The pharmaceutical industry, widely suspected of charging too much for its products, is feeling the lash of a government's whip. Earlier this month, the Maine Legislature threatened drug makers with price controls that might be enforced in three years. For now, the state will turn itself into a drug-price negotiator for approximately half its citizens. Here we are, in a presidential election year, in another national debate on health care. This time, prescription drugs stand at the center.
Prescription drugs are effective.
Americans are using more of them. And they are expensive. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997, known as the BBA, was initially designed to protect the nation's Medicare program for the growing senior population. Guidelines minimize the risk that the money will go to people who shouldn't get it, yet the funds sit unclaimed. And the treatment won't be administered by doctors.