Hey, everybody, here's a novel idea: how about we try the free market?

Two pieces came across my radar this morning that got me thinking about how far removed we are from a society in which sovereign individuals come to agreements with other sovereign individuals as to the value of particular goods and services.

The first has to do with a direct result of the Very Stable Genius's ignorance on the subject of free-market economics. He makes that clear with the pronouncement that farmers "can't be too upset, because I gave them $12 billion last year and $16 billion this year."

Um, no you didn't.

This is another display of his mindset, in which his role as the focal point of a cult of personality is conflated with that of his role as the chief of the executive branch - much like the business of lumping his private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in with the Attorney General of the United States, Robert Barr, when dealing with Ukraine.

The VSG may have had the idea to use Market Facilitation Program funds already budgeted at the US Treasury, but it's not like he cut a check.

And what he's done is put farmers in a position of dependence on federal largesse.

And, as Taylor Millard demonstrates at Hot Air , Trump's ignorance is on display in a Health & Human Services scheme to create an "international price index" for pharmaceuticals - and is countered by Democrat Congressional proposal that is equally bereft of economic freedom - and common sense.

First this "index" idea:

“U.S. consumers and taxpayers generally pay more for brand drugs than do consumers and taxpayers in other OECD countries, which often have reimbursements set by their central government,” The administration wrote in their American Patients First plan while suggesting the burden of new drug development incentives needed to be spread equally between the U.S. and other nations. “In effect, other countries are not paying an appropriate share of the necessary research and development to bring innovative drugs to the market and are instead freeriding of U.S. consumers and taxpayers.”

Their ‘solution’ is to create an international price index looking at what other countries are charging for drugs and attempting to negotiate with pharmaceuticals on how to rein in the price.

HHS summarized the idea as Medicare setting drug prices based on whatever discounts American pharmaceutical companies give nations like France, Canada, or Germany. “With the model fully implemented, total payment for these drugs will drop by 30 percent,” HHS wrote last October noting there would be extra taxes involved in it. “The Target Price is 126 percent of the average price other countries pay for the drug. The model incorporates a new, larger add-on fee for hospitals and doctors that is independent of prices.”

Yay. New taxes. 

The obvious problem is the fact doctors and hospitals will simply raise prices to make up the difference in lost money. It’s the easiest way to pass prices along to consumers.

This is an excellent example of how Trumpist nationalism is definitely not conservatism. The idea of some kind of other countries being obligated to undertake an "appropriate share of the necessary research  . . . to bring . . . drugs to the market" runs counter to the understanding that private organizations are the entities that do the researching and developing - in a free market, anyway.

And everybody in the supply chain will adjust prices for their contributions as this "international index" affects them.

Now, the Dem approach:

Democrats, not to be outdone, have their own ideas on how to enact price controls. New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. introduced the Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019 which puts Great Britain, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, and Japan on the price index list. Prices could be renegotiated each year:

In negotiating the maximum fair price of a selected drug, with respect to an initial price applicability year for the selected drug, and, as applicable, in renegotiating the maximum fair price for such drug, with respect to a subsequent year during the price applicability period for such drug, in the case that the manufacturer of the selected drug offers under the negotiation or renegotiation, as applicable, a price for such drug that is not more than the target price described in subparagraph (B) for such drug for the respective year, the Secretary shall agree under such negotiation or renegotiation, respectively, to such offered price as the maximum fair price.

There are plenty of problems with both proposals, especially with how they affect not only the public market but the private market.

“Both proposals give the government unprecedented price-setting authority in both the public and private markets,” FreedomWorks Regulatory Policy Manager Daniel Savickas to me in an email last week. “It threatens the ability for drug manufacturers to develop new drugs and market them in a timely manner, and we risk drug shortages beyond those already seen across the globe. These proposals are also tacit concessions that socialist economies have preferable drug pricing models, which (if that premise is accepted) puts our nation on the glide path to single-payer healthcare.”

The U.S. does have a drug price index as part of Medicare Part B. Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist noted in The Hill last December the U.S. bases its prices for certain drugs on the average sales cost for Americans. Why foreign countries need to be brought into the mix is anyone’s guess. 

And the rest of Millard's piece alludes to an important point in all this: crafting public policy based on subjective terms such as "high" and "fair" is a usurpation of the right of each sovereign individual to decides what constitutes either of those descriptions for himself or herself.

Cherish your humanity, fellow post-Americans. Let's not become the cattle-masses. Claim your freedom. Think deeply about your freedom. Talk to your kids about freedom.

Never mind what the government says about "fairness."