue how regulated the drug industry is? They can't lift a small toe without twenty pages of documentation to back it up. It takes dollars beyond imagination to bring a new drug to market. I don't like the prices or shortages any more than anyone else, but please gather some facts before you start placing blame.

Does anyone really believe that the "poor" Pharmacists are between a rock and a hard place? My guess is they have their own racket going on or they would do the right thing and turn in the criminals

typical right-wingnut nonsense, blame the little guy and give the big guys a free pass.

Yes, regulate the entire health care industry. Better yet, lets bring it under government control. Our government does such a good job with everything else, it can probably bring health care costs down to zero.

With the government in charge, there will be no incentive to develop these lifesaving drugs because there will be no profit to be made. Then there will be no shortages because the drugs will not exist.....brilliant!

the thinker-318752 - Your argument is solid except for one giant hole: this isn't about going to see a rock concert or a ballgame. This is about medical care. This is about providing treatments and medication to prolong, better, and save people's lives. People don't HAVE to go to rock concerts, but people MUST get medical treatment if there is something wrong.

Scalping tickets at a concert or game is an annoyance. Scalping medication is a moral crime.

Had a family member (now retired) who was a pharmacist who owned his own independent drug store. He said at the point he retired, the drug companies and big chain pharmacies were driving the mom & pop drug stores out of business. Every single drug company not only sold to the big chains cheaper, but started wanting kick-back payments from the independent pharmacies to even be allowed to purchase drugs.

I would not be a bit surprised if shortages were artificially created so they can get some kind of concessions from government, insurance companies, and/or medical practitioners to "fix" the problem of shortages.

It's in the obamacare bill. Also in the obamacare bill, white people will reuse their depends diapers.

This is a problem with patent law and intellectual property law. Abolish both and the drug shortage problem goes away.

This is not a failure of the market but chaos caused by well meaning government.

Yeah blame it on Obama. Its a shame that everything is Obamas fault to these weak minded people. I figure you to be very rich or else your mother is and your living off of her money to think like you do. Obama care would have the drugs and care there for you, when Romney come up with this plan it was a good plan and now the TP members found a way to go around the regulations that that aren't in place for it to work. You people won't be happy til the working middle class is reduced to the 3rd world status of slaves. Sure people are better off if they die rather than get the medication they need. It wouldn't surprise me if the TP members bought the drugs themselves and flushed them down the toilets.

"American healthcare is the best in the world." --This Message was brought to you by -- American Drug Cartels Incorporated and The Healthcare Mafia. (a family company.)

Jimbob

Not all O"Baggers fault. The unions must take credit also! No not rich or living off mommy. Are you still living off your mothers welfare check or you getting your own now? Now go back to sleep it's not the 1st of the month yet.

Any medical system where people, groups, or corporations make massive profits off of the pain, suffering, and illness of other people is fundamentally broken and will never serve the needs of the population it is supposed to.

Well said! Profits should not be made off people's illnesses.

I agree that the medical system is broken. My daughter works in a non-profit nursing home that will now see a large loss due to the cut in Medicare reimbursements. They are now taking a small pay cut so that they can cover the loss. These are people that need 24 hour care and it is hard to imagine that they will have to hope that they can get the medication that is required to sustain a quality of life.

In the past if they were showing a profit, all of the staff got a raise because of a job well done or they improved things around the nursing home (new furniture, upgrades to the kitchen etc). I feel that the Phara. companies don't give a %#@$ if we live or die, they just want major profits.

Any medical system where people, groups, or corporations make massive profits off of the pain, suffering, and illness of other people is fundamentally broken and will never serve the needs of the population it is supposed to.

republicans aren't interested in serving people, they are only about profit

You can thank your neighbors, co-workers etc. as the investros are the ones demanding higher returns & are reaping the profits. These drug companies are not privately soley held companies, regulation is the only answer to this problem & even a blind person can see that but the corruption in the Gov is what is stopping it.

I'm a physician, and I spent this morning trying to get a guy care for his Crohn's disease without insurance. Owns his own business, can't afford to buy health insurance b/c of his profit margins (which are thin). Drug costs him 1600 here in the States, and in Canada it's 150 bucks.

