Inflation Reduction Act

It is all procedural. As usual, the democrats started hanging all sorts of things from their liberal wishlist on the deceptively named “Inflation Reduction Act.”  Capping insulin prices was one of them. According to the non-partisan parliamentarian, this had no business being in a budget bill being rammed through under the reconciliation process. The republicans voted to preserve the cap under Medicaid but rejected the overreach as being procedurally incorrect. I’m not sure why they chose to die on that hill, but my guess is they want to send the message that you can’t just cram all sorts of goodies into what is supposed to be an emergency budget authorization. Reconciliation was rarely used historically but has now become commonplace under democrat rule to avoid the 60 vote threshold that is constitutionally required. And seven republicans chose to vote for it, but it is interesting to note that Mitt Romney, who always bends to the left, was not one of them. There must be more to this than meets the eye. To play devil’s advocate, why insulin?  Why not ridiculously overpriced cancer medications? Where does it end? Even big bad Pharma has to make a buck to subsidize their R &D, even though I agree that insulin prices have skyrocketed much like the Epi-pen cost that jumped recently. Is it related to supply chain issues, cost of production, worker shortages, or reduced numbers of manufacturers?  I don’t know. All I do know is that this bill is yet another example of the progressive demand for more revenue and their desire to punish businesses is insatiable. 

In essence, I'm to gather they propose just giving out better insurance with low deductibles. But that just transfers the cost to the insurance industry, which will respond by raising premiums, especially for those with “Cadillac” plans. So that solution is just another redistribution scheme. Not only that, but I thought Obamacare had solved the problem of the uninsured. Hmm. And it’s a numbers game as well. The pharmaceutical companies are not totally responsible for rising costs as it appears hospitals and pharmacies are acting as the middle man and are reaping profits through inflated pricing as well.

Additionally, how many people are we talking about?  If 35 million Americans have type I IDDM, and a third requires insulin, that’s only 12 million. How many of those are uninsured? The bottom of the spectrum have Medicaid or some state plan, seniors have Medicare which Is capped, and the top tier has private coverage, so how many people are we actually talking about?  And if insulin cost ranges from $175 to $300 a vial with the average patient needing two vials a month, averaging those figures would result in an out-of-pocket expenditure of $225 a month or $2700 per year. That’s less than what my insurance coverage costs me per month, and once again, how many people are we talking about? And why don’t these folks have insurance coverage in Obamacare America? Is it by choice? I would love for my medications and medical supplies to be free as well, but these proposed solutions all are a push toward socialized medicine or universal healthcare, and we all know where that heads: excessive taxation, redistribution, and rationing. And the solution to cap prices leaves out the comment that the pharmaceutical industry claims the cost is justified. They also propose “value pricing,” which is essentially asking private businesses to reveal their cost and then allow the government to determine what they will allow you to charge. Try that with the automobile industry and see if that works. So the bottom line is the utopian desire to have free healthcare by railing against Big Pharma, which operates within the capitalist system of producing a product for profit. The issue is much more complicated than scapegoating the republicans because you want free insulin. I know I'm thrashing about in a sea of confusion here, lent, I'm sure by misinformation and disinformation, but that's the landscape we are dealing with these days! Bear with me.