Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Politicians - and Medicare Part D
Beware! Politicians are involved.
Changing Medicare Part D could create unintended consequences...
Changing Medicare Part D could create unintended consequences...
Russ Wilcox considers some ramifications:
"Now along comes Nancy Pelosi on a mission to have the federal government negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients – a sure winner politically to gain votes from ignorant and naive voters. She cites the program of the Veterans Administration, which does negotiate drug prices. Of course, she only mentions the lower prices; she doesn’t mention the limited number of drugs available to VA members (1400 vs. 4300 for Medicare Part D), nor does she mention that VA members have no access to any of the newer drugs according to a study by the General Accounting Office.
And most of all, she never mentions what two independent researchers have concluded would happen to the development of future wonder drugs if the federal government gets involved in setting prices: that approximately 200 new drugs over the next 20 years will never be developed for our children and our grandchildren. We would be robbing the next generation with our selfishness, while simultaneously reducing the number of drugs available to us now. This is not mere alarmism; both Canada and Europe are already experiencing a decline in the development of new drugs."
