Drugs from Canada

Since the election we haven't heard as much about this topic, but I still hear the "...it makes so much sense!" thing. Now I'm not in the medical or pharmaceutical field, but from a basic business perspective let's look at this.

First the popoulation of the US is almost 300 million, and the population of Canada is only 32 million. I think a supply issue should be a concern right off the bat. Can Canada even keep up with the demand? Are we going to cause a shortage of perscription drugs in Canada?

If we put that aside, what are the Drug companies going to do? First they have a responsibility to their shareholders, they can not allow themselves to loose as much money as they stand to loose. What will they do? Up the price of drugs in every area that doesn't fix prices. For this, let's just take the US. If we get half of our drugs from Canada to help with the cost, what is going to happen to drug prices on the half we have to buy here? They go up, i.e. one person buys $5 worth of drugs that used to cost $10 here. The drug companies just lost $5, so when the next guy buys the same amount here, instead of being $10, they're $15. The drug companies are going to make up for it somewhere. Of course I am using very arbitrary numbers, but I think you get the point.

As I said, I am not part of the medical or pharmaceutical industry, but let's look at the whole picture before we start saying Bush is holding back affordable medicine from his citizens.

I'd love to hear any insight anyone has on this...