I'm so f**king sick of the profit motive in medicine. Regulate medicine now (even if it means a pay cut, I don't care at this point....would rather take care of people and not have to worry about people not getting care then get paid more and feel stressed about doing my job)

RackNStack - Frustration with the 'machine' of medicine has driven many of our most compassionate physicians out of the field or worse yet, turned them into more profit hungry cohorts of the health care industry. Just because a hospital is "non-profit" does not mean profits are not being made. They are, those profits are just used to buy up smaller hospitals & the other health care industries.

RackNStack - I wouldn't use the Canadian system as a model for healthcare.

We wait months for things you can get in a week.

You need to take care of the billions in fraud first. Keeping the government out of your medical system should be a priority.

Your statement about large hospital goobling up small hospitals

sounds alot like UPMC here in Pgh. They claim to be non-profit but

its net worth must be in the Billionsssssss and their patient billing

offices have NO compassion.

so if healthcare should be free and there should be no profit motive, how you do get the world's best and brightest PhD's to perform medical research, to become MDs and specialists practicing medicine, or PharmD's to dispense your medication? I guess if we want this to be a free, non-profit industry better enroll the dropouts in medschool...they'd be the only ones dumb enough to go.

Actually wildbutterflies what most of those "profits" are used for are for the evil wicked administrators to buy self-indulgent unnecessary things such as new CAT scanners, ventilators, IV pumps, MRI scanners, replace worn carpeting and furniture, etc, etc, etc.

As a professional buyer myself, it is not always necessary to buy low. Even under the Federal Acquisitions and Regulations it does not state to buy solely on the lowest price available. Buyers are taught to take into consideration many factors such as availability, price, quality, distance to location, risks, cost benefit analysis and so forth.

It is a misconception that buyers always choose the lowest price. The lowest price does not guarantee the best option. Buyers know this.

so if healthcare should be free and there should be no profit motive, how you do get the world's best and brightest PhD's to perform medical research, to become MDs and specialists practicing medicine, or PharmD's to dispense your medication? I guess if we want this to be a free, non-profit industry better enroll the dropouts in medschool...they'd be the only ones dumb enough to go.

The "best and the brightest" should not be motivated by money in the first place. The best doctors I know are the ones who care about the patient, not the bottom line.

Besides, what's the point of having the "best and brightest" in the world if no one can afford to go to the damn doctor? The United States supposedly has the best doctors in the world (an arguable statement)... but we are consistently ranked as the worst quality of health care in the world amongst developed nations.

Does anyone realize what would happen to thousands of people from Janitors to over priced Doctors to Pharmaceutical Companies to Cancer Fund Raiser Administrators should they ever find a cure for Cancer?? It is not to their advantage to find that Cure... Same with a number of other High Priced diseases out there..there is too much money invovled so I doubt very much a Cure for a lot of them will ever be found, or if they are found, those who find it will be silenced...

The U.S. has the best technology. If no one has access to it there is no reason to use it...except for people like elected officials who get the best health care in this Country. Dick Cheney, for example with self exacerbated Congestive Heart Failure has lived as long as he has because he has "access" to the BEST care available. Your next door neighbor, same age, retired with Medicare, same diagnosis, same stage of disease process, will not be offered a new breakthrough heart valve or life extending surgery. That is a Fact. That person will be referred for palliation of symptoms, comfort care and then Hospice if that person lives that long.

The U.K. educates the better physicians in the World. That is where the majority of India's Best and Brightest go for Medical Training.

The AMA used to be the largest lobby in D.C. they lost favor in the '90's, enter the Pharmaceuticals and Insurance Companies.

No one person can be blamed. It is the entire process of Lobbying that needs to be outlawed so that Government is truly working for the people it is supposed to represent, not who can buy it.

These types of problems don't exist with our veterinary services. Get the FDA out of it, abolish patents and other intellectual property laws and this shortage problem WILL disappear.

