I was googling "average factory wage" usa vs .....for a number of countries. Frequently $5 hr vs $20 hr. That is a big difference for a tariff to level out. Hoser has a point.
Trump Tariffs started today, Some Countries Caved in early morning.
by liam 107 Replies latest social current
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TD
Heard and McDonald Islands are external territories of Australia since 1947 and would be treated as Australia proper for purposes of tariffs.
--Assuming anything could actually be manufactured, mined or grown there which is extremely unlikely..
These islands are very tiny, very inhospitable, they both have active volcanoes, the waters around them are treacherous and they are both restricted. You can't set foot on either one without permission from the Australian government and they're only giving permission to scientific expeditions once in a while.
The inclusion of these islands as countries subject to tariffs reeks of AI and its inability to exercise subjective judgement.
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Anony Mous
@hoser: Canada and the EU both set price controls on medicine that is invented and often manufactured in the US. So let’s say a medicine costs $100/dose to create during its 10-15 year patent validity (invention, manufacturing, FDA approval etc), but the production cost is $10/dose the EU/Canada tell the companies, if you want to sell here you can only ask $15/dose. The manufacturers stil do it because of the $5 profit, but effectively that $85 remainder is now paid for by making that even more expensive medicine in the US. Same for hospital supplies like MRI machines etc, the ‘invention’ cost is not paid by Canada because Canada is broke when it comes to that.
On the other hand, the invention itself is often largely funded by US taxpayers. The US spends more than the next 4 economies combined (that is China, UK, Russia and EU in order) on health research. Canada spends a fraction of a fraction compared to the US on healthcare research. And when it comes to private investment in medicine, the US drives 70% of the world in investments while only being ~30% of the market in purchasing power parity. A simple example is that of COVID vaccines - the US spent $40B on the R&D, China and EU each provided $100M in loans with the rest of their ‘investment’ going into not R&D but just a $2B pre-order (which ended up having the distribution footed by the US companies).
Now you have a few options, you basically tell Canada and EU no more, which is what the Trump admin is doing - we cannot keep subsidizing your healthcare by making ours more expensive, which now causes even more shortages and price hikes in those socialist markets. The other thing to do would be to stop Medicaid/Medicare waste which is where most of those cost ends up hiding, as the taxpayer has endless pockets.
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truthlover123
Anonymous- US citizens have been coming to Canada in busloads to get their prescriptions filled because it was cheaper than US was charging them, putting a strain on Canadian supplies. This was going on for years. I just checked the list of tariffs items and no mention of medicines. Here is an explanation off the news--The FDA announcement underlines the appalling gulf in drug prices between the United States and other developed nations. Pharmaceutical prices in the United States overall are more than two-and-a-half times higher than those of our peers, with manufacturers charging nearly three-and-a-half times more for brand-name drugs.
Not only are costs egregiously higher in the United States, but American patients are more exposed to those costs than their counterparts in other rich countries, as over twenty-five million people have no health insurance, and even those who do often pay steep out-of-pocket costs.
So I guess there may be a charge but albeit a minor one compared to USA drug charges.
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Anony Mous
@truthlover: I explained why the US prices are higher in the above post. We are subsidizing the R&D on behalf of Canada and the EU which perform price fixing. The medicine doesn’t become ‘more expensive’ or ‘cheaper’ when it crosses the border, they are keeping the pricing artificially low.
However US citizens cannot get medicine from Canadian public healthcare, to get access to Canadian medicine, you would need to legally immigrate or be a Canadian citizen, apply for a health card (takes ~8-12 weeks to get after application), make an appointment to the doctor (takes ~30 weeks on average) and then get the prescription filled (currently takes ~2 weeks on average). Bus loads of people coming right across the border, first of all that would be illegal for whoever organized the bus tour, second most pharmacies don’t stock that much medicine.
So that someone from the US where all of the above can be arranged in the next 24 hours on Medicaid/Medicare with a $15 copay would go through the effort to immigrate into Canada to go queue for the next 6 months of their life before getting their prescription, I highly doubt.
