With the rising costs associated with health care and prescription drugs, people are looking to alternative sources for medications, including those purchased over the counter.

are looking at Canadian pharmacies to purchase their medications online and have them mailed directly to their homes at a lesser cost. People that have no prescription drug coverage or who can’t even afford the expensive co-pays, like senior citizens, look to Canadian pharmacies to get the medications they need. As we all know, many chronic diseases require treatment with prescription medications that must be taken on a regular basis. If we can’t afford to pay for these medications, our health suffers, which can lead to more appointments with health care providers, more tests, and more emergency room visits. All this because people can’t afford to get the medications they need to treat their health conditions.

Prescription drugs and over the counter medications can both be quite costly, as well as other supplies needed to treat various medical conditions, all of which can be purchased through Canadian pharmacies. Take a number of health conditions for example, like asthma, diabetes, or heart disease. Many of these people don’t have health insurance and therefore cannot get their medications at affordable prices. Many of their prescription medications are too expensive without insurance, and they may not qualify for any type of prescription assistance program, so what do they do. People in this situation do one of two things; either they pay the expensive costs of their medicines, or not pay other bills to pay for their medicines. This is not a good place to find yourself. Canadian pharmacies could just be the answer for these people.

U.S. Drug Companies' Reasoning

The position of U.S. drug companies on this subject, who oppose allowing U.S. citizens to purchase medications from Canadian pharmacies a lower cost, is based on the fact that the U.S. pharmacetical companies provide many of the world's new miracle drugs. The drug companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Research & Development to bring a new drug to market. Even after spending this money, some of them never are never actually introduced because they dont work or have serious side effects that could pose legal liability problems, or other reasons. So in order to re-coup these costs they secure patents for these new drugs that do make it to the market.These patents last for 17 years and give the drug companies legal protection from their competition, which essentially are foriegn drug companies.The U.S. drug companies charge a premium price for their new products until  their patents expire. When the patent expires, the price drops because competitive companies can then duplicate the formula, and the patent-protected price advantage disdappears.

Our Health Care System Poses A Competitive Problem For U.S. Drug Companies

This  problem is further complicated by the fact that the U.S. does not have socialized or subsidized medicine like a lot of other countries (Canada, and most of Western Europ[ean countries). So private-sector pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. must compete with companies overseas and above the border who have subsidized medical services and products. It's not a level playing field. The best way to understand this dilemma is to put yourself in the shoes of a U.S. pharmaceutical company. You spend a billion dollars on R&D to develop a new hypertension drug for the market. You need to charge a price that for seventeen years will generate the revenues to enable you to re-coup your investment cost. Then you find out that some company overseas has re-engineered your formula and is selling the same drug for 10% of your price. You did all the work and invested a billion dollars to develop the drug, then some other company essentially steals your formula.You can see that this situation is pretty complicated, and unfortunately the political arena here in the U.S. doesn't lend itself to long complicated discussions on political issues like high drug prices. Any health care program we develop in the next eight years should deal with this problem. Because if the U.S. drug companies can't re-coup their R&D costs and can't make a profit, the result is they'll get out of the business. So who will develop the wonder drugs of the future?

How To Get In Touch With Canadian Pharmacies

Since I don't have a solution for this dilemma, let's just push on and continue our discussion on Canadian Pharmacies. So which Canadian pharmacy should you trust to get your medications and supplies to you quickly and easily? There are a number of Canadian pharmacies to choose from, and most of them are highly reputable and have just about anything you would need. Be sure to shop around and compare prices. There is quite a difference in prices from one Canadian pharmacy to the other, and you surely don’t want to pay any more than you have to. Canadian pharmacies like www.jandrugs.com have a very user friendly site layout, which makes it easy to find your medications and order online. For a directory of Canadian pharmacies as well as answers to any questions you may have, visit www.seniormag.com/canadianpharmacy/index.htm to get started.

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