Congress is at it again attempting to do some things that make sense until some politician objects to kill it. Yet, why oppose the idea to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices? For our regular insurance we take it as what to expect from our health insurance companies to work out deals for our care, be it drugs we need, hospital stays, or whatever. We need them to work out deals.
Medicare is poised to get the power to merely ask for a better deal from the pharmaceutical companies, but we hear cries of socialism. Consequently, how many people could even define socialism anyway? Nevertheless, the Veterans Administration has being negotiating drug prices for years. As shocking as that may be, the drug companies didn’t collapse under the yoke of the VA’s demands of lower prices.
Another thing we should remember the federal government buys a lot of goods and services by issuing contracts to competitive bidders. Sure the government has no bid contracts too but those are less common. No one ever seemed to question the fact that when they are building a new building or buying a new fighter plane or maybe just boots for the military in most cases that the government seeks out the best deal at the lowest price. If the government didn’t do that we would be asking why were they wasting our tax dollars on overpriced stuff. Anything medical or health care related became politicized and who has to deal with that? Our seniors and others on Medicare are some of the most vulnerable members of our society that deserve to be taken care of.
Whether the government is buying a bullet for the Army or a cholesterol pill, it only makes sense for them to get the best price. Medicare recipients should not be paying more for drugs than they need to and unjustly subsidizing pharmaceutical companies.
I think the drug companies see regular people as their profit center where they make their money. And the rest of the world in the big industrial nations allows their versions of Medicare to negotiate better drug prices. The same drug companies that are huge multinational companies didn’t close shop and refuse to sell drugs to these other countries. They engage in negotiations with them and settle on prices where they make a profit and the people could get fair prices.
We can do that and the world will not end. Sure the big drug companies will get less money so maybe some CEO won’t get a massive stock option perk as happened in the past. Some of those payments were hundreds of millions for one person. Who’s worth that much money?
