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Written by: Eugene Steuerle
Here at Promoting Healthcare Entitlement Regardless of Medical Acuity (PHERMA), we understand you. Our commercials show how happy you can be —engaged in fun, games, or travel, especially with grandchildren or other loved ones—after you take the drugs our companies advertise and sell.
To pursue many regulatory actions, the executive branch of government is supposed to determine if total benefits exceed total costs. The presence of benefits is not justification enough to approve an expenditure. In theory, at least, the benefits must exceed costs. The net benefit, of course, is a complex calculation to make when it comes to drugs and the quality of life they offer. Fortunately for our industry, Congress often denies regulatory authority to the executive branch when it comes to drugs. With some exceptions, it has skipped that branch and passed on its power of appropriation to you.
You, however, have no requirement to consider the costs that society bears. Do you feel that each bottle of 30 pills for which you make a co-pay, say, of $30, provides more benefit to you than $1 per pop? Then take them. You and your doctor can ignore a total reimbursement of $300 that goes to the drug company. You may even believe that the pills likely will not work, but hey, it’s worth a shot at almost zero personal outlays.
Please note that you only need to “feel” this way, enabled by the hope fostered by our commercials. We haven’t yet figured out how to associate Santa Claus with our drug bottles—they are too orangish. Coca-Cola beat us to the punch with its now iconic annual representation of a red-outfitted Santa holding a Coke can of the same color.
Yes, you may need to find a doctor to provide a prescription. But the doctor has no obligation to consider societal costs either. Even if the drug offers questionable benefits, you can harass a good doctor to give in to your demands or shop around for a bad doctor if that doesn’t work. The bad one might even earn more if consulted for renewed prescriptions.
Like most Americans, you’re probably participating now and, almost inevitably, at different points in your life, in some government health program—Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Healthcare, the Health Insurance or ACA Exchange Marketplace created under Obamacare, government employee health insurance, and tax subsidies provided for employer health insurance. Within those systems, Congress has delegated you the power to appropriate additional money from your fellow taxpayer for the next health benefit you receive. Remember that $300 cost noted above that went to the drug company? In that example, other taxpayers will pay the $270 cost not covered by your co-pay, and the government will channel that money to the drug company.
Fortunately, Congress and recent presidents have also agreed that revenues need not cover the cost of growing entitlement expenses and tax subsidies. You and your current generation of taxpayers may not even feel a pinch when the additional deficits you create are left to be paid by future taxpayers.
True, the current Supreme Court doesn’t like Congress delegating away its power. However, its concern seems to apply selectively to the “administrative state” or executive branch (see Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo), not private individuals.
In sum, it seems OK for Congress to delegate to unelected individuals like you, expert or not, as well as pharmacy benefit managers, the appropriating power it often denies to the executive branch. Many here at PHERMA, too, believe it’s a good idea to deny government agencies the power to intervene. The government should keep its hands off Medicare and every other government health program.
So, please ASK YOUR DOCTOR for any drug you want. We are nonpartisan in our U.S. advertisements and promote them on all media, though most countries forbid such advertising. We especially like to advertise on openly partisan news shows, conservative or liberal, favored by people attracted to Fake News or more likely to be older and sicker. We also contribute generously to both political parties.
Related: Who Would Pay for Trump’s Social Security Plan? History Has the Answer