From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
I was disappointed to read Paul Mulshine’s column advocating a change in the law allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with private drug makers (The Medicare drug issue: ‘Conservatives’ who don’t want to bargain for better prices? No way). He criticized other conservatives for labeling such “bargaining” as price controls. But that is precisely what this would be–back-door price controls.
Mulshine did make the valid point that America doesn’t really have a functioning free market in drugs, and did advocate for free market reforms:
The genuinely conservative position on Medicare is to call for the entire program to be privatized so private insurance companies can make whatever deals they want with the drug companies.
But if we’re stuck subsidizing those drugs, the very least we can demand is that the government pay the lowest price possible to the drug companies.
It’s the “But if we’re stuck” phrase that stuck in my craw.
The millions of people who use Medicare form a huge part of the demand for drugs. If they banded together privately, they could negotiate better prices. So why isn’t it OK for the government to do that on their behalf? Is it because Medicare users, if left to their own devices, *wouldn’t* band together and therefore *wouldn’t* get better prices?
This is what it comes down to whenever some form of collective bargaining is under discussion. Two identical actions with identical market- or business-distorting effects are judged differently ostensibly because one action is private or “free” and the other is public or mandatory, but in reality because the likelihood of the “free” action is substantially lower.