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Americans want subsidized drugs. The trick is to do it in a larger context of getting market mechanisms to work better in the medicial industry. Another scandal, ingored by Bush, is that the US is subsidizing drug research for the world. We need to have a most favored nation pricing policy, so that drug companies must sell at prices in the US at the same price they sell to to monopsony buyers in Europe, adjused for the cost savings associated with volume discounts.

Bush was not elected as a movement conservative. There is not a majority constituency for a movement conservative, and probably won't be one absent a crisis situation. You are expected Bush to be something he was not elected to be, and did not run on as intended to be.

For Bush to say screw you to those who want subsidized drugs, we can't afford it, and you don't deserve it, in the context of tax cuts, is a way to lose. Of course, they should be means tested, and the GOP plan does that in a half hearted way. Kennedy hates that, because he wants this to be a way station to single payer universal health care.

If you don't like it, change some minds out there in the public square, and stop complaining at Bush plahing with the deck he was dealt.

If you don't like it, change some minds out there in the public square, and stop complaining at Bush plahing with the deck he was dealt.

Are you asking paleos not to cut off their noses to spite their faces because they didn't get every single thing they wanted in a democratic system? Come on...

"Americans want subsidized drugs. The trick is to do it in a larger context of getting market mechanisms to work better in the medicial industry. Another scandal, ingored by Bush, is that the US is subsidizing drug research for the world. We need to have a most favored nation pricing policy, so that drug companies must sell at prices in the US at the same price they sell to to monopsony buyers in Europe, adjused for the cost savings associated with volume discounts."

Torrie gets the lollipop for getting onto the real issue. The right answer in my book is price controls on drugs in this country. Now I know how you all are already shrinking away in revulsion from my last statement, but we have no other choice left to us if we're going to be able to pay for drugs. Virtually every other industrialized nation in the world already has price controls, and our high prices are subsidizing costs for everybody else. We can't win that battle. We can't get them to lift their price controls. If you can't beat 'em, join em. Or, as Confucious say, when a man feels the winds of change blowing, he should build not a windbreak, but a windmill.

You are expected Bush to be something he was not elected to be, and did not run on as intended to be.

No I expected him to do what he ran on. I know that's a lot to ask of professional politicians from either side but that's why I still voted for the Republican party in 2000

As The New York Times reported just after Election Day,Mr. Bush's argument that government's role in public life needed to be reduced clearly resonated. That philosophy of restricting government was shared . . . by many voters."

Cato Institute December 2000

And after weeks of criticizing Gore's plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, Bush has also taken a narrow lead with senior citizens.
-----Bush's strength on those latter questions may reflect a continuing resistance to expanding Washington's reach: Fully three-fifths of those polled say they prefer a smaller government with fewer services, while only one-quarter want a larger government with many services

LA Times Sept 27, 2000

So let's see Torie. George Bush ran on a smaller government, criticized Gore for suggesting exactly what he is doing now, and a full 60% of the people polled in the LA Times article wanted smaller government. Hmmmmmm, I think I would be working on smaller government instead of trying to appease 1/4 of the population