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The Right Prescription

Obama on Drugs

By on 5.9.11 @ 6:08AM

The President wants to “cut costs” by making Granny skip her meds.

What is it about bad ideas that make them so hard to kill? Brilliant inspirations can often be sent skimming across the River Styx by a sardonic smirk while obviously unworkable schemes often resemble the Hydra, whom Hercules had so much difficulty dispatching. The Hydra, you will recall, had the irritating habit of growing two new heads each time the mythical hero cut off one of the originals. This unpleasant characteristic is seemingly shared by the notion, promoted by many progressive health policy types, that drug costs can be controlled by allowing Medicare to “negotiate” prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Every time a conservative or libertarian economist decapitates some ludicrous argument in favor of this awful idea, two more materialize almost immediately.

Another of its ugly heads recently popped up in President Obama’s Orwellian “Framework for Shared Prosperity and Shared Fiscal Responsibility.” This budget proposal, announced on April 13, includes the following verbiage: “The framework would limit excessive payments for prescription drugs by leveraging Medicare’s purchasing power — similar to what was called for by the bipartisan Fiscal Commission.” The commission called for nothing of the kind, of course. More importantly, however, is that this is yet another Obama proposal to impose Soviet-style price controls on a private industry. Because Medicare is by far the largest single purchaser of pharmaceuticals in the market, “leveraging” its “purchasing power” is merely euphemistic language for “we will dictate drug prices.”

Like all price-control schemes, this would inevitably lead to shortages. If Medicare forces the drug companies to sell their products at rates that fail to cover costs, these companies will simply stop manufacturing those drugs. To counter this inconvenient reality, the supporters of Obama’s approach to “cost control” point to the Veterans Health Administration (VA), which has negotiated directly with pharmaceutical companies for years. What such people usually fail to mention is that the VA covers far fewer drugs than does Medicare. As health care economist Austin Frakt puts it, “The VA’s national formulary covers 59% of the top 200 drugs while Medicare PDPs cover between 68% and 93% of those drugs, averaging about 85% covered. So, if Medicare plans looked more like the VA, a lot fewer drugs would be covered.”

The reduction in the number of drugs available to seniors is only the beginning of the harm that would be caused by Obama’s scheme. Even deadlier will be its stifling effect on innovation. As Sally Pipes writes, “Developing just one new medicine costs a drug company nearly $1.5 billion.… If investors fear that Medicare will refuse to cover new, expensive treatments, then they’ll simply refuse to fund the research and development needed to create new drugs.” This point is dismissed by progressive “experts” like Maggie Mahar, who sneers, “[This] is an old argument. Innovation is already slowing at drug companies as fewer new ‘game-changing’ drugs are approved each year.” That this reduction in approvals may say more about bureaucratic inertia at the FDA than drug company creativity seems not to have occurred to her.

Ironically, one of the most eloquent rebuttals to this progressive talking point has been made by fanatical Obamacare supporter Andrew Sullivan, who credits profit-driven innovation for saving his life: “I was told in 1993 that I had a few years to live. I write this 16 years later with a stronger immune system than I have ever measured before.” Sullivan is, of course, referring to the discovery that he was HIV positive. Yet, despite his affinity with the positions of people like Mahar, Sullivan readily understands what saved him: “America’s much-maligned healthcare system did this. Without this vast and free market in medical care and pharmaceuticals, without the potential for making large amounts of money… the innovation of treatments and regimens would never have occurred at the pace it did.”

Unfortunately, the President’s antipathy toward the free market is such that even Sullivan’s powerful story wouldn’t give him so much as a second thought about moving forward with his plan to leverage Medicare’s purchasing power against the drug companies. Obama does, however, face a couple of legal obstacles. When Congress expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, the law explicitly prohibited the government from the kind of direct negotiating proposed by Obama. And Obamacare contains no provision that negates that proscription. The Democrats originally intended to include a mechanism for Medicare to “negotiate” drug prices in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but they dropped that provision in order to get the public support of the Big Pharma for the bill.

