Another Blow to the Chin? Government V Market

It seems that once again members of our hard working congress sees it fit to apply one more half baked idea into the Market Sector. The September 14^th “paycheck fairness” bill intends to make it easier for women who feel that they are receiving less pay due to sexual discrimination to file class-action, punitive-damages suits against employers they accuse of sex-based pay discrimination. This sounds great and President Obama even referred to it as “a common sense bill”, but this bill ignores all the research that shows that discrimination is not a big factor in pay disparity. It’s a bill that can easily lead to large legal expenses for businesses in an already shaky economy. Luckily though this bill hasn’t made it to the mass audience and picked up and ran with, so we might have dodged another bullet from congress for now.

Drug Makers Accused of Ignoring Price Law

Drug manufacturers are required by law to provide the government with pricing data needed to calculate discounts on medications prescribed for poor people under Medicaid. This article reveals that most manufacturers do not always provide this information and as a result Medicaid pays a large percentage of the prescriptions. Under Obama's new health care law, this problem is expected to grow because it increases the discounts and the amount of people on Medicaid. The government will begin enforcing $10,000 a day penalty on manufacturers that refuse to follow regulations. This is a prime example of the three legged stool analogy. The mistakes of the market sector (manufacturers) Medicaid (the non profit sector).

-Victoire Iradukunda

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/us/03drug.html?ref=us