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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs

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To: RMF who wrote (36776)	9/4/2009 2:37:22 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 71588

When the government actually negotiates it doesn't tend to do so well, unless its acting as a monopsony buyer for a large market and it uses that power (which it granted itself) to force down prices. In a sense the later is a negotiation, but is the same sense that a politically created monopoly setting prices for consumers can negotiate, its negotiations, but its also "making it cheaper" thorough the application of political power. Pfizer just paid a $2 Billion dollar fine for screwing around on their drug sales. For them that's just a "cost of doing business". Quite a large cost. Also probably not a justified one. One big aspect of the case against it was the promotion of off label uses of drugs. Off label uses, and the promotion of such is not a problem IMO, and should not result in government action against the company except in cases when its fraudulent. And even if the fine was justified, the fact that the government has the power to slap drug companies around doesn't amount to an argument for giving governments power over drug prices. It might be considered irrelevant, it might even be an argument for the opposite side.

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