Mark Steyn comments, on the idea of allowing drug reimportation from Canada:

But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that’s going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren’t going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise...

Jon Henke responds:

I hadn’t thought of that.

I had, and that's why I favor reimportation...

I’m not sure what the marginal costs and profits to drug companies would be if they stopped exporting to Canada--or, whether they could even do such a thing--but if the costs are high enough, you can be reasonably certain that they will be extracted from consumers in one way or another. If prices are held artificially low, costs will project themselves in other ways: availability, quality, progress.

Bingo. The costs will be extracted in one way or another. Precisely the point.

Americans often look enviously towards Canada and European socialist healthcare systems, saying: "Why can't we have what they have?"

What the American does not realize is that they are indirectly subsidizing those healthcare systems. The only reason Canada and Europe can offer such a wonderful variety of drugs at such a low cost is because the American market exists in the first place. The high prices we pay here partially offset the costs of selling into artificial, closed markets like Canada.

Breaking down the barrier would indeed push a run on Canadian drugs -- Americans would drain the supply, and drug companies would have to eventually get tough with the Canadians and start charging them something like the actual price those drugs cost to produce.

Once Canada was thus "corrected", we'd naturally move on to other markets.

This will be good for two excellent reasons.

For one, it means that since costs can now be spread out more equitably, our own domestic drug costs will go down.

Two, as foreign drug prices rise (or availability disappears, take your pick) it will stop giving the socialists the impression they're getting something for nothing, clucking tongues at us for our "ignorance" while greedily consuming the golden eggs laid by the American pharmaceutical goose.

We'd stop being "enablers" for such a counterproductive and harmful worldview.

And that's a Good Thing.