In a remarkable editorial, the WashPost announces that Americans can make market choices on their own, without government interference.
It's fair to object that consumers may not be equipped to make smart decisions; the market signals they send may reflect the success of gauzy drug commercials rather than clinical evidence. The attraction of the market-based model depends on consumers being guided more by science-based Web sites created by universities or other groups. It's an open question whether consumers, led perhaps by their insurers, will learn to make sophisticated drug choices, but the fact that Medicare patients already buy more generic medications than other Americans is an encouraging sign of the capacity for smart purchasing. A switch to government purchasing of Medicare drugs would choke off this experiment before it had a chance to play out, and it would usher in its own problems. For the moment, the Democrats would do better to invest their health-care energy elsewhere.Imagine that. In related news: “Walmart sells 143 drugs for $4 each today.”
1 comment:
Not to get overly technical, but Wal-Mart is selling 143 prescriptions, not drugs, for $4. If you look at the PDF linked on the same page as the article cited, you can see some drugs are repeated for various dosages, like amoxicillin which has 11 entries.
Regardless, this is a great step and I hope it encourages other pharmacies and retailers with pharmacies to match Wal-Mart. Leaving this to the government is the wrong way to go!
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