Free Prescriptions for Unemployed

I am supposed to be a free-market, conservative, capitalist, health-policy analyst, but seem to have spent a lot of my recent time attacking some of the antics of private-sector interests who have given up a lot of ground on the current health-reform "debate". (That is, if we can really dignify it as a "debate.")

So, I suppose I'd better write something positive about "corporate health care" before folks start thinking I'm an MSNBC reporter in camouflage. I was impressed to see news from Pfizer that the firm will give its medicines for free to anyone unemployed during 2009 and had been using Pfizer meds for at least three months before losing his job.
Sure, the press release was a little gushy, but the program is straight-forward enough: Just fill in a one-page application (on the honor system, apparently) and you get free meds for a year. Why Pfizer issued the press release before the program is actually launched on June 1, I cannot say, but this sounds like the real deal.

So, unemployed people will get their meds for free for a year (or until they get new jobs). That's great, but there are a few things this program will not do, for which I'm sure it will draw criticism:

• It will not employ even one more government bureaucrat to administer another welfare program.
• It will not give the government more control over which medicines doctors prescribe, in the name of "cost-containment."
• It will not add one cent to the unfunded liabilities of the welfare-state programs that will burden our descendants with a massive tax load.

So, no, Pfizer's new program to expand access to medicines does not achieve all the goals of "universal" health care, but it's a start!