Bush’s Gift To The Left

The next phase in the Medicare prescription drug entitlement is pretty obvious: the law will be changed soon to ensure that the federal government negotiate with drug companies for the price for the drugs. You can see the logic here at the DailyKos. Once you have laid the groundwork for a new entitlement, the full power of the state is involved. Once you have conceded the principle that all seniors should be able to get the latest drugs by borrowing other people’s money, it’s weird to put any restrictions on demand – it will soon grow exponentially, and the "donut hole" will surely be removed by a future Congress. So we’ll soon shift to a system of fantastically expensive free drugs of all kinds for all seniors and a crippling of the pharmaceutical industry’s research and development arm. The trade-off will be complete: a collapse in research in return for free drugs for the most pampered senior generation in history. Those boomers still have clout! Bush’s mixture of statism and incompetence has already made this inevitable. But a giant leap to the left on healthcare is just poised to occur. That leap is Bush’s legacy. Just watch it unfold.