“Democrats are vowing to make lower Medicare drug prices one of their top priorities if they gain a majority in Congress, and the public should welcome such an advantage. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi of California has listed drug prices as an important issue for early attention. As it is, the Medicare drug plan literally bans the government from negotiating lower prices on medicine. The Republican-led drug plan specifically kept government away from such a position of influence, which is ridiculous. The idea was to make medicine more available and affordable, so why eliminate the single best way to drive down prices? The program looked designed as much to help drug companies as patients. … [T]he early claims that the program was drawn up to help drug companies appear now to be prophetic.” [editor’s note: Once again, the liberal/progressive mixed-blessing: a good analysis of the problem … and the same tired suggestion as to how to fix it — with a higher dose of what created it! - SAT] (10/30/06)