› Pro-Monopoly, Anti-Competition Healthcare Bill Lacks Common Sense

While we’ve all known for a while now that common sense has long since from fled the various healthcare bills proposed by the Democrats in Congress.  Not only do the Democrats in Congress see fit to waste tax-payer money passing a useless healthcare bill to be able to say “we did it,”  but they actually managed to eliminate things that could actually add some value.

Senators Dorgan (D-ND) and McCain (R-AZ) proposed an amendment to the bill that would allow us to import some drugs from Canada and Western Europe (Let’s make that “any willing provider”).  The increase in competition from overseas would undoubtedly help bring down the costs of prescription drugs, making healthcare for you and me, a little bit more affordable.  Yet the US Senate manages to vote this amendment down so their “we did it” healthcare bill really does nothing for taxpayers.  In an article from Salon.com, Thomas Schaller makes two excellent points regarding this vote against cheaper prescription drugs:

He first points out Senator Dorgan’s early support for President Barack Obama and Senator McCain’s obvious opposition to the President.  This vote was non partisan.  This vote was not the left versus the right.  This amendment was created by both parties because it made sense for the American people and would have helped everyone Nationwide.

Schaller then points out, that the 51 that voted against this amendment received, on average, “66 percent more in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry than those who voted for the amending to allow imports; among Democrats only, the figure is even a bit higher (70 percent).”

Why is it that the people we’ve elected to represent us in Washington are placing special interests over our wallets, especially in a time when politicians going against these special interests is “the cool thing to do.”  We cannot afford this anymore, literally and figuratively speaking.  We just can’t.  When common sense amendments are being rejected by the Senate how can we trust them to fix our healthcare system?

Let’s take steps forward.  Let’s allow imported drugs from Canada and Western Europe.  Let’s allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines.  Let’s pass malpractice tort reform for our healthcare practitioners.  There is so much we could do to move forward and actually put money back in the pockets of the taxpayer while increasing the quality of care we’ll all receive.  If we don’t keep looking forward and moving in the direction of viable solutions our great country and its economy will never get back on track.