Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: NYFriend

Precisely. The Big Government regulation being proposed by the administration is exactly like the Muzzie cab drivers who wanted to pick and choose which fares they’d accept (no booze, no seeing-eye dogs, maybe no “infidels” period) while hogging the spot at the front of the line so another cabbie couldn’t serve the spurned passenger.


32 posted on 08/25/2008 9:40:47 PM PDT by steve-b (Intelligent design is to evolutionary biology what socialism is to free-market economics.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies ]


To: steve-b
I was happy to let this go, but I'll just add one point. The free-market and property-rights arguments in this case need to be tempered. You become a pharmacist, open your shop, and the government's got no right to tell you what to sell or who to sell it to, right? No. The government's stompted on competition in medicine, pharmacy, and a bunch of other trades. I want to be a pharmacist. I can count out pills. I'll use a computer program to check for errors and interactions. Can I open my own pharmacy? No. The government's said that only those who get a license can be pharmacists, and that license is hard to get. Very few people can or will get one.

Contrast that with a restaurant. If I want to open a restaurant, I still need a license or permit from the Health Department, but where I am I can pay $100 for a one or two day food safety course, and go get my license. The government's interference in that field is very low. Therefore, they aren't doing those already in the industry any great favors by regulating newcomers out of the industry. Therefore, their right to interfere in my business (can I refuse to cook pork?) is very low. On the other extreme, look at my gas company. There is only one company running gas lines in the area, and they got a monopoly on gas infrastructure generations ago. The trade-off is that the government gets to set (or at least get the right to approve or disapprove) their rates. Used to be the same for telephone, electric and gas supply, and is even more true for cable companies.

In the medical profession, hospitals need a “certificate of need”, a determination by the State Health Department that your community needs more hospital beds. If the town doesn't need it, you can't build a hospital (same with nursing homes and even some clinics). If the government is preventing new hospitals from opening, then it gets to tell the existing hospitals that they need to treat everyone. For example, imagine there was no civil rights movement, there is one hospital in the county, and the population is such that the State won't approve another. Suppose that hospital is “whites only”. Does the State have a right, civil rights aside, to tell that hospital that they can't turn anyone away? Sure does, because there isn't another hospital, and the State has decided that there never will be another. The market isn't free, so the Government gets to regulate it.

Getting back to pharmacists, they don't get a monopoly, but there are extensive barriers to market entry and greatly limited competition. The government issued license to practice pharmacy lets the government meddle in your business. It's exactly the same as when you license a product or a technology for a patent holder. They get to set conditions on your use of the license they gave you.

In the case we are talking about, emergency contraceptives, there is a need to get the medication quickly. The medication is legal, the government’s decided that people should be able to buy it for it's intended purpose, therefore, the government should be able to take steps to make sure it's actually available, and I think they are giving such protections to the pharmacy industry as to justify that intrusion into the business or property rights of pharmacists.

37 posted on 08/26/2008 7:34:48 PM PDT by NYFriend
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson