NE2: Open Medical Competition Act (Tabled)

[cinyc]

Open Medical Competition Act

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Sponsor: Representative Deus naturae

Debate on this bill will be open for 72 hours, or until around 8:30PM on Friday, February 7, unless modified or extended.  The sponsor, Rep. Deus, is encouraged to speak on behalf of the bill within the next 72 hours.  If he does not, because there is other pending legislation in the queue, the bil will be tabled and we will move on to another bill.

The floor is open to debate.

[cinyc]

Section 3 of the Northeast Drugs Bill states:

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[Napoleon]

I am looking into possibilities other than a complete repeal of these standards. I support competition but I also have misgivings about entirely inferior products being distributed to sick Northeasterners.

[Deus Naturae]

Edit: When I originally proposed this bill, I thought it referred to the sale of drugs, not the prescription of them. Upon realizing my mistake, I agree with Rep. Napoleon. I will prepare an amendment.

[Napoleon]

This seems pretty straightforward to me. I don't see why some bureaucratic panel should be able to reject certain medicines just because there is some medicine that, by virtue of being developed earlier, already performs a similar purpose. If a drug is truly redundant, it will fail on its own. There's no need to waste taxpayer money on a pointless approval process.

In addition, even if a drug isn't as effective as other similar drugs, the firm that developed it might still be able to offer it at a lower price. I see no reason to restrict the options of consumers in the manner the Drugs Bill does.

Representative, you propose that we allow drugs that are no more effective than a placebo to be sold. Shouldnt an outright repeal be off the table, and we can start there to make the necessary changes.

[Deus Naturae]

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A percentage doesn't seem like the best metric, but I'm unsure how else to measure drug effectiveness.

[bore]

I suppose I should jump in to defend my bill here. Firstly I'll just note that this bill passed unanimously, and was supported by 3 labor representatives, Goldwater and Nix. The original aim of this bill was to encourage more research and development by guaranteeing "me too" drugs wouldn't be created straight a new beneficial drug came on the market. As well, the bill encourages companies to invest more in creating their own drugs, and less in marketing to physicians, as they'll only have one drug to prescribe. In many respects this is a conservative bill. Finally as Napoleon has noted, this stops me too's being prescibed, not sold- if you really want to take them you still can.

On Deus's amendment, firstly I see no reason for the placebo part to be removed, as if a drug can't prove itself more effective than that there really is no way it should be sold to people. As well though, 80% is impossible to measure, and even if it could be, there seems to me no reason to allow doctors to prescribe drugs which are worse than others already on the market. In that case you'll just get a postcode lottery.

[Deus Naturae]

To be clear, Section 3 only applies to the prescription of drugs, not the sale of them? If so, I'm fine with tabling this.

[bore]

To be clear, Section 3 only applies to the prescription of drugs, not the sale of them? If so, I'm fine with tabling this.

Yeah

[Deus Naturae]

Alright, I motion to table.

[cinyc]

This bill has been tabled by the sponsor.  We will move on to the next bill shortly.