Call It A Comeback
You have got to be kidding me?
President Bush’s uncle will be heading his re-election effort in Missouri. State Republicans announced today that Bucky Bush of St. Louis will serve as campaign chairman for the Bush-Cheney re-election effort in the Show-Me State.
Because I’ve been away from my computer, Charles Kuffner has organized a blogburst to offer advice to the Texas Dems about their next move.
For cheap drugs and even picks up Chris Lauzen’s support.
The idea is to import cheap drugs from Canada and then resell them in Illinois saving consumers money. On the surface it seems like a no-brainer–after all why should a border make a bid difference in drug costs?
A couple objections have popped up. The first is that Canadians don’t have the same safety controls. This is pretty silly assuming the state used Canadian licensed pharmacies. Canadians have high standards and generally this shouldn’t be a problem. In those few cases where the rules are different, the state could identify those differences.
The second objection is that by importing drugs from Canada, the State of Illinois would be driving profits down and decreasing the incentive for drug companies to invest in new drugs.
This is a far more serious problem and one not to be ignored. Some of the pharmaceutical company complaints are over the top. For one, many drugs are developed under government subsidy already and many pharmaceutical companies primarily license the drugs and then manufacture them. In such cases, a move by Illinois would have little effect. Additionally, many of the most marketed drugs aren’t significant improvements over others. Many of the heavily marketed drugs are of little therapeutic value and so reducing their availability would have little impact. Worse, many of the newest drugs are ineffective. Newly created allergy control drugs often are effective for less than 50% of the population even though they are widely prescribed without that information being conveyed by the doctor. Minor pharmacological changes are made to retain patent rights, but little or no improvement in therapeutic value is made.
For all that, reimportation is a bad idea. The debate centers on the effects of consumers, but it fails to grasp that the problem isn’t one of price gouging, but of free trade. Eseentially, the United States prescription drug market is subsidizing research for the rest of the world because the rest of the world drives a hard bargain for low costs. Since the United States doesn’t have a centralized buying cooperative those in the market pay higher costs to recoup the costs of development.
To overcome this, the United States has a few options, none of them ideal. First, it could form a collective buying group as a government and then sell the drugs to citizens at the rate they get. The disadvantages are it would drive incentives to develop new drugs down by decreasing profits. That said, so do private drug benefit plans. This would force the costs of development to be spread more evenly across countries though as the pharmaceutical companies would have to raise prices to other countries. The disadvantage to patients is that the government would be designing the formulary. As a chronic allergy sufferer, having Clarinex as my preferred drug over Zyrtec would be a real problem. Clarinex doesn’t work for me as it doesn’t for over half of the population taking antihistamines. For others the opposite would be true. It would also turn the government formulary into a political list of favored companies–remember Toricelli and Ashcroft extending the patent of Claritin beyond the normal time limit despite no compelling reason?
A second strategy would be to seek WTO sanctions. I’m guessing this would fail, but it would argue that government buying plans are in effect a form of protectionism and thus a violation of free trade agreements. Given my lack of knowledge on how pharmaceuticals are regulated under WTO, I have no idea if this would be or could be effective. And it attacks other governments’ legitimate choices concerning the provision of health care.
A third strategy would be to subsidize drug benefits on a sliding scale for those of modest means. This would generally increase prices to everyone, but ensure that the most needy have help.
A fourth strategy, and probably the most likely, is to spur the development of private drug plans and potentially subsidize entry into those plans that exploit their buying power in a price competitive environment for the plans. In a nation of 300 million, it is entirely conceivable that the plans would have the same buying power as nations–in fact, Express-Scripts claims to offer service to 50 million members. Instead of subsidizing every drug purchase, subsidizing entry into such a plan based on income would go along way to closing the gap for those in need of relatively expensive pharmaceuticals.
So Lauzen and G-Rod come together for a bad idea.
Rich Miller continues reporting from Iraq, with two stories. The first concerns the shooting of Iraqi Police Officers by US troops and offers an interesting analysis of the different skills sets for war and peacekeeping. Remember–that which was mocked by the current administration. A second piece discusses his experiences in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. Both seem slightly more positive and address interesting angles to Iraq–Good reading.