Which brings us to the only upside of the President’s proposal. No small amount of schadenfreude is to be had from the squealing of drug industry representatives. They, like the leadership of the American Medical Association (AMA), pursued a quisling strategy on Obamacare in order to avoid this very contingency. And, like the AMA, they have now been double-crossed. John J. Castellani, CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), is clearly not amused; “Implementing government price controls in the Medicare prescription drug program would not achieve better patient care, sustainably cut the deficit, foster the development of future medical advances or grow the economy.” Mr. Castellani, like the collaborators of the AMA, sold out and now complains that the check bounced.

As satisfying as it is to see the quislings of PhRMA and the AMA receive their just deserts, the possibility that the President and his minions at the Department of Health and Human Services will try to control costs by bullying drug companies into selling their products at below-market prices is not pleasant to contemplate. Despite its apparent ability to survive deadly economic arguments and plain common sense, the notion that Medicare should “negotiate” prices directly with pharmaceutical companies remains a terrible idea. Thus, the Herculean task of killing it once and for all must be continued until the beast is finally laid to rest.

About the Author

David Catron is a health care revenue cycle expert who has spent more than twenty years working for and consulting with hospitals and medical practices. He has an MBA from the University of Georgia and blogs at Health Care BS.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (63) |

Melvin| 5.9.11 @ 7:33AM

This culture of, "Death" that is so pervasive in our society now is only going to get worse. Instead of aborting an unborn child, society will now abort Grandma and Grandma and split the spoils of their estate with the state.
The misconception that Grandma and Grandpa are down at Key West in a condo, and living it up on the taxpayers dime is another urban legend foisted upon the masses by the propagandist media.
Then if this is the case then why are the blue hairs still working their backsides off as cranky door greeters at Wally World and in the Sporting goods section?
The Blue Hairs where I live in Jacksonville NC can hardly stand, because of their advanced years and probably a lack of medial care because they have to work to pay for the meds they are getting.
A very good friend of mine, Phil works in the Sporting goods section of Wally World, this poor man was in so much pain from arthritis in his neck in darn near brought him to tears.
He had an operation that seems to make it worse, and he wasn't supposed to be working, but as Phil said, "I gotta work I got bills to pay."
I guess this blows the whole Key West image out the door doesn't it?
You know its awfully funny how the propagandist media never seems to interview those Blue Hairs who have had to work physically hard their whole lives and have ended up with broken and stiff bodies.
Then the government appoints a board filled with government bureaucrats who hardest thing they ever had to do in their lives is to nurse a sore elbow from the handball court.
My wife and I are Boomer's, now quite Blue Hairs yet, we have worked hard our whole lives, raised there children.
We live modestly and have no desire to move to Key West and live the lifestyle of the rich and famous and the government bureaucrats like to protray us as.
We just want to be left alone to tend our garden and see the grandkids once in a while. I work hard so my wife doesn't have to go to work and be a door greeter at Wally World, and come home with swollen legs, and ankles.
For those young people, and young government bureaucrats who are quick to throw the switch on Grandma and Grandpa. Don't forget what goes around come around.

SonOfSam| 5.9.11 @ 10:43AM

ObamaCare is nothing more than fascism applied to medicine

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:28PM

Germany has had universal healthcare since the 1880's, in the conservative Bismarckian goverment - long before Fascism arrived. you're argument doesn't hold water.

Teaghan| 5.9.11 @ 3:37PM

That's right Purple Lib. And my husbands uncle, a German citizen needed heart surgery and was told it would be 6 months until they could get to him so he came to the US to have his procedure done. He would have died otherwise. AND, the prime minister of Newfoundland flew to Miami to have his heart procedure done because the WONDERFUL "healthcare" in Canada told him he would have to wait. So dude, YOUR argument doesn't hold a drop of water.

Negro X| 5.9.11 @ 7:16PM

Purpletroll,
I see you are still having trouble with history, you are a poor example of a useful idiot.

Dave | 5.9.11 @ 1:46PM

... "And the boa just keeps ooon constricting."

- The Late Field Mouse

Nancy Pelosi was dead-on correct when she babbled -- "We have to pass this bill in order to find out what's in it."

Don't you just feel all warm, fuzzy and safe with brilliant legislative analysis like that? One thing for sure, our Federal Representative For the Face Lifted won't be encountering any of those pesky shortages from her OWN government plan. The elites ALWAYS get a free pass. And lots of 'em.

