[Ip-health] OneWorld: U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Disappoints Labor, Rights Activists

[Mike Palmedo]

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/147837/1/4536

U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Disappoints Labor, Rights Activists

Aaron Glantz
OneWorld US
Apr. 3, 2007

[snip]

[Christine Ahn of Korean Americans for Fair Trade] added the free trade
agreement could derail South Korea's universal health care system. The
deal forbids South Korea from buying generic and lower-priced medicines
instead of brand name products produced by the pharmaceutical industry
in the United States. That, advocates say, has the potential to drive
the cost of health care coverage so high the South Korean government
could be forced to cancel it.

It's a provision that could have impacts in the United States as well.

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," said Maine State
Representative Sharon Treat, who heads up the Maine Citizen Trade
Advisory Commission. She said the deal could force Maine and 39 other
states to pay more for prescription drugs.

"What we really should be doing now as a country in terms of our trade
negotiations is focusing on how to reduce the cost of prescription drugs
here in the Untied States -- not the other way around: increasing the
cost in other countries," she said.