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Shutting off the miracle-drug spigot
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right last week when she called her latest health-care-reform proposal a "his toric moment": After decades of life-saving and cost-cutting scientific innovations from drug and medical-device companies, the government is about to step in and stifle the R&D that is our best hope for improving health outcomes.

Pelosi's bill may cost pharmaceutical companies $150 billion over a decade -- nearly double the amount they conceded when they cut a White House-approved deal with Sen. Max Baucus this summer.

The Pelosi bill is a prescription for fewer new life-saving drugs. By stifling innovation, it would hurt not only industry, but also all of us who'd benefit from new-drug development. ...

...R&D investments per new-drug introduction nearly doubled between the early '80s and early '90s -- but government approvals have been dropping. Even after drugs are approved for marketing, only about three in 10 now recoup their development costs.

And now Congress is out to make the climate for new-drug development significantly worse. The president has bragged that he intends to eke out huge cost savings at drug companies' expense: "The pharmaceutical industry has already said they're willing to put $80 billion on the table," adding, "We might be able to get $100 billion out or more." The industry was willing to "give" back its profits because it was told it wouldn't have a seat at the negotiating table if it didn't go along.

But now Pelosi has set up her own "negotiating table" -- nearly doubling the amount Washington would confiscate from the industry and planning vast cuts in what Medicare would pay for drugs -- a provision that the industry was assured was off the other table. Give 'em a hand, they'll take an arm. ...