It's back. The media has begun pushing the "prescription drugs for seniors" issue again. Apparently the War on Terrorism isn't enough of an election issue for them.

But anyways. Do we really need to "give" prescription drugs to all those poor senior citizens who simply can't afford it?

I say no.

Before you flat out discount my position, please read my argument.

In my opinion, prescription drugs, and all of the wonderful healthcare our nation has to offer, are luxuries. Human beings existed quite fine for quite a few centuries without them. There are still counties where you can't get prescription drugs. People survive without them.

Longevity is the ultimate luxury. The longer you live, the more opportunity you have to live a satisfying life. It's likely that we all agree with that.

And now for the seniors. Every "senior citizen" alive was born before 1938. Either they lived through the Great Depression, or their parents did. They saw or heard first-hand accounts of a poverty stricken America.

Did these people not learn anything? Why have they allowed themselves to become poor? Do they not know how to save? Let's remember, these senior citizens have been in the work force for 45 years or more.

So what do you think we should do, you say. Do we let these old people wither away and die? Do we deprive them of their prescription drugs? The hard answer is yes.

Why should we "help" them? From an objective point of view, one could think this: These people are old. They are in their last phase of life. They have already reached their peak of productivity. Is it a wise investment to preserve the life and postpone the death of these senior citizens? Will they shape America's future? Will are they an asset, or will they be a liability? It would be good for the sympathy factory, and it may be politically correct. But then again, these people had plenty of time to save. They should have known better.


Surely I've said enough to elicit your thoughts.

What do you think?

Mike

I have two opinions regarding this topic, one that the prescription drugs will not be free to senior citizens, it will come at a rise in their taxes, reduction in their social security, and decreased coverage by their Medicare. I’m not lying about this to scare (like so many on the left do) these are facts, there is no way to increase benefits somewhere without decreasing them somewhere else. My second point is that with the instant coverage in prescription drugs there will exist an instant price hike in drugs, as well as a mass over-prescription crisis in America. If nobody is paying for them why not try a little of everything right?

Isn't the real problem the prescription companys themselves, not social security or Medicare? These drug company's literally hold many of our lives in their hands, they can charge whatever price they see fit, because they know we will pay whatever it takes to perserve our lives or the lives of the ones we love. I know a couple people in the prescription industry and the markup for drugs in many cases is about 600 times the actual cost to make the drug. I feel there should be some type of watchdog on these prescription companies. And from that perspective, this is more than just a senior citizen problem.

-Kisov

"If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in everyday and do it really half *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. ***. That's the American Way!!" --Homer Simpson

True that the price of drugs are high, but without the hight price the drug companies would not be able to do research in finding new drugs If you know anything about medicine you would know that there are bacteria and viruses everyday taht are becoming resistant to all the drugs we currently have. With out the drug companies researching on new drugs we would have to rely on the government..... the we would all die from a simple cold.

Capitalisim puts the ceiling on the drugs if we just alow the free maket to dictate the price NOT THE GOVERNMENT!

In a free market society "watchdog" groups are beaurocratic waste. I recognize that some of the problem stems from exclusive drug patents and perhaps that is what can be addressed here next. But is the solution to take the intellectual property of these drug companies and make it available to anyone who wants to manufacture a drug so we as consumers can get it cheaper? What would the incentive be for the drug companies to create better medicine?

Rarely are drugs that expensive to manufacture so selling them at a lower cost will only mean they need to sell more of them.. Asprin and IBprofin are cheep and produced in mass quantities. therefor the system is proven to work.. when it comes to a pill that is rare, and not needed by the masses then you must expect to have higher costs. saying that the drug companies should lower their costs just because it saves lives a form of socialisim.

First of all, Aspirin and Ibruprofin are not a perscribed medicine. Last time I checked I could get them over the counter; but over the counter is the end of the line for a lot of drugs that were at one time perscriptions. A patent on a drug runs out after 17 years. However, that patent starts the
day that the compound for the drug is first written down in some poor
scientist's lab notebook. On average a drug takes about 6 to 12 years to go to market. so the drug company that discovers, develops, runs clinical
studies, upscales, and markets the product only has 5 to 10 years to make a profit on the drug they develop. The generic company develop and have the FDA approval ready the day after the name brand drug loses it's patent. At which time the price for the medicine goes down, and then we have more competition with pricing and more of a chance to afford it. So that may be the reason Drug company's charge so much for new medication. Another point I would like to make about the last post, there is no such thing as a "rare" drug. . . these things aren't diamonds. They are made synthetically in a lab, but like diamonds the drug companies can limit the amount available to the public to cause a fake supply shortage and raise the price. But the practice of creating demand is not new, so I guess we have no choice but to deal with it.

-Kisov


"If you don't like your job, you don't strike! You just go in everyday and do it really half *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. ***. That's the American Way!!!" --Homer Simpson

Slightly off topic, but important none the less, is the drug companies' manipulation of our patent system.

They'll apply for a new patent a few months before their original patent is set to expire for the exact same drug, just packaged differently.

Look! Look! I can take my anti-crazy drugs once a week instead of three times a week. Woo-Hoo!

It doesn't deserve a new patent. What the drug companies do is wrong.

Mike

It is not nessesarly wrong i dont think.... it is what companies like Coke have done for over 100 years.

We all feel we can aford a coke, yet they make some 200+ percent profit on every can they sell.

I wouldnt ever say Coke is an evil company... it is just business, and it encourages the best that the maket has to offer.

If they repakage a depression drug that a certain percentage of the public cannot take anyway then they really dont win. What needs to happen is for someone to come out with soemthing different that the people left out can take.

That was the senario for how penicilin got competition with ceclor, kelfex cephlesporins (man made) and what not....

The part that I think is wrong (not evil) is that they abuse the system.

I'm not really concerned with their profit margin.

I'm just saying that it is wrong to subvert the system. They should play by the rules, and if they don't like them, they should do everything they can to get them changed.

But then again, I do understand that business is business. If businesses didn't exploit every little loophole, it would clearly hurt their bottom line.

Unfortunately, patents are something that need regulation. Possessors of intellectual property should certainly be able to preserve their products. Otherwise I'd think the government should just but out.

It's a tough issue for me to make a definite decision on my opinion.

Mike