The American Spectator

Special Report

(Page 3 of 3)

Angell dismisses the threat "Give us everything we want, or we might have to stop producing miracle drugs." But medicines don't spontaneously generate. Treating the industry as a public utility -- remember the old monopoly phone company? -- and controlling prices inevitably would discourage new drug development.

Nor can government planners or activist groups or medical journals conjure up the right drugs at the right prices. If they could, they would be doing so already. Market competition might not seem to be a great way of picking drug winners and losers, but politics is a worse way of doing so.

Pharmaceuticals, including generics, make up just ten percent of total health care spending -- significant, but hardly the driving force in rising medical costs. In fact, hospital prices rose almost three times as fast drug prices last year. These medicines lengthen lives, improve the quality of life, and reduce hospitalization and surgery. Americans might prefer to pay less for their medicine. But they will be the biggest losers if they myopically kill the golden goose.

p> Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. br> /p>

topics:
Trade, Health Care