Meanwhile, word out of Los Angeles has it that John Boehner just signed on with William Morris as the new spokesman for Kleenex.

Perfect.

Jason| 5.9.11 @ 7:37AM

I wonder whether any remnant of the Founders' USA will remain after this terrible run by the Socialists?

Gordon W.| 5.9.11 @ 8:10AM

Yea this attack on the free market is so pervasive. We should just run back to the 1900. The guilded age was the most profitable people in history. And with the advent of trickle down economics, we will all be richer for it.

Long live the market and those that control it. As long as they are not the government, the invisible hand of society's conglomerate will push us towards prosperity.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:36PM

Are you kidding me? The age of robber barons and trust monopolies? Worker's pay was cents/day, with no breaks, no paid vacation, no sick time, no minimum wage, no child labor laws, 12 hour workdays. Are you really that dumb?
The market is never "free". But without the restraints placed on business, finance and the corporate world by government regulation, our world would be a whole lot poorer - while a select few (not you mind you) would be wealthy beyond compare.
Capitalism unbridled is a mess, leaving wide swaths of have-nots with poverty and sickness rampant. Capitalism works best when restrained to moderation through government oversight. Anyone who says different is hoodwinking you. Having said that, unbridled government control is bad also - it's striking the right balance that need s to be pursued. A balance that allows businesses and persons to prosper, but not so much at the expense of others that they become the working poor, the downtrodden with no hope of a better future.

Teaghan| 5.9.11 @ 3:41PM

I work for myself and i have no paid vacation, no retirement, I pay mine and my husbands health insurance and I have no sick time. People like you make me sick Purple freak....you expect everyone else to pay for your laziness . Why don't you move to Germany where you think the healthcare is so all fired wonderful.

Curtis Rasmussen| 5.9.11 @ 4:48PM

I worked years without healthcare or paid vacations. Why? Because I had a family to support. You do what you have to do. Apparently purple lips has done neither. And by neither I meant worked or cared for anyone besides itself.

Curtis Rasmussen| 5.9.11 @ 4:41PM

Sounds like the troll set up an alias to promote a straw man that he could easily tear down. Ignore him.

Too bad the troll almost sounds reasonable, but he isn't. They always have to lie through their teeth to make their excrement palatable. In this case, a little regulation would help. A little more would help the poor. A little more would help the edlerly. A little more.... and on and on until the commie goal of equal outcomes as opposed to equal opportunity prevails and we all suffer equally in misery.

Beth| 5.19.12 @ 1:40AM

Yes, this is a FREE Market. Medicare is the largest customer for Pharmaceutical companies and they should be able to negotiate prices just like any other business. Medicare is going to go broke, if we keep catering to Pharma and Device Companies.

Pharma companies will still be in business with respectable profit margins.

Most of them have sent their R&D teams and manufacturing overseas anyway.

Do not trust their propaganda. We need Medicare to have the ability to negotiate prices. Not dictate but negotiate. Big difference.

spoofproof| 5.9.11 @ 8:41AM

Mr. Obama and his Marxist acolytes suffer from the wickedness and corruption of unregenerate minds; they are the spawn of Satan. See the full description here: John 8:44. Once you know the facts the malignant insanity of this Obama Democrat\Marxist consortium makes sense.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:36PM

Twaddle

Teaghan| 5.9.11 @ 3:42PM

Liberal ass. Get out of my country.

richard ryan| 5.9.11 @ 9:00AM

This nonsense about the VA shows that Obama has NO CLUE. Doctors, hospitals, device makers, and pharma companies RELY on the private insurance industry. Pharmaceutical makers can cut prices for government-run entities (like the VA) precisely because their operating margins are supported by the private system. Same with doctors and hospitals. Physicians are now LIMITING how many Medicaid and Medicare patients they see because price controls already exist in the doctor reimbursement system, and the reimbursements are continuing to lag greatly behind the private industry and significantly behind inflation. Just wait folks, Obamacare, if implemented fully, will be the single biggest disaster for domestic policy in this nation's history.

Gordon W.| 5.9.11 @ 9:13AM

Especially if the nuts in congress gut the appropriations for it. The system was meant to work as a whole. If you cut a piece, it is likely cost savings wont be realized.

