In light of the Senate’s latest action on prescription drug importation, I thought I’d take a look at Ron Paul’s position on that issue. When this issue came up in the House, he voted YES on importation, and this is how he explains that vote:
Reimportation allows American consumers, particularly seniors, to benefit from worldwide price […]
Are You Kidding Me? I thought this guy was a Libertarian! How can his supporters countenance a vote that would license the feds to bully private-sector businesses into selling their products below market value? Here’s how he justified this betrayal of principle:
Should government say something about controlling prices since it’s a government program? I want […]
Paul Krugman, via Economist’s View, is sounding more and more like Colonel Jack D. Ripper when discussing health care. Whereas Colonel Ripper was fearful that dark forces were undermining his precious bodily fluids, Krugman’s bêtes noire are apparently after Medicare:
The plot against Medicare … the stealth privatization embedded in the Medicare Modernization Act, which Congress […]
Harry Reid has been braying again. This time he’s demagoguing Medicare. According to this AP article, Reid has decided to substitute conspiracy theories for reasoned argument about whether Medicare should negotiate with drug companies:
Senate Republicans aligned with big pharmaceutical and insurance companies are standing in the way of the government negotiating cheaper drug prices for […]
Lots of soi disant Progressives seem to believe that giving Medicare the power to “negotiate” with the pharmaceutical industry is a no-brainer. One of their most frequently deployed talking points is parroted today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
When the Department of Veterans Affairs buys prescription drugs for veterans, it negotiates discounts from drug manufacturers … […]
Kevin, MD links to this post about the HHS Secretary’s refusal to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers for lower drug prices. At first glance, this policy seems crazy, but Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute advises that it is indeed the wisest course:
Many people … say that Medicare should follow the lead of the U.S. […]
In his most recent column, John Stossel makes a point that should be obvious to anyone with pretensions to economic literacy:
In the real world, prices are set by supply and demand … When the government uses its muscle to force prices to sub-market levels, the drug companies will develop fewer life-saving drugs.
In other […]
¶
Posted 22 February 2007
† Catron §
‡
As Robert George suggests, it appears quite likely that a lot of soi-disant sophisticates at both extremes of the political spectrum may well have been wrong about the much-maligned Medicare Part-D. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, however. It should have been obvious that anything so consistently reviled by the wing nuts couldn’t be […]
¶
Posted 21 February 2007
† Catron §
‡
