Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

The Democrats are pushing a legislation that would compel the government to negotiate prices of medications paid for by the Medicare prescripion program. The original law passed by the Republicans specifically prohibited the government from negotiating. This obviously benefits the drug companies rather than the taxpayers. It was totally irresponsible for a party that claims to be fiscally conservative. You would never buy a big item for your family without trying to negotiate the best price possible. By not negotiating, the government is negligent with our money.

There are those that defend the drug industry with the argument that if prices were controlled or negotiated, innovations will suffer and fewer new drugs will be invented. They point to the high cost in R&D that bring about new drugs. Well, most of the basic research are done in the wonderful universities that we have in this country. Sure it is still a lot of work to take a basic scientific finding and use it to manufacture a new class of drugs. But most of the drugs that brought to market each year are not of a new class. They are usually just slightly different from existing drugs. For example, there are many drugs in the class of statin drugs that are useful in lowering cholesterol. Certainly the first statin drug deserved a long patent period and its manufacturer should be able to charge a large sum for all its work to bring the medication to market. Now however, there are several drugs in the same class and the research that brought them about is not so creative or expensive. Yet these drugs are costing 5 to 6 dollars a pill to patients with no insurance. The drug companies figure that if they work on these so-called "me too" drugs, the profit margin will be much greater than to find a brand new drug for another disease.

Letting the drug companies charge whatever they want without negotiating is actually decreasing the number of truly innovative drugs from coming to the market. If you have the only drug for a particular disease, then even if there is negotiation, you will have the upper hand because there is no alternative. But if there are several drugs that are similar then prices should go down. This way the drug companies will have the incentive to invent truly new drugs and not just make small changes on old ones.

The truth is I am not a supporter of this Medicare drug program at all. There are many problems with it and I don't have the energy to write about all of them. It is basically an entitlement program and I thought the Republicans are against entitlements. Like various programs to help children and pregnant women, this program for seniors is a band-aid for a not so healthy healthcare system in this country. But seeing how there is not good ideas or support to overhaul the healthcare system and that the Medicare prescription program is here to stay, at least we should try to do the one thing that obviously should have been done in the beginning: try to get the best prices! The Democrat bill is no panacea but it deserves our support.