The June 26 Huffpost Politics article, A Depressing Story You Need to Read, takes a deeper look into the workings of Obamacare — and finds some unfortunate consequences. The proclaimed benefits to the taxpayer are not so great, while the drug industry becomes the beneficiary of exorbitant prices being paid for prescribed medications. The author, Mr. Kuttner explains:

“If President Obama’s health reform, the Affordable Care Act, backfires … one reason will be the staggering political power of the drug industry. If… the health reform had used the bargaining power of the federal government to lower the cost of prescription drugs bought by Medicare and Medicaid, the current system, in which the government pays sticker price, there would have been far less need to find savings in Medicare and far less…backlash among voters.”

In this scene, the term “hidden costs” takes on a new meaning. The government did not bargain down drug prices, because the pharmaceutical companies might have lobbied against the bill. Consequently, top-dollar prices are now being paid, with drug companies cashing in on all the medications being purchased for Obamacare.
Taking a closer look, we see billions of dollars spent annually on prescribed medications for a list of mental disorders increasing at warp speed. There is recent evidence, however, that this increase stems from an unhealthy involvement of the drug industry in the “scientific” search for new drugs to bring to market. Pure science would be unbiased, and would be searching for answers (for public or society’s needs), rather than having vested interest in the outcome of experiments or studies. But with private drug companies financing the search for new drugs, the desired neutrality of science is questionable. Kuttner states,

“…if all pharmaceutical research were publicly financed…, conflicts of interest would be wiped out, research would be guided by medical need rather than profit, and taxpayers could actually save money because more than half of all drugs are now purchased (at patent-protected prices) [when a drug is patented there is no competition and they can keep the price high] by Medicare, Medicaid, the VA or some state agency.

“Under that system, scientists could then go back to doing science, rather than trying to cash in as handmaidens of the drug industry.”

In taking stock of the pros and cons of Obamacare (unless one owns stock in drug companies), the taxpayer does not come out ahead.
A different set of values was portrayed in history upon the discovery of a polio vaccine:

“Dr. Jonas Salk, who created the polio vaccine, was asked in a TV interview whether he planned to patent his discovery. He responded, ‘The people own the patent on this vaccine. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?’”

Kuttner sums up this sorry situation:

“Corrosion of the public spirit of scientists and the distortion of scientific inquiry is one of the many costs of this… Not to mention the creation of bogus illnesses that requires bogus drugs with little medical benefit but real side effects.”