Only 37% of eligible Hawaiians have enrolled in state's price contolled Rx scheme

When will state politicians give up trying to use government power to reduce Rx prices? The latest fiasco comes from Hawaii, where the Honolulu Advertiser reports that only 112,000 of an estimated eligible 300,000 middle-income Hawaiians have enrolled in Hawaii Rx Plus.  Hawaii Rx Plus is supposed to force drugmakers to give residents with incomes above the Medicaid cut off the same discounts as the state's Medicaid program gets.  Hawaiians with incomes up to three and a half times the Federal Poverty Level are eligible.  Apparently, like in Illinios and many other states, residents have found more satisfactory ways to get their meds.

Contrary to the bizarre notion that the state is the best bulk buyer of prescription drugs (a notion that is unique to health care - we'd never tolerate it for our houses, cars, clothing, or food), by roping ever more people, at higher incomes, into these unsuccessful price-control schemes, states make it more likely that both list prices and Medicaid prices for meds will go up.  The bigger the government program, the more likely the drug companies are to fight back with higher prices - a phenomenon examined ten years ago by Fiona Scott-Morton in the scholarly literature.