Shameful Profits

The states of Wisconsin and Illinois have joined forces in the battle against prescription drug costs.

A new service, called I-SaveRX, will let residents shop at 45 “inspected and approved pharmacies and wholesalers in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.” Other states are being invited to take part, too.

The idea, of course, is to give people another option in buying their prescription drugs. Maybe they’ll save some money.

As a political issue, I fail to see a down side. Eighty percent of Wisconsin residents believe we should be able to buy drugs in Canada, according to a recent poll. The effects of rising drug costs are real, and amplified by the fact that those who need multiple prescriptions are also likely to be living on fixed incomes.

Couple that with the illegality of importing drugs from other countries, though, and I think we see this for what it really is: an attempt to goad the Bush administration into doing something unpopular.

That’s because, as a practical issue, the whole thing is a wash. Long-term, it’s no solution.

Should I care about this? I find it hard to. If somebody wants to go to Canada for their prescription drugs, why shouldn’t they? It’s their money. It’s their lives. It’s not my business. Should I care if someone goes to England for tea, or to Ireland for whiskey?

Note, of course, that there is some concern about safety. Be warned, and make an informed choice.

Note also the reason drugs are cheaper in Canada: because the government sets an artificial limit on prices.

If more and more Americans start turning to Canada for drugs, demand in that country will rise accordingly. Because the profit margin for drug companies is lower, they have less incentive to provide the larger amounts of product that will be needed, so supply will not rise to meet that demand.

I wonder how long Canadian authorities will put up with that?

Because, sure as moose droppings freeze in October, drug manufacturers aren’t going to mindlessly comply, and continue supplying more and more of their product at profitless prices.

Cold-hearted of them, isn’t it? Billion-dollar drug companies demanding a profit from silver-haired grandmothers who need those drugs to maintain their quality of life, or in some cases, to maintain life itself.

I’m a big believer in capitalism. I trust the free market. But common decency says there are some things more important than profit. Making sure people have the basic necessities should be one of those things.

Food, for example.

What is a more basic necessity than food? You can’t live on your prescription drugs, you know. Not enough calorie content. If you don’t have enough food to eat, you’ll quickly forget about needing medicine.

So why, then, do we put up with farmers who constantly insist on making a profit? Can’t they see they’re just inflating the price for the end consumer, making it harder to put food on the table?

Okay, there are lots of small farmers who are just barely making ends meet themselves. I shouldn’t pick on them.

So how about the supermarkets, then? Aren’t they making big profits from marketing a basic necessity? How much money has Herb Kohl taken out of the pockets of seniors, living on fixed incomes, who can’t afford to replace a tattered pair of shoes because food prices are so high?

While we’re on this tangent, isn’t it unseemly for public school teachers to complain about pay? A good education is, after all, a basic necessity in our society. As Governor Doyle put it at a teacher’s convention in 2003, “You are doing the most important job of anyone in the state of Wisconsin. Our future, our economy depends on you. Our democracy depends on you."

So much depending on it, yet making a bigger profit remains a top issue for the union.

Again, okay, teachers aren’t getting rich, like big time drug company CEOs. So how about the publishing companies that produce the textbooks? That’s big business. How about the construction companies that build new schools? Awful lot of money in that. How about the banks that issue the bonds that pay for that construction? Are they sleeping well at night, knowing they’re making a profit from a basic human necessity?

Food. School. Medicine. Big Grocery. Big Construction. Big Financial. Big Pharmaceutical.

So many people, making money from basic human necessities.

They ought to be ashamed.