Who’d a thunk it?

Who could have ever believed that a government council tasked with fixing prices would… I know it’s hard to believe… fail.

Yes, that is a tear rolling down my face at the demise of the Pharmaceutical Cost Management Council’s (PCMC) drug disclosure rules.

Noone (especially me) would have ever predicted the Bob Kiss chartered council would fail.

Remember when former Speaker Kiss came down off the Speaker’s chair to talk to the entire House of Delegates about how he was going to put together a council to fix the prices of drugs?

Well, yes, I know Kiss came off the podium nearly every day, but does anyone recall this particular instance?

At the end of his speech, the entire House leapt to their feet, tears streaming down their faces (Repubs included) that they would be in the presence of such a brilliant idea and that yes… if only the government could set-up a program to fix the prices, we would all be delivered from high costs.

No longer would we have to see political commercials like Jim Humphreys where the senior citizen stood outside the grocery store looking at his prescription wondering if he should fill the prescription and die of starvation, or eat, but die from not taking the medication (OK, I’m making that up about the tears, but you get my drift… oh, and never mind that Bush actually implemented a Medicare drug program, but, again you get my drift).

People always ask why I so despise the PCMC and especially the disclosure rules that have become a front page story in the Gazette for nearly two years now.

Many reasons, I guess.

The first is that the Gazette and the libs have touted this Council as the be-all, end-all when it comes to drug prices. They have written story after story after story about the valiant fight of the proponents of the rules against the evil drug sales reps who… GASP… buy doctors’ offices lunches… and… DOUBLE GASP… sell their companies’ products. I think it was Perdue or Kiss who said West Virginia could be the “little mouse that roared” (yes, that’s nausea you’re feeling now) against those evil. mean old drug companies who are producing all those drugs that you know… save peoples lives. The audacity of them to actually expect payment for their products. Silly little bees.

I have made fun of the Gazette and few of the legislators who seemed not to quite grasp the fact that drug companies were allowed to market their drugs and they used… TRIPLE GASP… drug sales reps to do it.

If only… If only… If only the PCMC were allowed to find out how much money drug reps spend on docs, the whole wide world would be a better place and we’d then be able to fix prices. It got to the point where I wouldn’t have been surprised if a few of the legislators and the Gazette editors would have advocated passing a law giving citizens the right to hunt down and taser anyone in a suit outside of a hospital carrying a case who might be suspected of being one of these strange beings known as… drug reps.

In a letter I received from all the groups fighting for the new drug rules recently, it actually said “In order to begin the negotiation process (with the drug companies), the PCMC must collect information on the costs of drug manufacturers incur for advertising and marketing in West Virginia.”

Say What?

There’s my irritation.

Why?

Why can the PCMC only being negotiations with the drug industry AFTER they receive this information?

Ah, and there’s the shiny bobble.

Some of you have heard me talk about the “shiny bobbles” of the Legislative process. But, it’s the shiny, usually unimportant, issue that ends up getting everyone’s attention, but really doesn’t make a hill of beans in the end of the process.

Drug “disclosure” is the shiny bobble of the PCMC process.

The PCMC is a failure. It was set-up for failure. It was given a task that was already underway in many forms.

Because it failed before it ever began, the people who set it up and supported it glommed onto the issue of “disclosure” and has ridden it ever since. For going on two years now. It has become the entire mission of the PCMC… to find out what Doctor X likes to eat at Tidewater.

As all other attempts to “fix prices” have, this one failed as well.

This has also served to deliver a good two years of positive press for its proponents and I suspect that is as much of the story as anything else.

What I thought was absolutely hysterical were the comments after the Governor rightly put the kibosh on new disclosure requirements. Good job AGAIN, Joe. (Two days in a row with my positive praise for Manchin… have I become infected with the Mojo? Sorry, I digress.)

There were people practically near tears that they would now not know what lunches drug reps were buying for doctors’ offices.

House Health Chairman Don Perdue almost had to get a couple people to assist him to a seat he was so distraught. God forbid we don’t know what those crazy drug reps are doing with their private companies money.

The proponents of the “disclosure” rules want drug reps to disclose what they pay for meals, etc. to doctors to ply their wares. According to the advocates, if ONLY we knew how much this was, well, then we could begin getting lower drug prices.

Pffffft! Ridiculous.

If we want to negotiate drug prices with drug companies, why can’t we do that today? Why do we need to know if Doctor X’s offices likes Subway instead of Blimpie?

And, to me, the whole issue is a riot. I’m sure there are doctors out there who say, you know, I was going to prescribe that drug that was safer, but you know, I don’t really care if I get sued, lose my license, lose my practice, lose everything I’ve worked for because, well, that Chop House meal was mighty tasty. Again, absurd.

The PCMC was a failure from the start. Because they were a failure, everyone (especially the Gazette) has wrapped their hands around the disclosure rule.

The disclosure rule amounts to nothing. Let’s say, after years of fighting, we find out that Drug company A spent X to market their drug in the state.

What are we going to do with the information? Or, the better question is how would NOT having this information preclude us from negotiating with drug companies?

Again, the shiny bobble reflects away attention from what is the absolute truth. If they state wants to negotiate with drug companies, they can. They don’t need the disclosure rule to do it and they certainly don’t and never did need the PCMC.