In that Times interview, Angell gives an assessment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit: “…the main Medicare drug benefit that goes into effect in 2006 is designed to funnel billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry. It’s an absolute bonanza for it. The pharmaceutical industry’s lobbyists made certain that the legislation contained a provision barring Medicare from negotiating drug prices. Interestingly, the federal government negotiates drug prices for the Veterans Affairs system and gets very low prices because it is a bulk purchaser. And Medicare would have been the biggest bulk purchaser of all – so it could have negotiated very low prices. That provision allows the drug companies to continue raising their prices faster than the inflation rate, and the drug benefit will soon become unaffordable.”

Would allowing Medicare to negotiate drug pricing have been an example of “over regualting the pharmaceutical industry”?

The $800m line is absolutely bogus as well, and I’m sure Dr. Miller knows it, too. He completely ignores a good 50% of the book in his criticism… read it first and then decide. It’s a very fast read.

I posted my own review last night.