Archive link. https://archive.is/N4Rqj
Some personal editorializing: This is a pretty remarkable first because of how captive we Americans are to pharma prices. Famously, when Medicare Part D was brought into existence by law it restricted the federal government from negotiating Part D drug prices. To me, shopping for drugs in Canada is tackling the symptom and ignores the cause. I wonder if this gets more traction with more states how it might affect drug prices in Canada, too.
The real solution to all this, of course, would be nationalize the healthcare industry in all aspects and to create a single payer healthcare system.
Hmm! Why would prescription drugs be cheaper in Canada? What could possibly be the difference between America and its northern neighbor, they’re both equally advanced and developed. Something just makes their drugs cheaper. Weird! 🫠
Don’t worry, our right-wing nutjobs are slowly chipping away at privatizing our health care system. Sooner or later we’ll probably reach parity. 🙄
If we sell our drugs to America on the cheap, we’ll probably end up buying them back at five times the price. Isn’t that how it works with our electricity and/or water?
It’s funny because when you realize the right wing nut jobs are really being directed and funded by billionaires it makes perfect sense.
It must be because Canada is part of the commonwealth 😏. If we had King Charles on our money who knows what great things might start happening.
I literally at least once a year lament the shortsightedness of the ultra-libertarians who founded the country. Imagine what we could have had as part of the Commonwealth over centuries!
I’m guessing:
Then again, there’s a lot of complexities when dealing with revisionist history.
Hitler would almost certainly have never been born, too many butterflies flapping their wings.
Perhaps, or maybe he would’ve been born, but he doesn’t gain power. The US had a big part in the WWI reparations discussion, and the UK likely would’ve struck a very different deal. Hitler played off that deal to get power.
Or maybe France would’ve stayed a monarchy because the US didn’t show that revolution was effective. That directly relates to the later conflict between Prussia and France, which could’ve been more or less severe.
So yeah, Commonwealth US is an interesting discussion, but ultimately very complicated.
Well yeah, when you subsidize something, it usually gets cheaper at the counter, since you’re paying for it with tax dollars instead.
People who need cheaper prescription drug prices aren’t paying a lot in taxes either.
Also, learn MMT. Taxes don’t pay for anything when you can print your own currency.
Perhaps, I don’t know much about Canadian taxes. I do know that, at least in Scandinavia, socialized medicine is largely funded by the middle class, not by the wealthy, whereas the US tax system is a lot heavier on the wealthy than the middle class or the poor.
But that’s not my point, my point is that US citizens buying Canadian drugs are benefiting from Canadian taxes. I’m not sure how that works in Florida here, I’m guessing Florida gets a worse deal than a citizen visiting Canada.
The US tax system is not at all ‘heavy’ on the wealthy. The largest burden, proprtionally, falls on those with high earned incomes, doctors, lawyers, etc. these are the people who will be paying the higher marginal tax rates on substantial portions of their income.
The truly wealthy do not have high earned incomes, they acquire large assets and borrow against their value to pay for living expenses while avoiding taxes. This is the “buy, borrow, die” strategy, specifically designed to limit tax liability.
Yes, you’re right. I was a bit loose with the terminology.
I think we should absolutely count stock options and whatnot as earned income, so CEOs and whatnot pay taxes upon receipt as the delta between purchase price and NAV. But that’s a separate discussion.
I do not care about the middle class. 🙄
The majority, the working class, need socialized medicine.
The middle class is defined as the middle income. For example, for Pew Research, it’s between 67-200% of the median income, so by definition, less than half are below and less than half are above.
So the middle class is part of either majority.
When the top 1% holds 15 times more wealth than the bottom 50% you can’t just define middle class as “middle income.” That’s a child’s understanding of class dynamics.
Middle class is literally that - the class between the working class and the ruling class. Managers, professionals, small business owners, etc. A middle income welder is still working class!
Nobody said there’s a clear separation between “working class” and “middle class,” and I think most people understand the upper end of the “working class” to be middle class or higher.
Middle class is, by definition, the people in the middle of the income scale. A middle income welder is middle class. There are managers below middle class (i.e. fast food managers probably make like $30-40k), and there are tradespeople who make more than middle class. Middle class is literally just the people who are between 67% and 200% of the median income.
The definition for “working class” is even more squishy, and it’s loosely defined as people without a college education (iffy Wikipedia article, claims it contains 30-35% of the population). There’s a lot of overlap with “lower middle class,” and it’s definitely not a “majority” by pretty much any “official” standard, though it’s often the biggest group (i.e. it’s a plurality). So you’ll have some overlap with income-based classes since “working class” is generally education-based instead of income-based.
Here is the definition from the The American Heritage Dictionary:
Class is not just about income. It’s about social hierarchy as well, and not bothering to capture that is really missing the point.
They actually don’t. The annual mean wage of a restaurant food manager is $63,820.