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That kind of "select committee" hearing is usually just a publicity event, which as Pollard correctly notes mostly means publicity for the Senators themselves.

If they are really trying to get work done, it's handled entirely differently; much more like what Pollard had expected.

Strangely, I don't usually find that "free-market NGOs" are so sneering about the word profits. Also, their figures seem to be strongly disputed by this IHT article. Not that the presence of European drug companies doing R&D would necessarily disprove the existence of price controls; does anyone dispute that most of the European profits come from the US market as well? Surely even with price controls European drug companies can exist and even prosper so long as the US market is there.

I don't have the time to repeat all the articles I made on my prior thread. It is possible, I suppose, that free trade in pharmaceuticals will lead to relaxation of price controls everywhere as free-riding opportunities are lessened. It's also possible that it will merely lead to fewer drugs, or to nationalized or subsidized drugs research. So it goes.

John,

Where are these price controls? Britain - nope, Germany - nein, France - err non, Italy - guess what - no. Spain - afraid not. These price controls exist in the propaganda of Big Pharma's Washington lobbyists but not actually in Europe.

Come to Britain with your pills and potions, charge what you like, it will be legal to sell 'em at any price you care to charge. THERE ARE NO PRICE CONTROLS. Try to register that relevant bit of information. (By the way, we don't have many chimney sweeps and the fog in London is rare despite what you may see in the movies).

Seriously, I believe in capitalism, free trade and free markets, but the drug companies are subsidised in the U.S. by taxpayers to the tune of 60% of sales. Taxpayers funding industries sounds a bit like socialism to me.

60% of U.S. Drugs Paid for By Taxpayers

I'm all for profits - but I'm not impressed with a protectionist cartel making monopoly profits on the back of taxpayers and the sick. Politicians are generously financed with campaign contributions from the drug companies - why do you think they spend so much money on lobbying? It stinks.

The government is not just like any other bulk purchaser. Assuming it doesn't have a bunch of Senators on its payroll (a big assumption I know), a company like Walmart cannot forcibly take from the citizenry whatever it sees fit. Walmart cannot imprison or impose enormous fines on those who refuse to follow its rules. Walmart must peacefully persuade customers to do business with it. The government has the Marine Corps. When "negotiating prices," Walmart doesn't have that convenient bargaining chip of eminent domain or an income tax audit that makes a rectal examination feel like a massage by Heidi Klum.

I tend to disagree with bans on reimportation as well. If Big Pharma feels its bottom line is being threatened by reimportation, it will either negotiate a higher price with Candians or, the nuclear option, cut them off all together. But this idea that the government "is just like anyone else" is a load of crap.

As I pointed out in the last thread on drug reimportation, if it's OK to buy prescription drugs in one country and import them to another for resale, there oughtn't be a problem doing the same thing with cigarettes. Yet such "cigarette reimportation" is always called "smuggling"....

Ted, you are slowly grasping it.

I back the smugglers too, smugglers are free traders in a real sense. Tax collected at gunpoint is a major trade barrier.

Its called the free market - I buy something freely, it becomes my property, I sell it to whom I choose.

Voluntary exchange is no crime.