Solving a problem caused by government with more government will only make matters worse. Lets allow generic manufacturers to fix this problem

"American healthcare is the best in the world." --This Message brought to you by -- American Drug Cartels Incorporated and The Healthcare Mafia.

These types of problems don't exist with our veterinary services.

You're joking, right? YES, they very much do. I adopted a kitten once who was born without eyes. I got pet insurance for her, but guess what? It didn't cover per-existing conditions. So anything related to her eye health was not covered. Efficient, no?

One time when she was sick, I took her in and she had a single blood test done. Over $200. It's cheaper for ME to get a blood test.

History has shown that markets do not regulate themselves; never have, never will. If profit is the only business driver, you will get the cheapest products, with no quality control, no safety.

As a Libertarian, I believe the least government is the best; but that does not mean no government. Government does have a role, and a key role is to provide rules that ensure that the public is protected from unrivaled greed. Profit alone is not an adequate business driver for efficient and effective businesses. Individuals can not provide this balance. Only the government can set rules that ensure that companies provide products and services that are safe.

And the government should lock up these thieves jacking up prices and allow the market to work properly, where companies hire enough people to provide enough product at a reasonable profit rather than artificially creating shortages and then pushing product into the grey market to maximize profits while minimizing the service they provide to this country.

Do you want to know why most if not all drugs are made over seas? It's the other countries government! Ireland, Germany, China, Purto Rico and now Canada all have huge incentives to keep the jobs there, and huge penalties if they are taken out. The US does not have any of this. US manufacturers pay little to no taxes in Ireland and Puerto Rico, and a lot of these countries will not let you sell drugs there if you do not have some type of manufacturing operation there. Not the US though!

People still go to Mexico to get their drugs....legal and illegal.

Government is put here to serve ITS interests; not YOURS.

Government serves ITSELF; not YOU.

Any attempt to solve this problem with more regulations or subsidies will likely hurt the public; especially the poor.

Appeal intellectual property laws and eliminate the FDA. Let the market solve this problem

Pure BS by another capitalist BSer.

Should have added, these are for my own use & I do not resell them, in case someone misinterprets what I posted.

1 D 10 T : I'm familiar with what you posted and the VA also. You are correct.

Most people are not willing to put a 'fake' medication in their bodies.

Be careful. You've admitted to an illegal act (purchasing drugs at a reasonable price). the Government can now track you down using the Patriot Act regulations.

Zheng, Generic drugs are not fake, they are just no longer under patent and can be sold for a reasonable price. The drugs are functionally the same and just as safe and effective as the brand name ones. By the way, i hope your wife or partner signed a note of consent for the Viagra, some of us ladies are more than thankful for a good nights rest and that does not include being beaten to death with a limp or half done noodle.

Crone just how old are you LOL. Hope you live in Nev so your hubby can go visit the cat house once in awhile since you don't seem interested.

It's the hungry dog that knocks over the trash, crone.

Lol's about the ladies comments, maybe the reason their husbands need the Viagra is because the ladies have not taken care of themselves as well as they husbands have and well it is kind of hard to be attracted to 180 pounds of pure lard..and Ladies does the term "Kegel" mean anything? I'm tired of hearing ladies complain about the size of men and say nothing about the grand canyon as if it is all the mans fault...

The reason our husbands need Viagra is because big Pharm has convinced the medical community to redo the numbers for high cholesterol so that almost every guy past 50 is now on statins and they neglect to mention that ED is a common side effect. So then they get to put them on not only the statins, but prescription pain meds for muscle pains, then ulcer meds for what the pain meds do to the stomach, and of course viagra for medicine induced ED.

Eddie, disgusting comments not fit for a public forum. Glad I don't know you and you are not a member of my family! Take these comments to some male chauvinist web site rather than heterosexual. This was simply inappropriate.

To Grandma35 Male chauvinists make some of the best heterosexuals.

Grandma35, How do you know eddie is not in your family? It could actually be your husband on the internet now couldn't it?

:-) LOL.

Are you kidding? This is clearly bush's fault! if he wasnt such a money grubbing teabagger we'd all be riding in cloud cars in a city high above all the minorities! aw cheez...

