Another Example of Washington Corruption

Politicians almost always engage in sleazy behavior, but it is especially reprehensible when big business and big government conspire to screw ordinary people. John Stossel's Townhall.com column explains how pharmaceutical companies have made a deal with the devil. The politicians sooner or later (probably sooner) will stab the companies in the back. In the meantime, though, there is an insider deal to push through government-run health care (or lack thereof):

Although President Obama and big-government activists demonize health-insurance companies, the companies "are still mostly on board with the president's effort to overhaul the U.S. health-care system," the Wall Street Journal reports; and ... Although the activists criticize Big Pharma, "The drug industry has already contributed millions of dollars to advertising campaigns for the health care overhaul through the advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA. It has spent about $1 million on similar advertisements under its own name," the Times reports. Big Pharma and Big Insurance want Obama-style health-care reform? ...It illustrates economist Steven Horwitz's First Law of Political Economy: "No one hates capitalism more than capitalists." In this case, big business wants to shape -- and profit from -- what inevitably will be an interventionist health-care reform. Can you think of the last time a major business supported a truly free market in anything?