But at some point uninsured, unprosperous patients in the U.S. want to receive the humanitarian rate. Here come price controls. The popular revolt against the pharmaceutical companies began with protesters. MSF is not a radical organization. But they don t have sufficient supplies of the drugs required.
Big pharma can t move fast enough to defend itself in the court of public opinion.
Selective discounting isn t a death blow to a pharmaceutical company. The high cost of prescription drugs so dominated the election season that politicos from both sides were tripping over each other to appear more solicitous to the elderly. I m not waiting for the drug companies to come to the table before acting, says Republican Senator James Jeffords of Vermont, who pushed the bill through the Senate. And even House Majority Leader Dick Armey, once immovably opposed to undermining the drug industry s price structure, decided he couldn t hold back the populist tide and collected support for the bill. Drug companies hate the reimportation billwhich amounts to price controls.