(please note that the above post is not serious. this is a disclaimer indicating the satirical nature of my post.)

LEGALIZE IT!!!!!!

(please note that the above post is extremely serious. this is a disclaimer indicating the actual nature of my post.)

Bayer, GlaxoKlineSmith, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Dow, Novartis, is just a small sampling of ways to spell extortion.

Thanks to investors demanding higher returns, they are just as responsible as the CEO's

A. We are all investors. You have a 401k, 403b, mutual fund...or a pension then you are invested in the market. So look in the mirror when you blame investors...because after all they are you and me.

B. Investors are not responsible for the actions of the CEO, sales reps, or anyone else who works for a company. Yes, the shareholders can lose their investment if a firm fails...but they are not personally responsible for any actions of the firm.

Yes most of us are investors of something not necessarily medical, but when investors demand higher returns the board and CEO's listen plain and simple.

I agree that its pretty much a waste of time and effort to do such a thing given our economic problems, however if it is not legal to import drugs from a certain place, I can understand the move from a legal standpoint.

I doubt the government would allow advertisements for Marijuana from Holland for example, even though it is legal there.

Kyle, hopefully that legal status will change..living in a state with medical marijuana has reduced my need for narcotic pain meds by well over half. It is good not to live in a percocet world.

Your wrong U Gotta Gun, they are much worse than most other drug dealers, they have a license to sell their drugs any which way they want, the are a much scarier bunch indeed.

bryan; Exactly right. Legal drugs that are addictive are hustled by pharmaceutical companies. Some doctors will make fortunes selling to addicts. The legal field doubtless does far more harm than the illegal trade. It certainly is bigger and makes more money. Just like medical insurance is worse than the old mafia protectio racket.

I wrote direct mail advertising and sales details for a drug company company for a short while and made them a lot of money. Within six months I threw up even though I could make unbelievable money. The entire medical field is corrupt. There are some great doctors and nurses, but there are those that are plain drug dealers. There are others that will do all sorts of unnessary surgery.

The pervasive greed and corruption an all levels of American medicine is mindboogling. The only other things that compare to it are banking, wall street, the commodities exchange, most big corporations and hedge funds.In short the entire heart of our industrial empire is close to spiritually dead. I am 78, "sucessful" all my adult life and I had broad experience with two corporate giants. I gave it up at thirty nine and became a gambler. With all it's problems playing poker, gin or other games is far strighter than our industry without concious.

if you increase demands in those markets without increasing the supply (as the supply is fixed, the point of this article), the costs in those markets would rise to offset losses from the american market. then you'd have a lot of pissed off canadians and indians and only slightly less disgruntled americans. definitely not the way to go.

Globalization is on the rise and this is where the world is leaning towards.

Joeyc, of course we should not be allowed to buy them. We should be more than happy to suffer and die because the meds we need for life are not available because they are too inexpensive to be worth making. That is a much more reasonable way to die. Thank you for making that clear.

I just bought an energy drink that has not been approved by the FDA. Yet it's still being sold on the shelves of supermarkets. The FDA simply cannot regulate every item being sold in the United States.

Well, the FDA could, but they shouldn't.

Yes, we need a single payer system. No third parties like insurance companies or governments involved. You are the single payer. Please pay cash.

Ever have a big medical bill?... My son had one with is brain tumor for $150k.... try that one on for size....

Kevin Bitz - when are we simply going to go to a single payer system and stop this price gouging!

What makes you think that a single payer system will stop corruption and price gouging? In fact, it will make it easier to facilitate corruption and price gouging. Look at the former and current communist systems, they are horriblely currupt. You have to bribe everyone involved to get the proper care and even that's limited because price gouging is facilitated by production slowdowns.

At least in a multi-payer system, the little compition that exists keeps us from having to bribe everyone involved to get the proper care. Yes, we have plenty of room for improvement, but let's not go backwards.

fire-them-all

"What makes you think that a single payer system will stop corruption and price gouging?"

