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Bill: Drug Company Freedom Act.
Details
Submitted by[?]: Liberal-Progressive Union
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: February 2160
Description[?]:
| This bill ends corporate welfare as well as government regulation of this industry. Drug companies are currently "tied down" by the current law as the government decides how money much to give, and how little these companies can charge. Subsidizing a private industry and dictating the prices amounts to pure "nationalisation". Drug companies want to make profits and will spend more on research than they currently receive from the government. The costs will not increase drastically due to the N.H.S and other government welfare programs that provide free, or low cost prescriptions for those of low income. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change The research and development of pharmaceutical drugs.
Old value:: The government subsidizes research and development of prescription drugs and regulates their prices.
Current: The government subsidizes research and development of prescription drugs and regulates their prices.
Proposed: The government neither subsidizes research and development of drugs nor regulates their prices.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 14:48:58, December 22, 2005 CET | From | We Say So! Party | To | Debating the Drug Company Freedom Act. |
| Message | The government currently subsidises the research and development of prescription drugs in order to increase the possibility of guaranteeing more effective treatments for ailments. They then regulate the price in order to guarantee two things: 1. That drug companies cannot set charges so high as to make drugs unaffordable to those people on limited income; 2. Having already been a major investor in the research, so reducing the overall cost of the research, they are well within their rights to limit the costs of the sale of said drugs. "Subsidizing a private industry and dictating the prices amounts to pure "nationalisation"." - You have an odd idea of nationalisation. Quote: "Nationalization is the act of taking assets into state ownership". At no point does the state own any of the assests produced, they are, like any other private group, an investor and as such have a say in the running or final pricing of products. You want capitalism, you got, and the State is merely a large private investor. "Drug companies want to make profits and will spend more on research than they currently receive from the government." - Drug companies do want to make profits, but spending more on research does not guarantee large profits, rather it only guarantees large expenditure. Why would a company spend trillions on producing a, for example, cure for the common cold when said cure, once it had been taken, would render people immune when they can, for a fraction of the cost, produce cold remedies which reduce the symptoms of said disease to barable levels, but guarantee a constant income supply. The government on the otherhand would love such a result as it would lead to a reduction in costs to the NHS whilst also increasing economic productivity due to less manhours lost due to illness and would invest highly in any research to create such a vaccine. "The costs will not increase drastically due to the N.H.S and other government welfare programs that provide free, or low cost prescriptions for those of low income." - This is the biggest flaw in your argument. The costs would increase as, as you have already mentioned, drugs companies are out to maximise profits. If these drugs can be guaranteed to be purchased by the government for the NHS then there is no incentive for private companies to reduce the costs of these drugs. It should also be noted that the NHS is, and never can be, a free health service. The NHS provides care "free at the point of need" and so is paid for by the tax payer. So any increase in the cost of drugs leads to an increase in NHS expenditure which leads to an increase in Government expenditure which leads to an increase in taxation levels due to the requirement to pay for the drugs that private companies are producing at high cost, costs which are guaranteed to be high due to the massive amounts of capital that has had to be poured in to the production of these drugs due to the considerable reduction in outside funding provided by the government. This bill would lead to massive increases in drug prices, and further inefficiencies in the medical system and so we call upon all parties to vote against a change in the law that would increase costs to the NHS, the government and consequently the tax payer. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes | Total Seats: 155 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 173 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 72 |
| Random fact: Alduria, Rildanor and Lourenne all have Canrilaise (French) cultures. |
| Random quote: "In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy." - Brian Mulroney |