Kamala Harris Brags She Will Forcibly Seize Patents from Drug Companies That Don't Comply with Her Policies
A common refrain heard from President Donald Trump’s political opponents is that he is some sort of authoritarian tyrant who ignores the will of Congress and the American people and acts unilaterally to enact his agenda.
Quite ironically, however, some of the president’s staunchest critics who tout that very line have themselves repeatedly shown a willingness, perhaps even a desire, to act in an openly authoritarian manner if they were to be elected president.
Case in point is Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a mid-tier 2020 candidate who has often discussed what sort of action she wouldn’t hesitate to take if she were in office.
The latest example: Her assertion that she’d seize control of drug patents if pharmaceutical companies didn’t abide by her demands in terms of pricing.
The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra posted a video clip of Harris speaking about prescription drug prices at a campaign event in Iowa on Friday during which she announced that she would “snatch their patent” from drug companies if they didn’t cede to her socialistic plan to control drug costs.
“So my plan, as a candidate for president, on these drug prices is as follows: We are gonna set drug prices to fair market … but essentially what we’re gonna do is set drug prices so that American consumers are charged a price for drugs that is the average price that’s being charged around the globe,” Harris said. “And there’s a huge difference, insulin being an example.”
To be sure, prescription drug prices for American consumers are, in some cases, obscenely high and well above the global average, but government-set pricing is not the best method to address that very real and bipartisan problem. More on that later.
Harris continued, “The other thing is this: If people don’t wanna cooperate with that, I’m also gonna do the next thing, which is this — a lot of drugs, prescription medication, was born out of federal funding for the research and development of that drug. Your taxpayer dollars.
“So for any drug, where they fail to play by our rules, and if that drug came about because of federal funding for what’s called ‘R&D,’ research and development, I will snatch their patent. So, that we will take over.”
A dubious member of the crowd reportedly asked, “Can we do that?” Harris emphatically replied, “Yes, we can do that! Yes, yes, we can do that. It’s a question of do you have the will to do it. I have the will to do it.”
Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris on if drug companies do not comply with her mandatory set drug prices: “I will snatch their patent so that we will take over”
Audience asks: “can we do that?”
“Yes, we can do that! Yes, we can do that! ... I have the will to do it”
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Harris just revealed her own authoritarian desires by essentially bragging that she would be more than willing — indeed, even eager — to unilaterally “snatch” away the private property of a pharmaceutical company if it didn’t do exactly as her administration mandated, a truly frightening and dystopian concern, and one that is too often shared by other candidates on the left who also aspire to exert control over this country.
This is the stuff of communistic tyranny — a centralized government seizing property from private companies and taking over that industry, in this case, prescription drug production and sales — and is also supreme hypocrisy coming from Harris in light of her constant critique that Trump is an authoritarian ruler.
As author and commentator Michael Malice, who knows some things about communism, noted of Harris in a tweet in June, which he reposted in response to Saavedra’s tweet: “Kamala: ‘Trump is an authoritarian strongman. Also, as president, I will pass 50 laws by decree on day one.'”
Setting aside her socialist property-grab desires, TheBlaze noted that her plan for the government to set drug prices would likely have dire consequences in the long run, as numerous economic studies have shown that government pricing of any commodity, drugs included, tends to limit access and supply and to create shortages, while at the same time stifling further research and development of current and future drugs.
A better plan to help bring down the insanely high prices American consumers pay for drugs is to let the free market — rather than the government — dictate pricing, allowing the cheaper-priced drugs from around the globe to be imported and sold as such in America, which would provide increased access for those who can’t afford the more expensive drugs and force American companies to lower prices by virtue of global competition.
Unfortunately, allowing capitalism and market competition to flourish is not a concept in vogue on the left, as Harris and her fellow comrades running for office would rather seize and centralize as much power and control as possible and do the very things they so hypocritically accuse the current president of doing.