Every industrialized nation on the planet, except the U.S., and many pre-industrial nations have universal, "single payer" health care, and every single one of them spends less on health care than the U.S. while covering everyone. Life saving drugs and treatments are cheaper in every one of those nations, doctors are still in the highest income brackets, and the economies of those nations see a net profit from their health care systems in the form of healthy people who can work and pay taxes without facing bankruptcy from overinflated medical bills.

The U.S is a long way down the list when it comes to medical care, with one of the highest rates of infant mortality, cancer mortality and many other diseases. Is that what you mean by "corruption and price gouging"?

silly son you are so silly! You realize those single payer systems have their own quality and access problems, not to mention the cost distribution straining their economies, right? For example, there was a Canadian on the newsvine earlier saying he would love to trade places with us, he waits months for a procedure we get in a week. Not to mention that their systems are not "free," the taxes the individuals pays is high, and the tax the employer pays is outrageous. Next look at the WHO rankings, they are based off patient outcomes that are largely influenced by the public's value system placed on health care. Most nations high on the list have small, homogeneous populations which you know is not the case in America. There is no one magic bullet that will save our health care system, and emulating other failing systems is not the answer. Borrowing pieces from these systems can help, however.

Now, please realize that pharma spending is 6-8% of all health care spending in the US. Single payer systems can cap pharma spending meaning those costs are shouldered by us here in America. Many of the pharma companies are not US based...meaning they cannot charge in their own countries so they charge us here. If you redistribute those costs one of two things happens...a) quality and quantity go down, or b) emerging markets will have no access to higher priced medications.

What people dont realize is with "Single payer" Government OWNS your health...TOTALLY! If they say you dont get treated and its "too expensive".....YOU DONT GET TREATED...THERE ARE NO "OPTIONS"..... !!!!

Additionally, IT DOES COVER ILLGALS ....100%....and if one of THEM needs care MORE than you , is younger than you, and you are older....THEY WILL SAY ..THEY have more "quality of life" than YOU do .....and they will get the care ...AND YOU WONT !!!! They PICK AND CHOOSE WHO is treated and gets medical care.....DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR GOVERNMENT CHOOSING FOR YOU ????? WITH NO OPTIONS ?

Not only THAT but they can THEN charge you EVER HOW MUCH THEY WANT, and you have NO CHOICE.....

It always amazes me why people WANT COMMUNISM and for the GOVERNMENT to be "In charge" of everything......they have EVERYTHING so damned MESSED UP AND USELESS .....NOW ?

char, freak out over Bull$hit much?

MmmMmmBeer

I live in Canada and no, our system isn't perfect and does have it's problems and probably always will. I also didn't say that adopting our system would be a magic bullet, since it obviously will not, but the U.S. is in a perfect position to become the nation with the best health care by looking at us, at Australia and Europe, and finding out what parts of their systems work best, what needs improvements, and what would be better for them, and then implementing a system based on several or many other countries. It is ludicrous to think that the wealthiest nation on earth cannot cover every citizen when it already pays a higher percentage of it's GDP on health care than any other nation.

That other poster from Canada clearly has a personal problem, and the only way the wait time would be shorter in the U.S. is if he has the cash to pay to move to the front of the line, and there is absolutely nothing stopping him from travelling to the U.S. to get whatever kind of diagnosis/treatment/procedure he desires if that's what he wants.

Char In Ohio

EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED NATION HAS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. Do you really think they are communist? The government DOES NOT own my health, I DO, and I have the freedom to go to any doctor I choose. The government DOES NOT "pick and choose" who gets health care and they can not "...THEN charge you EVER HOW MUCH THEY WANT...". That's the WHOLE POINT OF UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. EVERYONE GETS THE CARE THEY NEED REGARDLESS OF INCOME, AND YES, EVEN VISITORS TO OUR COUNTRY ARE GIVEN THAT RIGHT, AND YOU AND YOUR DOCTOR DECIDE WHAT TREATMENTS ARE REQUIRED FOR YOU. NOT THE GOVERNMENT! I DO NOT LIVE IN A COMMUNIST NATION AND NIETHER DO THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD. PUT DOWN YOUR FOXNEWS PIPE AND DO SOME LEARNING BEFORE SPOUTING IGNORANT DRIVEL.