To go back will just increase the poverty gap. Over 50% of bankruptcies caused by health care costs. This is more about people's standard of living than just controlling prices.

richard ryan| 5.9.11 @ 10:04AM

Gordon, the "system" as you call it was never meant to work. If that were the case, then the GD democrats would have listened to reasonable ideas from republicans in putting together the bill. This is simply a huge power grab intended to slowly dismantle the private health insurance industry. When the federal government takes over with ALL of the regulations, it will, again, be a DISASTER.

Gordon W.| 5.9.11 @ 11:45AM

Yes, because the other industrialized countries' economies are being stifled by more than the same reasons ours is. Canada, England and Germany aren't being hankered down by the cost of health care. If you want to say that it isn't providing for the amount it should, people can supplement themselves.

The answer to your questions is the question of what is this disaster you speak of because it doesn't exist where a similar scheme was introduced?

richard ryan| 5.9.11 @ 1:09PM

The disaster is an ACCESS TO CARE problem. If you set reimbursement levels at a level lower than cost for hospitals and physicians, the result will be hospitals and physicians taking in less money than they spend with Medicare/Medicaid patients. As I already mentioned, the providers RELY on private insurance to survive. This is already happening in most areas-they are in financial trouble.. Take my line of reasoning one step further, if you can still follow me. If hospitals and physicians are LOSING money busting their ass to care for the sickest patients, there will be less hosptials and physicians. We are about to experience a MASSIVE demographic shift with an explosion of elderly patients. More sick patients, less resources to care for them. Are you getting the picture yet?? Hospitals, ERs, and physicians are already closing up shop in anticipation of this. The socialized medicine experiments in Canada and the UK are not working well. Look at wait times for elective procedures. Look at survival rates for most cancers. Educate yourself, and maybe you won't be such a fan of Obamacare.

da monk| 5.9.11 @ 11:31AM

How come Americans can buy needed drugs from Canada and Europe which have been manufactured in the U.S.? Do you think the distributors in those countries work on shorter margins? No, they can buy the drugs cheaper than American distributors.

Ned| 5.9.11 @ 1:56PM

Americans can buy drugs more cheaply in Canada because the Canadian government stipulates what prices can be charged, just as the VA does, and with similar limitations... the pharmaceutical companies go along with it because the Canadian market is *tiny* compared to the world markets for most drugs... as long as the Canadian price covers a substantial portion of the production costs the pharmas will go along... but you CANNOT extend that model to include everyone, no matter how much Obama fairy dust you sprinkle over it...

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:40PM

That;s ridiculous - they charge higher prices because they can ... in the trade it's called "whatever the traffic will allow" . The reason some controls need to be in place is because the people choosing what healthcare or drugs they get (the people) do not have the knowledge to guage the best treatment for them - not like seeing if a shoe fits or if you like your house and then buy it. It's a captive market, and in that sense, market forces are not at work, and never have been. With one exception - before private insurance was created, if you couldn't afford a procedure - you simply did not have it done. period. I don't think we want to go back to that do we?

George S| 5.9.11 @ 4:37PM

Why not? Nothing wrong or immoral about paying for a service out of your own pocket.

CopyKatnj| 5.9.11 @ 9:58AM

I'm reminded of the Flu vaccine shortages over the past few years. The Clinton administration had put in place the same recipe for negotiations of this vaccine. The result was several companies stopped making it, we became dependent on foreign companies for supplies and there were shortages with rationing. The program was from the "Third Way" think tank.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:43PM

Not true - normal vaccination rates in a normal year would not have been a problem. But with the increased fear, hype, whatever you want to call it, the demand outstripped the supply. there were only 2 companies in the US that made the vaccine. One had contamination issues and the other one couldn't keep up with the demand. We became dependent on foreign companies just like we are dependent on foreign oil - demand outstripped our (US) ability to supply. Simple, nothing sinister about it.

George S| 5.9.11 @ 4:44PM

Why only two companies? Remember HillaryCare? Long story short: the Vaccines for Children Program and the Children's Defense Fund resulted in Congress dictating the prices of vaccines. Ergo, only two companies remained after the rest found it not in their economic interests to sell their stuff at the dictated price.

