Re: Canadian doctors coming to the US

From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: 29 Aug 2004 15:11:18 -0700

"Lictor" <ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE@online.fr> wrote in message news:<41309b16$0$18253$79c14f64@nan-newsreader-05.noos.net>...

> The problem is that I can make my own decision. I don't need to be treated
> by a kid by some ads that think they can try to bully me into buying their
> drugs.

COMMENT:
Come on, as I note elsewhere in this thread, you tolerate advertising
in your politics, in your sexual relations, in your choice of car or
stereo or computer. But somehow you don't like it with drugs. And the
reason is very strange-- you think it drives effective prices up in
drugs more than it does with computers, cars, and women. I think
you're wrong. Rather, I think what you're saying is you're willing to
let third parties choose your drugs to a greater extent than other
consumer goods, and you hope you're getting away with doing it that
way. I think you're not.

>The problem is that, if I lived in the USA, I would *pay* for these
> ads with buying that drug. And if I compared how much you pay for your drug
> and how much I do pay for the very same drug, I would say these ads are
> worth around 90% of the price of the drug.

COMMENT
Bull***! As you admit, you just made that figure up. There are no
drugs in France which cost (counting government subsidy) 10% of what
the same drug costs in the US. If you argue not, please provide three
examples. Otherwise just admit that you're blowing smoke.

Yes, it's true that in the US we pay more for given tradename drugs
than anybody else in the world. But the factors are something like 2
or 3, not 10. Some of the extra is advertising. Some of it is lack of
ability of the US consumer to collectively bargain with drug companies
in many cases.

Interestingly, you French probably pay more per person for
pharmaceuticals than we do here in the US, because you take so many of
them that it completely makes up for the lower prices. You do love
your pills. And it's quite remarkable that you love them so much with
so little advertising. Could it be that all your unbiased sources on
the benefits of liver pills are not quite so unbiased as you think?

>Advertisements should plainly [not] exist. I mean, they provide no
> information to help me with taking a decision. Why should I pay for them
> then?

COMMENT
You don't have to. Simply don't buy any advertised product. But you'll
still pay for hidden advertising in that case.

>When you advertise, you are actually *forcing* me to buy a service
> (the "information" on the ads) I have no desire for, because don't be fooled
> and think that you're not the one paying for these ads in the end.

COMMENT
I'm not forcing you do to anything, since you never are forced to buy
any product. There's always an alternative.

> Being an adult doesn't mean being an American. It means being able to make
> your own decisions, based on your own convictions. Not the ones of the
> society you live in, or the official line of thinking, or what the party
> told me to think. You should try that sometimes... But of course, Big
> Brother is always right, and it's the rest of the world that is un-American
> and doesn't like your "freedom of thinking"...

COMMENT:
It's pretty funny to see you here espousing the French standard
government policy (you can advertise cars but not drugs) and saying
that *I* am a victim of propaganda? Say what? I'm not here arguing
for my government's policy (I'm no record that we in the US should be
free to buy drugs from whereever we like overseas). So I do think for
myself. I have yet to see any evidence that you do.

 
> > And now, next tell me. I've heard that in the US, it is money
> > interests that rule the government. And that this is not so in other
> > countries, such as (for example) that utopia of Canada.
>
> No, that's the case everywhere. The only difference is that the whole world,
> except people like you, *knows* that. So, we can try to act against it,
> instead of believing blindly what Big Brother tells us.

COMMENT:
The whole world saw the many French oil companies in bed with Saddam
Hussein like a bad cartoon. And we inferred that all that smoke coming
out of the French goverment on how we should give the nice man a
third, and a fourth, and manybe a fifth chance to come clean, was not
exactly driven by perfectly pure French egalitarian principles. Call
me cynical.

SBH

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