The US' Multinational Trade Negotiations - Trading Away Its Own and Other Countries' Current and Future Restraints on Drug Prices?

Trade Agreements More about Deregulation than Trade International trade negotiations, especially their more technical aspects, seem far removed from health care and health policy, and unrelated to health care dysfunction.  However, it seems that such trade negotiations have become a back door route to affect health policy, especially national efforts to regulate health care intended to improve patients' and the public's health.   We recently discussed how current multinational trade negotiations seem to be more about changing regulation in favor of big corporations than broadly advancing trade.  Some of the effects of the proposed trade pacts could have bad effects on patients' and the public's health, particularly by allowing corporations to challenge particular countries' public health policies outside of these countries' judicial systems, in kangarooish courts seemingly designed to favor corporate interests.  Also, the trade pacts' focus on intellectual property could lead to longer patent protection on drugs, biologics, and devices, raising health care costs.  However, attempts to figure out how proposed trade agreements could affect health care and public health were hindered by the secrecy surrounding the negotiations."Procedural Fairness" for Pharmaceutical Companies, not You and Me Earlier in June, 2015, a part of the current draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) appeared on  Wikileaks, revealing yet another set of concerns about h...

Source: Health Care Renewal - June 17, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: CMS health care prices Medicare pharmaceuticals regulatory capture revolving doors trade policy US Trade Representative Source Type: blogs