A friend in Canada tells me that the Government's Health Products and Food Branch does indeed have monopoly control over what drugs are available through their system but it is neither arbitrary nor unchallengeable. Not much different from the U.S. FDA telling doctors what drugs are available and what they can be used for, how they can be manufactured and how they are to be labeled. According to some the FDA's regulations rely too much on the drug manufacturers data. The company has a financial incentive to make the drug appear safe and have high efficacy. This means some drugs may be available in the U.S. before Canada but this is not necessarily a bad thing. I have a brother who died from taking Propulsid so I do not have an unbiased view of this issue.
John Thornton
andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> FWIW the Chicago Trib has an article today on how
> obesity is increasing world wide, so I wonder if the
> idea that health care costs are higher because
> Americans are fatter and therefore sicker is true.
> Also the fat/sick Americans article says that cancer
> rates in the Us are twice those in Europe, but that's
> because the Europeans under-diagnose cancer. I just
> flat don't believe that, which casts a pall of doubt
> in my mind over the rest of the study.
>
> I sorta suspect the study is part of the anti-single
> payer propaganda. It's not the fault of private
> medicine. It's our fault health costs so much because
> we eat like pigs! So pay your insurance premiums or
> get a job that does, if you can, and enjoy The Best
> Health Care In The World.
>
> Query. Discussing single payer with a friend with a
> somewhat rare chronic disease, Chronic Fatigue
> Syndrome, I heard the objection to single payer that
> at least in some countries with national health --
> England and Holland were mentioned -- the government
> as insurer exercises unchallenged, arbitrary, and
> monopoly control, barring either coverage for or even
> treatment with relatively new drugs and methods that
> are available here and may be effective in treating
> this condition. Certain drugs, I am told, are not even
> permitted by, e.g., the UK NHS. (Granted the NHS is
> not the model single payer system.) Does anyone know
> anything about this, and what things are like in other
> single payer countries?