"Indeed, we must foster cost-saving competition. And that means joining the marketplace of other industrialized countries - not just for the manufacturers who sell drugs, but for consumers as well"
About this Quote
“Cost-saving competition” is the kind of phrase that sounds like economics and behaves like politics: antiseptic, reassuring, and carefully pointed. Olympia Snowe is making an argument for opening U.S. prescription drug purchasing to the discipline of global prices, but she’s also laundering a harder claim through a softer verb. “Foster” implies the market won’t correct itself without help, a quiet admission that the current system is structured to protect incumbents.
The real pivot is “joining the marketplace of other industrialized countries.” Snowe isn’t just invoking foreign policy; she’s recruiting peer pressure. Other rich democracies pay less for the same pills because they negotiate, regulate, or both. By calling that a “marketplace,” she sidesteps the uncomfortable American allergy to the word “price controls,” while still signaling a willingness to import the outcome: cheaper drugs.
Then comes the kicker: “not just for the manufacturers who sell drugs, but for consumers as well.” That “as well” carries an accusation. It suggests today’s arrangement is competitive for corporations (patents, marketing muscle, fragmented insurers) but not for patients, who experience the market as take-it-or-leave-it scarcity. Snowe frames consumers as newly invited participants in a game that, in practice, has treated them more like captive revenue streams.
The context is an era of rising drug costs and recurring fights over reimportation, Medicare negotiation, and industry power. Snowe’s intent is coalition-building: talk like a market conservative, legislate like a cost hawk, and make it sound like basic fairness rather than a direct confrontation with Big Pharma.
The real pivot is “joining the marketplace of other industrialized countries.” Snowe isn’t just invoking foreign policy; she’s recruiting peer pressure. Other rich democracies pay less for the same pills because they negotiate, regulate, or both. By calling that a “marketplace,” she sidesteps the uncomfortable American allergy to the word “price controls,” while still signaling a willingness to import the outcome: cheaper drugs.
Then comes the kicker: “not just for the manufacturers who sell drugs, but for consumers as well.” That “as well” carries an accusation. It suggests today’s arrangement is competitive for corporations (patents, marketing muscle, fragmented insurers) but not for patients, who experience the market as take-it-or-leave-it scarcity. Snowe frames consumers as newly invited participants in a game that, in practice, has treated them more like captive revenue streams.
The context is an era of rising drug costs and recurring fights over reimportation, Medicare negotiation, and industry power. Snowe’s intent is coalition-building: talk like a market conservative, legislate like a cost hawk, and make it sound like basic fairness rather than a direct confrontation with Big Pharma.
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| Topic | Saving Money |
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