Now explain how Medicare being a 'power buyer' is not going to cause the same thing.

Notary Sojac| 5.9.11 @ 10:02AM

For many years now, the American pharmaceutical industry has been selling its products to foreign single-payer systems at just above marginal cost, while putting the entire cost of R&D on the American consumer.

Wouldn't bother me a bit if they had to go to Canada and Europe and tell those socialist systems that they are going to have to pick up a share of the load.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 10:50AM

All we have to do is allow people to get their medications anywhere. Do you think people who come from India don't buy their meds in India and bring them to the US? Only Americans get punished by socialistic laws that force them to pay US prices.

da monk| 5.9.11 @ 11:32AM

Wayne: Ya beat me to it.

Gordon W.| 5.9.11 @ 11:48AM

Wait is your point that socialist systems protect their constituents. From the way you talk, we do not have a socialist system. Therefore, because we do not have a socialist system we are not protected.

Is what you are trying to say is we do not have a good system to protect the middle class. Because you are correct.

Richard| 5.9.11 @ 11:55AM

You need to consider patents, and their protection or lack thereof. If patents are not protected the innovators will not recover their R&D money.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 3:13PM

And hence my aunt had to take a useless pill for her lung cancer that cost $2000 per month. It is a system out of control. Protect the patents, but don't hold citizens liable for behavior we do not hold non-citizens. If an Indian resident can get their medication cheap, then why can't I?

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:45PM

Socialistic laws? Au contraire - that law is a law that any lobbyist would love, bought and paid for by a Congress that is up to the highest bidder. Nothing socialist about it at all. The Congress and President at the time bent to the whims of their corporate masters - which by the way, is Fascism, not socialism.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 3:19PM

Small distinction between fascism and socialism. When a country picks which companies are the winners and which are the losers they are both fascist and socialistic. For example is the government bailout and ownership of GM socialistic of fascist?

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 10:48AM

Lets face it, Obama is a killer. He comes in a long tradition of killers: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. It starts with the weakest and most innocent. When he defended killing a new born in a botched abortion, he made his true self known.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:46PM

And, yet, GW Bush has killed more Americans and indeed more Muslims than anyone else in the last 20 years.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 3:14PM

That's your pathetic defense of Obama?

Teaghan| 5.9.11 @ 3:49PM

Oh do tell us about it Purple. obama is killing people everyday. His drones in Af-gan-eeeee-stan, his asassination of UBL, his abortion policies with more black babies than any other race being aborted every year. This nation no longer has respect for human life and obama is feeding it every day.

da monk| 5.9.11 @ 11:36AM

I can't understand the falderol about the government forcing us to buy health insuranced...but the government telling my wife, my daughter, your wife, your daughter what to do with her body is ok. Isn't that hypocritical?

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 11:43AM

You have a point, prostitution should be legalized.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:47PM

And, abortion - oh, wait it is legal already

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 3:15PM

Too bad it wasn't in 1961.

Richard| 5.9.11 @ 11:58AM

The first to suffer and, yes, die under socialist medicine are those who most need medical care, i.e. the old and the habitually ill. They cost the most in the socialist accounting method and their deaths will save the most. People with significant medical needs who support Obamacare as a panacea for their financial ills need to reconsider.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:48PM

Name one insurance company that takes care of the old and habitually ill? The reason we have Medicare and Medicaid is because there isn't one and never has been. Take them away and you have created rationing of care - pay or die.

George S| 5.9.11 @ 4:50PM

You have a point. In fact, I am so inspired that I am going to start my own insurance company and only charge $10 a month for full boat Cadillac coverage.

Who is with me! All I need is capital -- the first person who plunks down a ten spot will then immediately submit a claim for $100 grand for cancer treatment. So, who is willing to sell their house, empty their savings account and cash in their IRA's and invest with me? No one? How's that for gratitude -- here I am trying to help people and no one will invest their own money.

Ingrates.

