Liberals know that the only way to force socialized medicine onto American citizens is to obliterate the current system.
Senator Denise Harper Angel (D-Louisville) yesterday pre-filed a bill that would force the governor to demand re-importation of drugs from Canada.
Last year was one in which every Democrat primary candidate for President campaigned in favor of some form of HillaryCare. I think Kentucky Democrats really believe that attempting to extract capitalism from our system of health care will present them with some kind of wedge issue in the 2006 elections.
They are counting on voters' inattention to details.
In this particular case, Senator Harper Angel's bill would, if fully enacted, allow the state of Kentucky to order drugs for Medicaid recipients, at least on paper. To date, re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada has been a way for some individuals to purchase drugs at lower Canadian prices. This has long been illegal, but the Bush Administration made a point of not enforcing that law until last year. Now individuals can try to purchase Canadians drugs, but they are somewhat likely to be confiscated in transit. The Canadian government has yet to intervene in the process because ordering from the U.S. hasn't been substantial enough to noticably impact Canadian supplies. If we encouraged large-scale ordering like this and it caused shortages in Canada, then the Canadian government would quickly shut the process down by making exporting illegal. This gumming up of the works would ensure renewed calls for pricing regulation on American drug makers. With a citizenry becoming increasingly dependent on the life-saving qualities of drugs made in the last bastion of pharmaceutical innovation (the United States), we should understand that more socialism is one thing our healthcare system cannot afford.
But the Democrats don't expect this to get that far. They just want to paint Republicans as protecting the interests of the evil drug companies over the little grandmothers who need their purple pills. That will be fairly easy to do after Republican Senators kill Senator Harper Angel's little piece of socialist utopian dreaming.