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His Grandmothers Are Having A Hard Time Paying For Their Medicine

by Pat Pending

We have just heard the announcement of a Democrat challenger to Anne Northup for Kentucky’s Third Congressional District.  He seems like a nice young man with an excellent formal education from good schools.  And one of the first things he tells us is that he is concerned, because his grandmothers are having a hard time paying for their medicine. 

It is wonderful that this young man is concerned about his grandmothers.  But what does he plan to do about their difficulties?  Will he promote a plunder and redistribute strategy, which will make everyone worse off, or will he promote a free market competition strategy, which will make everyone better off?  Since he obviously has been successful in his profession and is not impoverished himself, is he planning to chip in himself to help his grandmothers pay for their medicine?  Or will he try to find some way to force other people to pay?

Who should be responsible for paying for his grandmothers’ medicine?  We all know that it is very expensive to do the research necessary to develop a new medicine and bring it to market.  In order for the pharmaceutical companies to take the risks to bring these lifesaving medicines to consumers, their shareholders have to foresee that they stand to profit from the risks and investments they will make.  (Otherwise, future grandmothers will not be able to depend on new drugs to help them as do today’s grandmothers.)  These costs and profits are reflected in the costs of the medicines which this fine young man’s grandmothers are using.  So, who should bear those costs?

Do grandmothers have a right to free drugs at someone else’s expense?  In other words, do they have a right to use the government to rob someone else to pay for the things they want?  Morally, they do not (remember thou shalt not steal?), legally, they should not, and, if we are going to provide the proper incentives to the industry to invest in the highest valued goods, they must not. 

While it sounds very nice for politicians to talk about providing things to us for free, and we all want the best for grandmothers, children, and everyone else, the reality is that nothing is free.  Politicians cannot give anyone anything unless they first force someone to pay for it.  There are no free drugs, there is no free housing, there is no free education, or free anything else in this world.  Somebody always must pay.  And the person who should pay is the consumer of the product or service being consumed, both because this avoids theft and because this reflects the real demand of the consumer for the product.

The costs of these medicines should be borne voluntarily by the consumers of the medicine – namely the grandmothers themselves, or their extended families and friends or church communities who may wish to help them out on a voluntary basis.  If this apparently fine young man really is a fine young man, and if he is truly concerned about his grandmothers, he will reach into his own pocket to help them.  But he will not duck his responsibility to his grandmothers and try to plunder someone else instead. 

Of course, if he is elected, there are many things he could do to try to reduce the cost of medicines.  For example, he could replace the FDA with privately operated testing and accrediting organizations, which would be much more efficient and accountable.  He could work to change tort law into a system similar to that in Europe, in which the loser pays the winner’s attorneys’ fees.  This would discourage frivolous suits and encourage settlements, greatly reducing the cost of doing business for the drug companies, while still holding them responsible for their mistakes.  He could work to eliminate trade barriers, permitting pharmacies to import drugs, which would help end the practice of Americans subsidizing the drug prices for people in other countries.  He could work to eliminate the monopoly that U.S. doctors have on prescribing drugs, which would foster networks of pharmacies providing more information to consumers about the appropriate drugs, their costs, drug interactions, and so forth, and making the drug industry much more competitive, thereby bringing down prices.  (Remember our recent story about the cost of allergy drugs when sold over-the-counter versus their cost when sold by prescription only.) 

If he cares about his grandmothers and all the rest of us, these policies, which would maintain profits for those who invest in drug manufacturing, and which would reduce the cost of drugs without engaging in plunder, are the kinds of policies he should promote.  Since he apparently is a smart young man, perhaps he will!