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:22PM

"More importantly, however, is that this is yet another Obama proposal to impose Soviet-style price controls on a private industry. Because Medicare is by far the largest single purchaser of pharmaceuticals in the market, "leveraging" its "purchasing power" is merely euphemistic language for "we will dictate drug prices."" --- This is nothing of the sort - it is simply using the market pressure of a large customer for drugs to secure the best price - just like WalMart does. THAT is a free market principle. Now, you wouldn't call that price control "Soviet Style" would you. This is just one effort to control costs for the Prescription Drug Benefit passed by a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President to get votes in 2004, without any regard to how we would pay for it.
This proposal by Obama just makes sense - not that pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists will be thrilled by the proposal.
"Without this vast and free market in medical care and pharmaceuticals, without the potential for making large amounts of money… the innovation of treatments and regimens would never have occurred at the pace it did."" - that is so much right-wing mantra and factually incorrect. Many, many medical advances have come from the laboratories of government run research labs - not seeking profit. Case in point is the Salk Polio vaccine. Jonas Salk made not one dime from the vaccine itself - he willingly gave it to the world.
The reality is that if only for-profit seekers are engaged in medical advances, any research that does not give an adequate ROI would not be pursued. Universities and Government laboratories are critical to this type of research - research normally given freely to the betterment of our world.

Negro X| 5.9.11 @ 7:23PM

Purpletroll,
Another cut and paste, I think you have proven your point that you lack any orginal thought.

Dennis| 5.9.11 @ 1:27PM

I know people who get treatment at VA Hospitals and it is horrible! Poorly trained staff, an "I don't give a rat's a**" attitude, facilities are that outdated, etc. If the VA system is so great then I suggest the Democrats who crammed this bill through start using it along with Obama, his family and friends...

Purpleguy| 5.9.11 @ 1:49PM

After years of neglect and budget cutting by Republicans, I wouldn't be surprised. Remember Walter Reed Hospital and the peeling paint onthe walls. Under Bush's watch chuckie.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 3:17PM

My father was killed by the VA hospital under Carter's watch.

Teaghan| 5.9.11 @ 3:52PM

And what has barry done about it purple?

Oldefarte| 5.9.11 @ 3:40PM

Wow, Purple Excrement is obviously running down someone's leg here sadly. Yo Boy's health insurance scam is nothing but WELFARE whose whole intent is to provide insurance coverage to the Democrats' indigent [their termined 'MIDDLE CLASS'] constituents, and paid for by the taxpayers of this country. It's to financially gut/destroy Medicare and replace same with this welfare. Medicare is bad enough but at least it requires its recipients to PAY FOR same historically though their lifetime payroll deductions of paid premiums. Yo boy's welfare does not so require same, as anyone at any age will be eligible for it welfaric benefits, which is exactly what the socialistic Democrats desired in passing this peice of garbage. It is wealth redistribution to the maximum disguised as health insurance. Thanks to Democrats and liberals like Purple Moron, we've historically been financially straddled with New Deal and Great Society welfarism such as Affordable Housing [housing welfare], labor unionized public education social promotion inefficiencies, food stamps for any/all to lazy/stupid to work for a living, AmTrac strictly for the northeast section of the country, restrictive oil drilling policies that now cost us $4+/gallon of gas [and whose payments end us supporting Muslim terrorists who seek to destroy us all this country over their religious fanaticisms], etc. Regulation by government is nothing but ineffective dictatorial policies by liberal morons that seek to control this country for their own partisaned political purposes. Gas price controls were attempted in the 1980's with the result of an explosion of gas prices as a result. The government regulations of the current liberal dictator-in-chief and his Democrat socialists has destroyed oil drilling off of the Gulf's states all for the benefit of the environmental wackoes that these liberals are in political bed with. Government regulation control will do nothing for anything except to destroy same and to cause consumers to pay even higher prices for the products/services regulated. Government regulation is a waste, is absurd and stupid, but all one has to do to realize same is to examine those promoting its absurdity and stupidity in the first place [aka Purple moron types]!!!!!!!!

Beth| 5.19.12 @ 2:00AM

OldFarte,

We are just talking Price Negotiations with Medicare. If you owned a huge corporation, wouldn't you want to negotiate prices and deals with YOUR vendors?
Medicare is the biggest customer to Pharma and Medical Device companies. They should have the ability to negotiate prices, just like Walmart.

