Comment on Robert Reich post "Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option"

Here is a comment I made to this

We can go further!!!

"If, on the other hand, Medicare were allowed to negotiate lower drug prices, biotech drugs weren't granted a twelve-years monopoly, and doctors had to accept Medicare reimbursements in line with legislation enacted years ago, Americans would save billions."

Wonderful ideas, but why stop there! Why don't we get really aggressive with this! Why don't we do this. Let's just mandate that doctors must earn minimum wage, drug companies must sell all drugs for $1 for a year's supply, and absolutely no exclusivity period for new drugs. Anyone can copy drugs for free right away; it will be just like buying cheap knockoff Gucci handbags in Thailand or some other poor country!! So what that there will no longer be any incentive for anyone to develop drugs, the key thing is to ramrod price controls down the throat of the medical complex so we can control costs! And let's have the CBO score this plan --- the savings will most definitely be mind boggling and what congressman in their right mind would reject such massive savings for middle class Americans! Its a shoo in!! We can have our cake and eat it too!!!!

If only. You will get what you pay for. If you force doctors to accept the measly payments based on the legislation of years ago, you will soon no longer have doctors that will take medicare (if you still have any doctors at all that is, what with the massive bonuses on Wall Street maybe they'll all switch to being investment bankers). Modern medicine is simply very expensive and if you're not willing to pay it you will get rationing and poorer care.