In any event, the fact that the expression does still have some currency shows how great a brand they were and could be again with the right repairs. I think they are on the right track but they need one nice big sedan.

Nope. They use a formula for a “blended” price.

Many countries set prices through negotiation, which can provide a reasonable return to suppliers although the meaning of “reasonable” is always at risk of being politicized. Like “fair.”

Canada does not “dictate” its lower drug prices. The lower prices are the result of the single payer buying in bulk. As if A-Z sells their drugs in Canada and elsewhere at a loss!!!

You think people who love Wal-Mart would understand that concept, wouldn’t you?

Yup, it isn’t price controls, it is buying in bulk which gets you great discounts be it groceries or drugs. If the USA had a single payer system, we would be buying in bulk for 300 million people, the largest block of drug consumers in the world, and would get extremely low prices. And the drug companies would still make a profit. Who would lose? The middleman insurance companies who don’t produce anything except paperwork and denials of coverage. That is all.

Unlike a lot of other people on the left I don’t really see the drug companies as bad guys. They actually make something worthwhile, they’re just operating in a broken system.

BTW I’d pay $0 (Canadian) for the drug thanks to my employer-provided supplemental health benefits.

Sad to say, Americans are getting ripped off thanks to the current system.

Now, what we really need in this country is single-payer Universal Food Supply. Eating is a basic human right, so everyone should be able to get their food at no cost.

You’re telling me you’ve never heard of food stamps? Or the WIC program? Or, for the middle class, agriculture subsidies? Really?

Yes, having enough to eat is a basic human right, which is why we have that covered with the two things I just mentioned.

So is retirement at an old age (with a minimum standard of living) which is why we created that horrible, communist monster that destroyed our freedoms forever (snark) known as Social Security.

The Anglo-Swedish company Astra Zeneca makes one of my medications. The list price, according to my pharmacy, is $497.99 for a month’s supply. (Thanks to private insurance and Medicare, I pay $79.40.) Best I can tell, I can buy it (without insurance, of course) in Canada for about $100 or so. A-Z does make a handsome profit — in 2008 about 20% of gross revenue — but they’d lose interest in developing new drugs if copying generics became more profitable.

Now, what we really need in this country is single-payer Universal Food Supply. Eating is a basic human right, so everyone should be able to get their food at no cost. The government would reimburse grocery stores with revenue from a payroll tax, like FICA. Thankfully, I’m retired.

Yes.

ey free-ride on American pharmaceutical R&D

Right, because there are no pharmaceutical companies that do R&D in countries with single payer, or based in them. I mean, certainly not Merck (Germany), Bayer (Germany), Novartis (Switzerland), Astra Zeneca (UK/Sweden), or Aventis (France). No single payer systems there! No sir.

Wait, what?

It’s from “WKRP in Cincinatti” Google it if you’re a damn kid, and then get off my lawn.

As I recall, you are Canadian. Why are you so offended by what goes on south of the border? Seems to me it works well for you. Canadians can cross over to use American facilities to get treated quickly. And like an airline passenger who gets a bargain ticket instead of paying regular fare, they free-ride on American pharmaceutical R&D. My idea of reform is to prohibit our drug manufacturers from selling pills elsewhere for less than US prices.

The public I think is slow to adapt to the complexity and evil of the Government. Hell the Government is slow to adapt to itself and life, hence the control issues. The American Fantasy is both coming under pressure and looking like the greener side of the fence. Just like the Cadillac fantasy, and GM fantasy, and the health care fantasy, and the equality fantasy. I’ve always been one to day dream, but I could not have made this story up. Life is becoming quite interesting.

Enlightening the world is the best pass time imo. Perhaps someone will even let go of “classifying” others. Then I’d be really enjoyable to be around people again.

More of the “Sorry, we don’t like you, you’re the (color, ethnicity, age, class, race, risk pool, gender, political party, and or other differentiators that) we don’t like, why don’t you just die” kind of Hearse.

Funny, that’s the same thing I picture when I hear “health insurance corporation”.

In fact, if they want to do away with things like a progressive income tax, public health care, etc., they’ll sooner or later end up with that kind of violent class warfare. Smart capitalists like Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt realized this.

