03-25-2017, 01:50 AM
(03-25-2017, 01:16 AM)BigMark Wrote: Why can you buy pharmaceuticals much cheaper in Mexico? Is that part of their system better than ours?
If they're the same quality drugs, then I think it is better than our system in that regard.
Americans who legitimately need them pay way too much for prescription drugs, more than other developed countries. Big pharma in America is one sweet fucking gig. Getting all kinds of greedy doctors to prescribe painkillers and anti-depressants so liberally as to create millions of addicts and then jacking up the prices = billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors. That's one area where I feel we actually need more regulation.
We have a serious addiction problem in this country which spans all age groups. That's one reason I care so much about the healthcare issue. Prescription drug addiction needs to be addressed seriously as a health epidemic and dramatically curbed.
We Americans make up nearly 5% of the world's population, but consume over 80% of the world's opiods. Then, when we lose access to those prescription opiods, a large percentage of us turn to heroin or some other substitute. In 2015, for the first time, drug overdoses exceeded car accidents and gun homicides combined in number of deaths. Insane. And, it's getting worse.
Candidate Trump promised during his campaign that he was going to address the problem as a top priority. The problem is the worst in regions he won, the rust belt and New England. I sincerely hope he keeps that promise, though I'm not counting on it at this point.