Ah, the Golden State

There is a ballot initiative to be decided by the voters of California this fall — Proposition 79 — that would attempt and fail to deliver steep pharmaceutical price discounts to over half of the state population, even as it would enrich the lawyers. Call it the “Fewer Medicines and More Lawsuits” initiative. It would attempt to force those discounts for the middle class by excluding from the MediCal (California Medicaid) formulary drugs from producers refusing to accept the California price controls imposed by the bureaucrats and politicians. So much for the actual health interests of the poor and near-poor. In any event, the federal government (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) will not allow benefits for the poor to be mortgaged in favor of attempts by the political class to subsidize the middle class. That is what actually happened (or failed to happen) in Maine. What will emerge is an avalanche of lawsuits, because the initiative allows any citizen (that is, any lawyer) to sue on grounds of “profiteering” whenever a prescription is filled at an “unconscionable” price or at a price yielding a profit “unjust” or “unreasonable.” By the way, none of those terms is defined, and, no, the attorney needs no actual client. And the “antidiscrimination” provisions would force the price controls onto the entire market, and other states would find themselves unable to resist the pressures to impose a similar program, lest consumers in other states pay less. Presto! The long run collapse of the pharmaceutical sector would be upon us. Such are the wages of left-wing compassion.