Greg Easterbrook has a great post on why. If you don’t laugh, you must be a Senator.
The Leader has two eating your own items with the the Church Lady taking on Judy Baar Topinka amongst others and John Zahm going after Tom Roeser for daring to say nice things about Tom Cross.
Fighting corruption in a party is one thing, fighting for ideological purity….keep it up.
Okay, I didn’t do a comment period, but what the hell
1. Jack Ryan. Money, looks and backing from up high. Seems a little awkward talking about specifics, but it is still early. Lots of flash so far, but a good start. Needs more ground support.
2. Andrew McKenna. Lots of connections, cash from the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and has reduced social conservative concerns over his possible challenge to Fitzgerald and giving money to Democrats. Needs grassroots support, but has some decent buzz.
3. Steve Rauschenberger. Lots of support from fellow Lege members, Hastert and Jim Edgar. Social conservatives like him and he has good budget credentials.
4. Jim Oberweis. While his comparison of social conservatives to Taliban will continue to haunt him, he’s slimmed up and has a concurrent Oberweis Dairy campaign underway. He also is reported to have good ground support at state events and is amiable.
5. John Cox. Lots of social conserative support. Not going anywhere. As mentioned previously, primary benefit of campaign will go to political professionals who he keeps employed.
6. Chirinjeev Kathuria. Pretty good buzz going. Apparently a really nice guy and has cash. Maybe an outside surprise. Still has a ways to go.
7. John Borling. Or as I believe it was Jeff Trigg put it, John Boring. Not dynamic, can’t speak and pro-choice in a pro-life field. While the last attribute could help in a divided field, he seems to have little traction or buzz going. Resume better than personality.
8. Jonathan Wright. No cash, not much experience and kind of a strange candidacy. Doesn’t appear to add to the field.
9. Antonio Davis Fairman. Web site offers his poetry.
1. Dan Hynes. Announced, is doing okay, but not as well as he should be. Some troubling rumbles for him if he doesn’t get on the ball. Still in first though. To hold on, needs cash and some visibility.
2. Barack Obama. The media darling-Rich Miller, Kristen McQueary, Steve Neal and many others join the ranks slobbering over him. I do too, so that isn’t entirely perjorative. Strong candidate and making strong inroads with the liberal base while keeping independent labor support. Doing well on cash. Big help coming from high limit on individual contributions due to Hull being in the race.
3. Blair Hull. Cash is starting to have an effect and is making some inroads with black clergy in the city. Good rumbles around the campaign amongst Democrats. Still has to shake the rich guy only. Name recognition is going up.
4. Maria Pappas. Not technically in the race yet, but still has the name. No cash or organization yet, make it difficult.
5. Gery Chico. Has cash, not much else. Good guy, but isn’t getting much traction beside corporate dollars. The death knell will sound if he fails to keep the fundraising pace with Obama.
6. Nancy Skinner. Weird activist buzz. No cash. No real chance. Probably will have some good one liners during the campaign and certainly adds some color to the race.
7. Joyce Washington. Not much news or activity. Rush backed Hull over her in brouha over whether he was a machine tool. Joyce is nice, but she could be being used by forces larger than herself. Self-financing to a point.
8. Matt O’Shea. I’m sure he is a nice guy.
9. Frank Avila. Huh?
10. Estella Johnson-Hunt Huh? Squared.
11. Vic Roberts. Everyone’s favorite crackpot candidate. Can’t wait for the Eric Zorn interview.
Hynes is in real danger of losing his status as a frontrunner. Even his kick-off event garnered little attention. He isn’t in the news and his on-line presence for activists is nill. He needs a message as well.
For Senate links go to my Senate Page. Illinois Senate is linked as is Eric Zorn’s interviews. It will be updated with some regularity.
Via Political Wire
Oh, the irony of having steel tariffs backfire on the President
Bad policy meets bad politics.
The strategizing was "too clever by half," Bartlett, the economist, said. "It presupposed that nobody was watching what we were doing, and it presupposed that our credibility was of no importance
Roger "the Hog" Stanley gets 27 months in prison due partially to cooperation on the Operation Saferoads probe.
Not too much surprising, but as Eric Zorn points out….Nice Hair Stanley.
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