The Dark Arts
September 16, 2016 The Economist
John Friedman comments on the benefits that drugmakers have seen since the revision of the Medicare program in 2003. "This included a new prescription-drug benefit but no measures to control the costs of that benefit through means-testing or bulk-buying. John Friedman, an economist at Brown University, estimated the resulting benefits to drugmakers at $242 billion over ten years, a healthy return on the $130m the industry spent on lobbying in the year the law was passed."