The Fix Is In

Pelosi is really out to screw up this country. Liberalism truly is a mental disorder.

House Democrats are price-control freaks.

By Sally C. Pipes

The 110th Congress has already begun the process of imposing price controls
on prescription drugs. On the very first day in session, Democratic lawmakers John Dingell (Mich.) and Charles Rangel (N.Y.) unveiled the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007. The bill is being rushed to a floor vote on Friday. There will be no public debate, committee hearings, or minority participation.

This is all part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 100-hour legislative agenda to put her mark on the new Congress prior to President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address.

Citing the high cost of prescription drugs, Rep. Pelosi has promised to “fix” Medicare Part D in these first few weeks of the new Congress by allowing the government to negotiate
drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.



Unfortunately, if Pelosi, Dingell, Rangel, and their newly elected colleagues succeed, they will cause irreparable damage to our nation’s health-care system — damage that would affect
everyone, not just our nation’s seniors.

More.

License to Ill
Empowering the feds to negotiate drug prices will be a drag on public health.

There’s no business like show business, and inside the Beltway there’s no show like the business of sound-bite showboating. So get your tickets early: The “First 100 Hours” congressional sausage factory is up and running. Democrats are pushing to pass quick legislation empowering the federal government to negotiate pharmaceutical prices for the Medicare Part D drug benefit.

Current law excludes the feds from drug-price negotiations, leaving that role instead to the private-sector companies (pharmacy-benefit managers) that manage drug plans on behalf of their enrolled patients. This system is roughly efficient — no small achievement in the Beltway — in that the private companies must balance their customers’ demands for both lower prices and access to a broad array of drugs, while the pharmaceutical producers seek prices sufficient to recover their average $1 billion investment in each new drug while preserving the markets for their products.

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