If we're going to have new medicines, then someone has to pay for research and development. Countries like Canada have put on price controls to prevent paying their share of the R&D costs, so guess who gets to pay for it? What happens if a lot of Americans start buying price controlled drugs from Canada? Will the prices everyone else pays increase to make up for the R&D shortfall? I suspect the answer is yes.

Of course the drug companies will probably lose revenue, many people will be put out of work, and less money will be spent on research and development of new drugs: but that's none of Illinois concern.

I agree, political expediency is a bigger concern than the long term health of the drug companies. We have to look at the long term. Drugs commonly take over 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to come to market. In some cases, government research grants pay for a portion of that. However, those grants don't come close to the full cost of bringing a new drug through the clinical trials or of setting up new production lines.

Those with short term thinking may believe we don't need any new medicines. They'd be wrong. Look back over the past 25 years and you'll see the rise of new diseases like AIDS and SARS, a resurgence of diseases once under control like tuberculous, and an increasing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Without new drugs, we aren't too many years from being back to the bad old days where a simple infection could lead to amputation or even death. This was common in the days before antibiotics and you only have to go back about 60 years.

Drug companies will no longer be able to overcharge Americans so that they can undercharge Canadians... And Canada's self-inflicted price caps will lead to shortages in Canada...

I believe that if countries like Canada paid the fair market price for drugs, then Americans wouldn't have to be overcharged to make up for the shortfall. If a lot of Americans start reimporting drugs from Canada, it wouldn't surprise me if American drug companies started limiting sales to Canada.