Char and Silly Son:

Each of your posts have some good points that the US could learn a lot from but each of you also have some gross simplifications and plain errors. Now if we could get the two of you in a room to work out a hybrid program I am POSITIVE you both could come up with a program for the US and Canada that is SUPERIOR to what each country now has.

Maybe you could nominate yourselves and send a letter to our wimpy President who I supported and voted for but have come to think he has no interest in real people.

Good question. They should list the hospitals. They had no problem putting googles name out there. Let the public know which hospitals and you would see anarchy and lawyers swarming the hospitals like predators. It would do more damage i think in the long run to an already screwed up healthcare system.

It was an anonymous survey. For litigation reasons, no hospital will publicly admit that they do this. Imagine how many more were not honest on this anonymous survey.

I hate our sue-happy culture. Nobody wants to do anything anymore beacuse they will just get sued by somebody.

That said I think in this case its reasonable unless they told you where the drug was coming from and you agreed to take the risk.

Lets expropriate the assets of the scum sucking lawyers! Take everything they have and everything they could hope to have. Ruin them. Make them live under bridges, like the low life parasites they are. Make it illegal for lawyers to hold government office or be employed by the public sector. Make it a crime for businesses to employ lawyers. The country would quickly be much better off.

If you must sue someone why not sue the company that caused the "legal" version of your life saving drug to be unavailable?

O.K., this may sound stupid & maybe it is, but I think a part of it is due to social breakdown. Now hear me out. What I'm saying is that, amongst the top dogs in all this, there is no sense of shame, no sense of connectedness & empathy for fellow brethren. And I guess that goes for a lot of lawyers, too. I'm not, repeat not, saying pharmaceuticals should operate as a non-profit organizations. No. What I am saying that the crowd at the top behave as if they have no sense of right & wrong. Yes, what they're doing is legal. But just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should. Honest profit is one thing-----you should reap the benefits of your labor-----unadulterated greed is another. They make their money off of others' misery, & apparently they do not see a problem with this.

Yes, I am bringing a question of morals & ethics into a discussion of economics. And maybe I'm way off-topic in doing so & this posting is inappropriate, but I thought it an interesting point of view. And I suppose I'm opening myself up for a barrage of nasty comments, but I still think it a valuable point to discuss.

And no, I don't know what to do about it.

Yours most sincerely, Bubbacat

Bubbacat, Your post makes me misty. (Humor but no sarcasm) I like your style.

I totally agree with you and it's not off topic. There is a huge difference between good business with a healthy profit and shameless greed.

Spot-on Bubbacat. Good post..

Carlo. did you read the part of the article that stated that the hospitals are paying as much as 10x for the drugs from the 'gray suppliers'??? It's called scalping

I disagree. There is a shortage which has forced the buyers to seek alternative sources of supplies of medicine. This is an area in which requires more of a risk analysis approach, time, and sourcing capabilities to locate the correct product.

Not a bad theory but too little too late. Most of the drugs in short supply are already off patent.

Shortage?

Maybe sold cheaply, and re-imported inflatedly. Everybody but the patient wins.

Thanx, DW88 - you saved me the typing - Capitalism in its pure form is exactly that, a criminal enterprise otherwise defined. Sad thing is that TP and so very many others think this is SUPPOSED to be a Capitalist society, based on a few minutes of education on the Web...

Mike, May I throw a different perspective your way. Capitalism in it's pure form is feudalism. Feudalism is where a few owners of a finite resource are the government.

This situation is very close. In this case, life saving or prolonging drugs not land, are the resource as it were in medieval Europe. Instead of nobles being the government, corporation simply control any aspects of it where the two interact.

"What is the value of life, when one has nothing to left to do but work; work whose best result is to cling to life? Is this not slavery?"

Okay Mike, if this is not supposed to be a capitalist society, what is it supposed to be, socialist, communist, fascist, what? Which "ist" are you going for?

bad example, I would hardly call this highly-regulated industry a "free market" it is anything but...

