I was struck by a great example of a common right wing/corporate dodge whilst perusing the editorial page of today’s Boston Globe. It is one I think often goes unnoted, so I’m going to note it here.
Massachusett’s governor, Charlie Baker, has proposed a set of laws designed to bring down prescription drug prices for Medicaid patients in Massachusetts. The Globe editorial board (which loves Charlie Baker) lauds his proposal in an editorial here. Baker is the last of the throwback Republicans, he has even proposed raising taxes. Still, he’s a Republican, but that’s not what this post is about, nor is it a defense or attack on his prescription drug proposal. It has good points, which the Globe’s editorial summarizes, and may be the best a state can do given federal inaction.
No, this post is about an op-ed pieceby one Robert K. Coughlin, which, because when corporate interests are concerned, both sides must always be presented, sits below the Globe’s editorial. Coughlin is president and CEO of MassBio, and therefore has an unstated but obvious financial interest in keeping the price of prescription drugs high.
He begins his op-ed piece by attacking Baker for engaging in “ political gimmickry on drug pricing rather than attempting a more serious approach to improving health care for Massachusetts residents while reining in spending.” Right away the reader assumes that Mr. Coughlin is going to enlighten us as to the “serious approach” he is espousing.
The bulk of the piece though, is a sustained attack on the (Charlie) Baker proposal, based generally, on the universal Big Pharma dodge that if they can’t gouge us on drug prices, they simply won’t be able to innovate. (See Dean Baker’s papers on this, one here.).
Are you still waiting for Mr. Coughlin’s solution to the problem of high drug prices? Well, here it is:
Instead of following the governor’s political gamesmanship, the Legislature should pull together a group of experts from all corners of health care to work on a series of real reforms that can both improve health outcomes for our residents and cut unneeded spending without risking harm to our most vulnerable patients.
In case you missed it, there’s nothing there. Mr. Coughlin has preserved his ability to oppose any and all proposals that might actually reduce the cost of prescription drugs. This is a common right wing/corporate dodge. Sure there’s a problem, they say, so lets study it and think about it and stuff, but let’s not actually doanything about it, especially if doing something about it would cut into corporate profits or take a dollar from the pocket of a billionaire. Coughlin’s piece is a particularly glaring example of this dodge, but it’s very common. For, after all, when they really have to come up with solutions, like they were supposed to do to improve Obamacare, they come up empty.
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