When is a price control not a price control, extortion not extortion, and a tax not a tax? When drug manufacturers are fighting to preserve their government subsidies.
No one knows what the right price for drugs or anything else should be. That's why we need markets. If Medicare and Medicaid were like Social Security, which subsidizes enrollees with cash, that's largely what we would have. But since Medicare and Medicaid are the nation's two largest purchasers of prescription drugs, those programs dictate the drug prices they pay and distort private prices.