And that, of course, is why I like Fords.

More of the “Sorry, we don’t like you, you’re the (color, ethnicity, age, class, race, risk pool, gender, political party, and or other differentiators that) we don’t like, why don’t you just die” kind of Hearse.

And of course, this never happens with private insurance. No sir!

Please give me one example of, say, a French conservative (or hell even French Nationalist/Fascist, a la LePen) being denied care under their system for their political beliefs, please.

Are you implying that killing peasants for hunting deer was not a form of class warfare, or that keeping generation after generation of people tied to their land is not a form of class warfare? Did those silly peasants not appreciate all that Feudalism had done for them? Class warfare is much more effectively waged from the top down.

But it is interesting that you only mention those rare cases when the underclasses rise up.

And not an ambulance Hearse.

More of the “Sorry, we don’t like you, you’re the (color, ethnicity, age, class, race, risk pool, gender, political party, and or other differentiators that) we don’t like, why don’t you just die” kind of Hearse.

Arguing about the top marginal tax rate, or the role of government in health care, is not class warfare.

It’s class warfare, certainly, but what actually happens is that the upper classes have managed to play the lower and middle classes off against themselves and each other.

No, even more insidiously, they’ve managed to convince families who make $70,000/year and live in insta-mansions that they’re “rich” just like millionaires, and therefore have the same interests as them. When in reality, their interests are closer to those of the janitor that makes $20,000/year. Because the millionaires on Wall St. really don’t care that you have an insta-mansion and a Lexus ES, you’re pretty much still a peon to them, useful only when you can be convinced to defend their interests.

As for the class warfare shtick, isn’t it the inverse sort of class warfare to let a working class guy bleed out for lack of insurance?

That is absolutely ridiculous. We would never allow anyone to bleed out and do nothing about it. That’s unconscionable to allow such a thing to occur.

Now, if they’re dying of cancer, Alzheimer’s or some other short term disease without blood spurting out, well that’s a different story.

And this is why the American system sucks. In no other country in the developed world do you have to worry about the expense of getting sick, pregnant, involved in an accident, starting your own business (and then getting sick), etc, etc.

A good universal system should be like what those UAW members enjoy. How about complaining about how you’re getting screwed by the powers that be (eg, six weeks mat leave, which fucks kids and parents; no health care for small business, etc) about why you don’t have good coverage, instead of complaining about what GM workers get.

It’s class warfare, certainly, but what actually happens is that the upper classes have managed to play the lower and middle classes off against themselves and each other.

The rest of the developed world has, probably, the Honda or Toyota of healthcare. Reliable, affordable and universal, but the detractors complain about how good Benzes are, despite that Mercedes aren’t available to most people, and are still more expensive.

The best part of this analogy is how far I can stretch it: that instead of implementing what other countries do, the current administration is acquiescing to people who want the Mercedes plan, by making everyone buy a shitty Mercedes.

Good point, except a Cadillac health plan would NOT be “co-pay riddled,” that is, everything is covered by the insurer. Therefore, the insured has every incentive to see the doc (or ER) for all manner of minor maladies, as he/she doesn’t have to pay a thing (as in 50merc’s example). Of course, this is inefficient.

I know the new GM isn’t as generous, but my wife recalls that on one visit to her OB-GYN she heard a pregnant lady say “Well, we decided to have another baby because my husband works for GM [at the then-existing OKC assembly plant] and it would be free.”

Really? By allowing the brand to be connected with the indefensible. That being rich people’s exclusive access to health care, or the immoral debate about health care?

I would run out a statement just the opposite; “Cadillac has requested members not associate expensive, co-pay riddled, inefficient health care with our good name”.

The last time I heard someone refer to something luxurious as a Cadillac was when our former Prime Minister, the execrable John Chretien, referred to some helicopters the previous government ordered as ‘Cadillacs’. Of course, he cancelled the deal (costing us $500 million in cancellation fees and then spent the next 8 years trying to find a way NOT to come to the conclusion they were the best option after all). To save face, they ended up ordering substantially decontented ones at a lower price.