AARPlease Help! Seniors say they’ve got a choice: we can pay through the nose for our meds, or go Greyhound and spend 80 percent less in Canada. Or the U.S. could join the rest of the world and install price controls …
Show Me the Money In 1998 the pharmaceutical industry was by far the U.S.’s most profitable (Fortune magazine). Reining in prices won’t pull cash from drug research and development—just from Merck’s bulging pocketbook.
… Are You on Drugs? “When price controls are imposed, the lights in the lab go out,” says PhRMA president Alan Holmer. “[They] strangle innovation.” Besides, have you been to Canada? Its health-care system’s a mess.
Running in Place It’s an election year. Let’s connect the dots: (1) Old people vote in droves, but (2) drug companies donate lots of dough, so (3) Congress will talk a big game and (4) do nothing till 2001.
