The two stakeholders responsible for legislating the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act whom, to date, are receiving the most benefit from its passage are certainly the managed care and pharmaceutical companies. While other stakeholder groups were made to compromise and tender meaningful concessions in order to achieve a solution palatable to all the constituents of the legislative body, neither the managed care nor pharmaceutical companies were made to do so. In a way that may never had happened without what some argue to be the most conservative administrations in recent memory passing the least likely of programming, entitlement – the aforementioned companies were able to take a backdoor / backseat approach as the representatives of the private marketplace. In this regard, the motivations for support and anticipated positive results favoring the two industries suffered less scrutiny in the court of public opinion, a court that was already consumed with the battle over increased government intervention and spending in the first place. Nay, the compromise eventually reached between those that favored the private market and those that wanted government subsidized support aligned perfectly with the interest of both the managed care and pharmaceutical companies – that is, drastically increased demand and unregulated government spending to meet it.

History has proven this true as we see large profits in pharma and managed care as revenue steams are increased by the way MMA, on a multi-level scale, diverts billions of dollars in tax payer money into the hands of these entities. Ironically, it seems that these two interest groups might have created a situation even Marie Antoinette might have had foresight to avoid. As she might tell them, it appears that only public opinion can derail a runaway train of greed fueled by the hardship of taxpayers. Now with the election of a liberal administration and the public’s blessing, on the horizon looms healthcare reform that many believe poses major reconstruction of the way the aforementioned interest groups eat the proverbial cake.

Oberlander J. (2007). Through the Looking Glass: The Politics of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 32(2):187-219

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