The Kaiser Foundation found that Americans spent about $220 billion on prescription drugs in 2010. And considering that annual prices for pills has increased an average of 3.6% annually over the past decade or so, according to the Kaiser Foundation, that number will only continue to rise. That’s precisely why progressives and liberals, including President Obama, want the government to start regulating drug prices. Republicans, naturally, are against such a suggestion — that includes White House hopeful Rick Santorum.
Asked about this controversial topic at a Colorado campaign rally yesterday, Santorum claimed Americans should stop bitching and moaning, because if they’re willing to pay for an iPad, they should be willing to pay just as much, or even more, for life-saving medicines.
“People have no problem going out and buying an iPad for $900. But paying $200 for a drug they have a problem with — that keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned in thinking health care is something you should get and not have to pay for,” he said, before explaining drug companies “need to have a profitability,” as if those money-drenched companies face some dire future of bankruptcy.
The problem with Santorum’s argument, reported by NBC News, is that our Declaration of Independence insists “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These truths, it says, are “self-evident.” Apparently not to Santorum.
Life in that document could easily be replaced with “health.” We all have the right to have a healthy existence. Health is, or should be, a right. An iPad, obviously, is a privilege. Sure, you could argue that such gadgets fall under the “pursuit of happiness,” but that would be an empty contention, because not everyone wants an iPad. Everyone, however, wants good health, but with the prices of prescription pills skyrocketing, they’re denied the ability to achieve this goal. And it is people like Rick Santorum (and those who believe his asinine comparison of an Apple product to prescription pills) who sustain the economic barriers keeping this nation’s citizens from achieving their ultimate health potential.
February 02, 2012 at 11:50 am, Ringleader702 said:
Health is not a right, making someone give you “health” is forcing someone to do something. You’re basically saying that health care providers and researchers need to slaves or the that people need to go to work to pay taxes (thus serfs) for other people to get healthcare.
February 02, 2012 at 6:04 pm, Wilwack said:
Sorry, the point he was trying to make is people want someone else to pay for their stuff so they have money to spend on the things they want. People need to make choices, if you are sick then you need to be willing to pay for doctors, meds, and whatever else is needed, expecting that someone else would pay for that is sad and your assumption that it is a right, is simply asinine. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, mean simply that the Government shouldn’t have the right to deny you them, as in they shouldn’t be able to randomly just start offing people, or just randomly tossing them in jail, it doesn’t mean that the Government has to provide you with a house, a job, a car, a iphone, free healthcare, and the countless other things that some people think they are entitled to. Get over it.
February 03, 2012 at 11:17 am, JoelDrake said:
Yes, Washington and Jefferson and the other founders fought the revolution so that every American could force other Americans to pay for their prescription drugs…
February 03, 2012 at 8:07 pm, Anonymous said:
And, he’s a Christian. I don’t think Jesus would approve of Rick!!!
February 04, 2012 at 8:14 pm, Melinda said:
The problem with his analogy is that people do not have to have an Apple IPad but they do have to have medicine. They will also not buy an IPad every month and they will have to buy their prescriptions every month. That $200 pero Rx is the equivalent to 3 1/2 IPads per year. If they need two or three Rx’s they will be buying the equivalent of 7 oriee IPads per year. What burns me I’d that the rest of the world pays lower costs for the same medicine and we subsidize it.
February 05, 2012 at 4:10 pm, None said:
Health is not really a commodity that can be doled out or not. Healthcare, formerly known as medical care, is mostly built around people with chronic illness who will never be restored to “health.” But their quality of life can be greatly enhanced by access to basic healthcare. Assuring access to basic healthcare is more like assuring access to basic education, Police protection, well-built roads and bridges. It may not have been on the Framers’ minds in 1776, but these expectations are universally shared among US citizens.
Until the bill comes due and the discussion devolves to ‘welfare queens’ and ‘if you can afford an ipad you can afford your chemotherapy, loser.’ Or until the chronically ill get to participate in the conversation.