SB 2031 Continues Path to Prescription Drug Price Controls

The interim healthcare committee approved and has introduced a bill that sets North Dakota on a path to socialistic price controls.

“There ought to be a law!” and “We have to do something!”

Those are two sentences that advocates of smaller government hate to hear, especially when said by typically conservative lawmakers.

But that seems to be the motivation behind SB 2031 that has been introduced for the 2023 Legislative Session.

As we reported back in 2021, there has been an effort to move North Dakota down the road of using the power of state government to control prices in the prescription drug market.

Is The Legislature Really Going To Defer To Canadian Price Controls?

The jist of this bill is to create a pilot program for the State Insurance Commissioner to be put in the position of negotiating with drug makers to lower prices for retired state employees. (If the pilot program “works” it is presumed it would be expanded.

One question that should be raised is: wouldn’t it be better to negotiate a deal with the health insurance company that provides all state employees with health insurance, and create a side-benefit for retirees that way? - sort of our North Dakota’s own version of…