India Steals Drugs

[CitizenCain]

I meant all of your post up there actually.

But on the topic of lower drug prices in Soviet-occupied Europe, that's the result of legislated price-fixing. That doesn't qualify as negotiation, or bargaining anywhere outside of organized crime or government endeavors.

[Aimless]

I dunno I just assumed that if anyone would be expected to negotiate with a seller for the price of a good it would be the buyer, but I guess that doesn't count when the buyer is a government managing the money of its healthcare-craving R&D-funding populace.

[Loki]

I dunno I just assumed that if anyone would be expected to negotiate with a seller for the price of a good it would be the buyer, but I guess that doesn't count when the buyer is a government managing the money of its healthcare-craving R&D-funding populace.

Do you know what a negotiation is? If I offer to sell you something, and you ultimately refuse, I can still sell the object to someone else. In your "negotiations", an inability to come to an agreement means one effectively loses one's product. Can you not have a single honest discussion on this issue, Minx? Every time you try to joke your way out.

[Aimless]

Do you know what a negotiation is? If I offer to sell you something, and you ultimately refuse, I can still sell the object to someone else. In your "negotiations", an inability to come to an agreement means one effectively loses one's product. Can you not have a single honest discussion on this issue, Minx? Every time you try to joke your way out.

This leads me to think you're talking about the Indian sorafenib case, not about eg. the NHS negotiating with pharmaceutical companies which are the "negotiations" I was referring to. It's a tangent (for which the blame lies on my shoulders I suppose ) but the two issues can be kept separate, unless the EU is now forcing companies to grant licenses or blatantly violating patents.

When it comes to the specific issue in the OP, I agree that it's blatant piracy, even if I can on some level understand why they're doing it.

[GGT]

I dunno I just assumed that if anyone would be expected to negotiate with a seller for the price of a good it would be the buyer, but I guess that doesn't count when the buyer is a government managing the money of its healthcare-craving R&D-funding populace.

Never assume anything when it comes to the US, or how we've managed to add so many complexities (or conflicts) that citizens/consumers can't keep track. I know you've seen Medicare Part D prescription costs and its doughnut hole mentioned here before, even if it was in federal budget-deficit threads. It's been a tangled mess for years---especially for seniors to figure out.

If you lived here and had access to TV and magazine ads, you'd have seen the commercials from private insurance companies trying to get those seniors to sign up for their Part D coverage, and pharmacies who 'participate' with their plans offering special services and health record management. It's a huge maze to maneuver, and often requires a patient advocacy group or medical billing expert to help.

But if you really want to know more about price negotiations, start with the Medicare Modernization Acts of '03 and '07 and/or Medicare Part D. Opinions and analysis run the gamut and are generally political, but you'll get the gist pretty fast: FUBAR.

[Veldan Rath]

Huh, a federal program gone FUBAR...who'd a thunkit?

[CitizenCain]

Yeah, it's weird. I mean, how could you anticipate that throwing 10,000 pages of rules on top of something would turn it into a clusterfuck?

[Aimless]

yeah that's what you get when you let federal programmes be crippled/robbed by private interests such as big pharma, gangsta oncologists and other specialist schmucks, and desperate citizens.

[Enoch the Red]

yeah that's what you get when you let federal programmes be crippled/robbed by private interests such as big pharma, gangsta oncologists and other specialist schmucks, and desperate citizens.

Believe it or not, the federal government is more than capable of creating fundamentally flawed legislation on it's own, without the interference of special interests.

But you're right, it's just another reason we shouldn't be putting more power in the easily corrupted hands of politicians.

[Veldan Rath]

Bazinga!