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hoser
Anonymous
I would say to the pharmaceutical companies:
Grow a pair and charge full pin to the rest of the world.
They are privately owned businesses. They are free to charge as they please, whatever the market will bear. I don’t think they are obligated to sell in the Canadian or European markets.
And Sounds like American consumers need to wake up and refuse to pay those high prices for their meds.
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hoser
Anonymous
Do you have a clue what the f#@k you are talking about?
Have you ever been to Canada ?
If I need to see a doctor, I walk into a clinic or hospital and see one. Usually within an hour.
They write up a prescription and I go to a pharmacy of my choice and get my prescription filled. I pay for the meds and claim it back on my private insurance
Its that easy
I’m not sure if Americans can do this but Canadians can pay out of pocket for some procedures if they go to a different province.
If I don’t want to wait 3 months for a “free” MRI scan I can drive 2 hours to another province and pay $1200 and get it done this week.
The same applies to joint replacement surgeries. I can pay the $25000 and get it done quickly in another province or I can wait 6 months for a free one.
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SydBarrett
"Anonymous
Do you have a clue what the f#@k you are talking about?"
Lol. Read enough of his pontifications and you realize he is The Dunning-Kruger effect made flesh.
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Anony Mous
@hoser: I’m just using publicly available data on Canadian public healthcare right now. As you say, you have your private insurance option, which makes you relatively wealthy and you thus pay twice for the same ‘service’, you go to the “rich people” queue at the doctors, if your doctor even sees public healthcare patients at all.
That’s not “typical” for your average Canadian. Off course this is not what you above were describing, what was said is that bus loads of people come across the border, walk into a pharmacy, pick up free medicine from the public healthcare pharmacy and go back to the US which is BS.
As far as to your comments about MRI. You need to drive 2 hours to a different state to get an MRI and pay out of pocket? I can call my local doctor, if urgent, be seen same day, pay $15, if he says, go get an MRI right now I can go to a hospital or other provider which there are literally more than a dozen MRI suites, even an animal one, in about 30 minute distance, for $35 specialist copay I have the MRI done and read and sent back to my doctor. And this happened to my wife after pregnancy, we had a neuro consult in <1h. A few months later I get a bill that says the procedure would have cost me about $700/h for the MRI and there are line items for contrast fluid that was manufactured at the local cyclotron with a half life measured in hours and other services, totaling a few thousand (oh, gasp, healthcare is expensive) my insurance will cover it. If you have no insurance and you have insufficient income to pay for it, Medicare/Medicaid and the hospital will cover it, which is why healthcare in the US is so expensive, because it is expensive, it is fast and efficient and private businesses pays for most of it. The majority of Americans don’t die due to lack of healthcare, they die because they are fat and it is cheap enough and easier to medicate than make lifestyle changes, meanwhile our Canadian friends are promoting suicide to anyone that becomes too expensive.
This is true for any “poor” (<$50k income) American which Medicare/Medicaid covers most if not all of their cost. This is true for any illegal immigrant or Canadian that walks across the border (which happens a lot, I live close to Canada) because hospitals are obligated to provide healthcare - unlike Canada, the hospital I work for can’t put people in queues, refuse care or adjust wait times depending on whether they have insurance. People here get upset if they had to wait 2 hours to see a doctor because they presented to the emergency room with a sneeze.
We actually have ~15 3T MRI suites in just 1 hospital system, most hospital systems in the US have at least 1, even the rural ones. Many of them are used for research as well when not busy which is a significant amount of revenue. Our northern neighbors in Saskatchewan have exactly 5 3T MRI facilities across the entire province with 3 of them being ‘private’ practices. I work in that field so I know they are building 1 suite for the public healthcare facility in Saskatoon. We currently have 2 on order for our regional (not even state wide) hospital system.
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joey jojo
Anonymous, you are using examples of companies already manufacturing inside the US.
That is absurdly different to a company that operates on the other side of the world and now wants to set up in the US. You make it sound like it's a trivial thing to do.