Probably just really greedy opportunists in the supply chain (distribution, etc). Once you know that a certain product is the only known drug for a disease and also know that OEM isn't thrilled about having to still make the drug/treatment...WHEEL.OF.FORTUNE!!!!!

Mark-3140636 - If I had my way I would outlaw health insurance...

I get where you are coming from and sympathise. However, if run properly insurance is a good thing. The concept is "Shared Risk" and it works like this; the odds of illness has long been worked out (with some opinional variances), so in a nutshell, everyone kicks in money hoping it will be the other guy that is unlucky enough to get sick and collect from the pool.

What we need is a whole new set of regulations to replace what was written by the insurance companies.

There is just no shame anymore. Get-rich-quick is more important than human lives. Our laws allow that.

Yup - but ya left out us cripples who, according to TP philosophy, should just die and save the taxpayer the money - which wouldn't happen anyway, it would just go to the TP supporters like Koch...

You know you are right. The TP's have forgotten one little thing though..when all the workers are to sick to work and they have to wash their own toilets..what the hell are they going to do? I wonder if once they have reduced the American working class to the level of the rest of the third world countries, they will finally understand what they have worked so hard to accomplish. The really awful thing is that they find these wonderful life affirming plans in their churches. Very scary world anymore.

Since when does the government say something is mandatory, and then that thing happen every time. Drug companies and the government will always be partners in crime, i.e. FDA, DEA etc. The government can't fix healthcare, they just need to stay the hell out of it, and enforce the laws we have. We don't need any new laws, programs, or government employees pushing papers around in a circle like they always do. You want to fix healthcare and save money, investigate and prosecute Medicade fraud. Quit paying peoples way who are too lazy to work.

Tim, pull your head out, and look at what's been going on for the last decade.

Espliff.....I wonder how you would react if you were a business owner and the government stepped in and issued "Mandatory Production".

OMG - balme it on the Tea Party - hate to pop you bubble but:

- this was happening WAY before the '10 elections, like 10 years!

- TP wouldn't exist if the establishment (dem & rep) weren't

so inept

I'm not a Tea Party member, but I do agree with a lot of what they stand for. And your comments don't make any sense. TP members are pro-life, so I don't know any of them who want premature babies or cancer patients to die. They just don't want government dictating their lives.

And I hate to break it to you, but the government can't solve our problems. It's time for people to learn some ethics again, but since our government is filled with unethical people, don't expect them to have your best interests in sight.

Yup, those Totally Progressive a$$holes would rather see premature babies die through abortion and cancer patients die 'cuz that medication is just too damned expensive and would throw the ObamaCare rationing numbers completely off....

espliff, I have little to say for the Tea Party ... whom I liken to the modern version of the 'Know-Nothing Party' though I agree with fiscal responsibility ... but not with imposed religious 'values' ... ... but do you seriously believe they really want to see people die just to get their way? Seriously? I read the comments to your comments ... such out and out hatred from left and right (the right has no monopoly on this) and just shake my head ... such energy wasted with blind hatred of the 'other'. Perhaps this is why we get nowhere in Washington ....

That's what came to my mind too. And there is nothing and nobody that can stop them from taking care of sick and frail... It makes me angry

Ask the parents of the babies in China that died because of over-regulated infant formula...

Mike, you do realize Chinese regulations don't mean anything right? Here in the US we have to meet every single regulation down to the letter. Ask the engineers who have built government buildings why they have to revise each building plan 15+ times because the paint wasn't the right color.

Creby you do realize that they IGNORE what few regulations they have in China right? The same way the GOP wants things to be in the US as well. PROFITS, PROFITS, PROFITS!!!

Mike, I don't think those babies died from "overrregulated formula" - probably the opposite - under-regulated and the suppliers put "melamine powder" in the formula. No regulations would ever allow plastic used for making dishes to be contained in baby formula! Wikipedia has this comment under TOXICITY: Melamine is described as being "Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage. Eye, skin and respiratory irritant.”

(Remember Melamine dishes? We got our first ones back in the 1960s.)