I know Vendors who do business with Walmart and they are making wonderful profits.

Negotiation does not mean "dictating price". It means using buying power to get the best price.
Right now Medicare does not get best price. Instead we have savy Vendor Relations agents at Private Insurance companies getting better contract prices than Medicare!

It's one of the areas that is Broke and will cause Medicare not to be able to sustain itself.

Don't believe all the Big Pharma hype. They have the largest army of Lobbyiests and Bundlers of all industries put together. Heck, you could even be one.

Jack London| 5.9.11 @ 3:43PM

Extraordinary - talk about garbage in (from the author) and garbage out (most of the commenters). Or rather no one should be surprised how Amspec continues to feed an endless trash cycle.

Difficult to know where to begin with this one but as Purpleguy says it's amazing that we have fervent free marketers arguing against negotiation, and it simply isn't true that VA patients have limited access to drugs.

As for this David Catron - 'a health care revenue cycle expert' - it must be a false name as no 'expert' comes up on Google with this name. I expect if his friends knew what he was writing he'd be laughed out of town.

George S| 5.9.11 @ 4:59PM

What makes the Affordable Patient and Protection act different than Canada or Britain? Not to mention Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Hawaii? What is different that will avoid shortages, waiting times and exploding budget deficits (like Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Hawaii)? Just explain how the law avoids those mistakes. Chapter and verse. I am curious to know how people can get the best of a product or service -- when they want and how much they want -- if they do not pay for it. Who wrote the law and what makes them experts at health care delivery as opposed to government ineptitude?

Beth| 5.19.12 @ 2:05AM

I agree with you Jack. I would not be surprised if Jack is a Lobbyiest or paid by the Pharmaceutical Industry.

For any purchasing entity to have a LAW AGAINST negotiating prices is INSANITY. Big Pharma is the protected Baby because of their Lobbying Army, Bundlers and Campaign contributions. Each Congressman knows the deal, if they receive a nice fat check from Pharma.

Frankly, I do not think we should allow companies who do business with the Federal Government to be able to contribute to campaigns or have a lobbyiest within a 60 mile radius of DC.

Beth| 5.19.12 @ 2:07AM

Correction Noted: Jack I meant to say the author, who is David. Looks like David is a big pharma lobbyiests or has special interest in the business.

Oldefarte| 5.9.11 @ 3:44PM

PS Purple: Why don't you simply go back inside your D of J cubbyhole furnished to you and others by Eric and his boss, and brainstorm some other socialistic koolaid to distribute to the vernerable masses of braindeads that believe your BS!!!!!

wodiej| 5.9.11 @ 6:25PM

Liberals do not understand free market principles period.

Dee See| 5.9.11 @ 10:55PM

REALITY CHECK

According to informed reports over 70%
of post 65 Americans are drugged?

----Keep taking those Rockefeller meds!
---yummm---yum!

Good for the brains, great for the mind.

"They call it INTER-dependence---"

INTER---(ie bury)----dependence.

In other words, you are being buried
---lucratively.

MEANWHILE, as fallout rains down along
with the usual cadmium/barium/aluminum
oxide CHEM-trails which don't exist ---still another explosion
at the Fukishima plant.

Still no attention from Globalist media.

Again, scheduled to spew at this rate for another
10 months.

NOW, take a good look at your kids.

Seems Bill Gates, Ted Turner and David Rockefeller are
going to get their RAPID and MASSIVE depopulation op (ie genocide) afterall.

Beth| 5.19.12 @ 1:48AM

The author speaks a lot of Big Pharma Hype.

Medicare is pharma's biggest Payer. For Medicare to have a LOCK on being able to negotiate prices like private insurance companies do, is not in the interest of Free Enterprise or in the interest of tax payers or the elderly patients.

We are talking Price Negotiation here. NOT price dictation. Pharma companies will still be able to profit but they need to compete in the government sector just like other government contracters.

I work for a device company. Guess what, our Medicare reimbursement is much higher than private insurance companies. This is not fair to the American Tax Payer.

Medicare must be able to Negotiate Prices to it's contractors in order to sustain it's viability.

Big Pharma, Labs and Device companies will still be innovative and will still profit.

Do not let their FEAR tactics get the best of you.

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