J.D. Tuccille: Trump channels inner socialist with Soviet-style price controls
In 2010, Obama administration health-care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle, Ezekiel Emanuel and Robert Kocher boasted about the Affordable Care Act in a letter published by the Annals of Internal Medicine: 'The economic forces put in motion by the act are likely to lead to vertical organization of providers and accelerate physician employment by hospitals and aggregation into larger physician groups.'
Article content
Trump is embracing that same top-down approach, with medicine — in this case, the pharmaceutical industry — remaining nominally private, but subject to government command.
Article content
As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, who literally wrote the book on reforming U.S. health care from a free-market perspective, points out, 'Trump's executive order is an attempt to impose government price controls on pharmaceuticals.' Cannon recommended regulatory reforms to get the government out of the health-care market. 'Price controls are never the answer,' he added.
Article content
A major problem with price controls is that government can dictate a price, but it can't guarantee that anybody will produce and sell sufficient quantities of a good at that price. It also can't eliminate the consequences of putting a ceiling on prices and lowering incentives for developing new drugs.
Article content
Article content
West Virginia University economics professor Chris Freiman elaborated on this point, arguing that, 'Drug price controls are a classic example of what is seen versus what is unseen.' What consumers will see, he noted, is cheaper drugs. But what they will never see is 'the drugs we would otherwise have benefited from but aren't created in the first place' because pharmaceutical companies fear price caps will reduce or eliminate the return on their investments.
Article content
Republicans rightly criticized then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris when she proposed combating the inflation caused by wild spending during the Biden-Harris administration (and Trump's first term) by fixing prices. She promised to 'bring down prices' by taking on 'big corporations that engage in illegal price gouging and corporate landlords that unfairly raise rents on working families.' Besides rent, she had a particular fixation on dictating grocery prices.
Article content
Even the Washington Post's Democrat-friendly editorial board called Harris out, saying, 'Thankfully, this gambit by Ms. Harris has been met with almost instant skepticism, with many critics citing President Richard M. Nixon's failed price controls from the 1970s.'
Article content
Unfortunately, Trump doesn't just share his predecessors' taste for price controls, he also emulates the Biden administration's appetite for government-directed industrial policy, with politicians planning economic development and picking winners and losers. Trump told reporters earlier this month about the supply choking effects of his tariff policies, saying, 'A 10-year-old girl, nine-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn't need 37 dolls.… She could be very happy with two or three or four or five.'
Article content
His comments echoed socialist Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders' 2015 dismissal of 'a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers' in a free economy as unnecessary when he saw what he considered greater goals to pursue.
Article content
Interestingly, Trump's secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said during the announcement of the drug price plan, 'I have a couple of kids who are Democrats or big Bernie Sanders fans, and when I told them that this was going to happen, they had tears in their eyes.'
Article content
When a Republican president and his Democrat and socialist opponents agree more than they disagree about their desire for a planned economy, it's obvious that our political choices are as severely constrained as they would make our selection of dolls and deodorants. Americans may overwhelmingly reject central planning, but our major politicians are all socialists now.
Article content
Article content
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
28 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Kim Jong Un's sister dismisses US intent to resume diplomacy on North Korea denuclearization
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dismissed U.S. intent to resume diplomacy on North Korea's denuclearization, saying Tuesday the North flatly opposes any attempt to deny its position as a nuclear weapons state. Since beginning his second term in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly bragged of his personal ties with Kim Jong Un and expressed hopes of restarting nuclear diplomacy between them. Their high-stakes diplomacy in 2018-19 unraveled due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions. Kim has since performed a provocative run of weapons tests to modernize and expand his nuclear arsenal. In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo Jong said that 'It is worth taking into account the fact that the year 2025 is neither 2018 nor 2019.' 'Any attempt to deny the position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state which was established along with the existence of a powerful nuclear deterrent and fixed by the supreme law reflecting the unanimous will of all the DPRK people will be thoroughly rejected,' she said, referring to her country by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. She said she was responding to reported comments by a U.S. official that Trump is still open to talks with Kim Jong Un on the North's complete denuclearization. She likely was referring to a Saturday article by Yonhap news agency that cited an unidentified White House official as saying that Trump 'remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearized North Korea.' Kim Yo Jong said she doesn't deny the personal relationship between her brother and Trump 'is not bad.' But she said if their personal relations are to serve the purpose of North Korea's denuclearization, North Korea would view it as 'nothing but a mockery.' 'If the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK- U.S. meeting will remain as a 'hope' of the U.S. side,' Kim Yo Jong said. Her comments suggested complete denuclearization won't be up for negotiation. Experts earlier said North Korea would only be interested in talks on a partial surrender of its nuclear capability in return for sanctions relief and other benefits, a tactic that could allow North Korea to retain some of its key nuclear weapons after winning what it wants from the U.S. The earlier Trump-Kim diplomacy collapsed after Trump rejected Kim's calls for extensive sanctions relief in return for dismantling his main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. On Monday, Kim Yo Jong rebuffed overtures by South Korea's new liberal government, saying its 'blind trust' in the country's alliance with the U.S. and hostility toward North Korea make it no different from its conservative predecessor. Her comments imply that North Korea — now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia — sees no need to resume diplomacy with South Korea anytime soon. Experts say Kim Yo Jong also likely seeks to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.
CTV News
28 minutes ago
- CTV News
U.S. Justice Department files ‘misconduct complaint' against prominent judge
The Justice Department filed a misconduct complaint Monday against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, a prominent Washington, D.C., judge who has drawn U.S. President Donald Trump's ire, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X. Boasberg said in April that the Trump administration appeared to have acted 'in bad faith' when it hurriedly assembled three deportation flights on March 15 at the same time that he was conducting emergency court proceedings to assess the legality of the effort. 'Today at my direction, @TheJusticeDept filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Trump and his Administration,' Bondi said, without specifying which comments was she referring to. Today at my direction, @TheJusticeDept filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Trump and his Administration. These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will… — Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) July 28, 2025 Reporting by Christian Martinez and Kanishka Singh.
CTV News
28 minutes ago
- CTV News
Alberta, workers' union to enter enhanced mediation
Edmonton Watch The provincial government and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees will enter an enhanced mediation process for contract negotiations.
