Drugs overseas are far cheaper than in America. Why is big pharma ripping us off? | Opinion

Why is big pharma ripping off Americans?

A simple question for big pharma: When you sell your drugs in countries around the world for a quarter to one-third of the prices in the U.S., are you loosing money? Of course not, so why are all Americans needing health care the suckers?

• Big pharma spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to prevent any law that would challenge their monopoly.
• For over two decades, laws prevented Medicare from negotiating any drug costs with big pharma. Now it’s allowed in only for a handful of medicines.
• The exact same medicines are available outside U.S. borders at much lower prices but multiple laws prevent their importation.
• Abuse of U.S. patent laws lock up medicines long after they become “generic.”

The only people happy with the present situation are the big drug companies, their stockholders and the politicians taking their money.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Increased health insurance premiums guarantee we all pay for this abuse. In this political season, anyone seeking the vote should state clearly how they intend to stop big pharma from taking us all to the cleaners.

Dr. Scott Bisbing, Gig Harbor

Why I support Harris

The United States needs Vice President Kamala Harris for president. I support Harris because of her policies, values, and economic plans. Harris will protect women’s right to choose, pass an assault gun ban, provide first-time home buyers with the opportunity to purchase their homes, pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, lower the cost of prescription drugs, protect the Affordable Care Act, provide a child tax credit to assist with infant care, make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes and pass a bipartisan immigration bill to secure the border and reform the asylum process.

Robert W McKinlay, Belews Creek

I-5 widening would harm Nisqually

“Is that the river I hear?” asked a Nisqually Wildlife Refuge visitor.

No, it’s I-5 traffic behind the trees.

WSDOT’s plan to widen I-5 from 6 lanes to 8, plus a 5-mile bike lane, on an elevated Nisqually Delta crossing will bring more air pollution, more salmon-killing tire chemicals and more noise to silence the warbler’s song. This plan offers a false choice: either a 6,000 or 12,000-foot bridge, 50 feet high, for more cars and trucks to carry more people and goods across the Delta. A better option? A new rail bridge for more, faster, Cascades and Sounder trains around the slowest curve.

The massive highway project, showcased at a WSDOT open house this week, purports to improve system resiliency and restore the delta. But the plan fails to implement WA law and climate imperative to decrease vehicle miles traveled — it would encourage more cars on more lanes. Trains use one-third the energy and cause less pollution per passenger mile or ton of freight. Visit the Wildlife Refuge, then comment on the plan before Sept 12. We must choose the right track: more clean trains, not more dirty noisy lanes, past the Wildlife Refuge.

Breck Lebegue, Steilacoom

Too slow on climate

Would you use a squirt gun to put out a forest fire? Seriously. Would you? NOAA said, “carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever” in spite of trillions of dollars spent.

Only two things will make a big enough change: 1. exponentially increase spending on research and development of a clean, scalable power source, and 2. dramatically increase R&D on carbon capture – with the aim of making things from the captured carbon (diamonds are carbon).

Direct every green dollar towards those two goals. The current situation is completely ineffectual, a complete waste of money. If we are going to waste money we could “waste it” on the homeless, those with medical or mental health needs, roads, bridges, schools, police and EMS, and don’t forget Social Security is predicted to start reducing payments in 10 years.

The only way out is to develop a truly clean, scalable power supply while pulling carbon out of the air. Am I the only one that sees this? Where are the scientists and policymakers? Nothing but a clean power source and carbon capture can reverse the course of CO2 saturation of our atmosphere.

M.A. Johnson, University Place