A common strategy used by those who oppose government programs is to highlight any deleterious points while ignoring the alternatives, as if everything would be perfect if the government wasn’t involved. Peter Suderman has a post at Reason entitled When Governments Choose To Pay For Medicine, They Also Choose What Medicine To Not Pay For. The post is based upon this report in The Wall Street Journal on European countries trying to cut back on drug prices.
Yes the title is true but Suderman ignores two important facts:
When Insurance Companies Pay For Medicine, They Also Choose What Medicine To Not Pay For. Insurance companies routinely restrict which medications are covered, and for-profit insurance companies are often more restrictive than government programs as to what they will pay for. Their decisions are much more likely to be based upon maximizing their profits as opposed to trying to rationally allocate limited resources in a fair manner. Another trick often used by insurance companies is to officially cover a medication but make the patient’s co-pay so high that they cannot afford them.
When Governments Do Not Choose To Pay for Medicine, many go without any medications. In an ideal world everyone would be able to get any medication, regardless of cost. In the real world most people have limitations on the medications they can have, with many people having no coverage other than for government programs. This beats not being able to afford medications at all.
