We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870180.

Obama certainly campaigned on putting a stop to drug company price gouging inside the US by finally allowing Americans to purchase prescription drugs from Canada where price gouging is not allowed.

However, a back room deal was quickly cut.

>WASHINGTON — After weeks of talks, drug industry lobbyists were growing nervous. To cut a deal with the White House on overhauling health care, they needed to be sure that President Obama would stop a proposal intended to bring down medicine prices.

On June 3, 2009, one of the lobbyists e-mailed Nancy-Ann DeParle, the president’s health care adviser. Ms. DeParle reassured the lobbyist. Although Mr. Obama was overseas, she wrote, she and other top officials had “made decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose importation” on a different proposal.

Just like that, Mr. Obama’s staff signaled a willingness to put aside support for the reimportation of prescription medicines at lower prices and by doing so solidified a compact with an industry the president had vilified on the campaign trail.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/politics/e-mails-revea...

Supposedly, the industry promised to control costs themselves in exchange for the deal, but looking at the data on drug prices, we know they never followed through.

Big Pharma knows no party.

Nah, this is dumb. There's a clear distinction between parties in terms of how they feel about the current healthcare system and where it should go. To imply they're the same is utter nonsense.

Big Pharma knows both parties. They own them both, they really don't care much who wins. Welcome to life in a plutocracy.

Then why are only Democrats pushing for Medicare For All and other comprehensive public health plans while Republicans want to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare)?

A subset of Democratic politicians and officials are pushing for Medicare for All. Most of the Democratic party machine is tepid-to-opposed.

There are more than zero Democrats working on the problem. There are zero Republicans working on the problem.

Big Pharma is the only party who wins under a universal healthcare system or private insurance based system.

It’s not like ACA or even Medicare covers all Rx...hence Medicare Part D (ie drug coverage) which was done under GW Bush, at the time the GOP distanced themselves and later Obama tried to dismantle Medicare part D, but the dems has to pull him back (politically dems couldn’t gut drug coverage for Medicare patients).

Medicare for all would do nothing to harm Big Pharma as the government is not legally allowed to use its monopsony status to negotiate prices under Medicare Part D (the section of Medicare that accounts for 85% of government drug spending). If anything, it would be a boon to Big Pharma as it removes barriers to access for an enormous number of new "customers". Interestingly, it was the Trump administration [1] who made the first move to allow the government to negotiate drug prices by loosening the restrictions against such practices for Medicare Part B spending (which represents 15% of government drug spending). I'm not saying the American right wing's approach is in any way comparable to the left's, I'm just saying that the left's approach suspiciously overlooks any solutions that might actually threaten Big Pharma.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-for...

The M4A bills that are working their way through Congress right now all remove that restriction.

Like the banks. They own both parties.

The President and other Republicans are currently making regulations requiring drug companies to charge US customers the same low rates they charge international customers. The price difference is entirely in the price charged, this isn't a case of single payers offsetting the cost.

The US public has been subsidizing pharmaceutical research for the entire world with these inflated prices and hopefully that changes soon.

Let’s hope that something really comes out of this. From previous Republican healthcare attempts I have my doubts but maybe they will do the right thing this time.

If there was a true threat at their profit margins then I would think that a pharma index would reflect that. DRG does not.

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/drg/stock-chart

> The US public has been subsidizing pharmaceutical research for the entire world with these inflated prices and hopefully that changes soon.

This is what some people refuse to acknowledge when they mock the US for having such high prices. If US prices drop over night to match RoW pharma companies are not just going to go quietly into that good night, there will be consequences. Most likely, a lowering of US prices will result in a rise everywhere else, so enjoy your low prices while they last. It’s time for Americans to put America first.

Is this really true? Is there any proof that companies don't or can't make a profit at European & Canadian prices. US prices are much higher because companies are allowed to charge more.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170602.06037...

Research in pharma is expensive, you can easily spend billions and have nothing to show for it. Where else do you think all that money comes from?

Is anybody forcing them to sell in Europe? If it's not profitable I would assume they wouldn't sell there.