What is the job of the Federal Trade Commission? Would you believe it if someone told you that one of their jobs was to advocate for competition before the courts and other government entities.

It makes sense that someone ought to stand up for the fundamentals of free enterprise and free markets, yet the FTC? Why, as it appears to me that all they do is attack businesses to gain fees and fines to supplement their yearly budgets.

Recently the FTC has put into an official US Congressional report and budget request that this advocating endeavor at the FTC and pro-competition stance was among other reasons a point in favor of an increased 2007 FY budget for the agency. The Federal Trade Commission stated in the official report;

Advocating for Competition before the Courts and Other Government Entities.

In FY 2005, the FTC sent comments to the governors of California, North Carolina, and North Dakota urging them to veto bills that likely would restrict competition among pharmaceutical companies in ways that could harm consumers. The bills included proposals:

(1) to require Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to disclose certain information to purchasers of their services, prescribers, or consumers;

(2) to restrict a PBM's ability to set up low-cost pharmacy networks; or

(3) to prohibit the use of certain cost-reducing drug substitutions.

The FTC's PBM efforts have proved successful. Governor Schwarzenegger cited the FTC' comment on the potential harmful effects of the California bill when he vetoed it. While the North Dakota bill passed, it did not contain the provisions to which the FTC objected. In September 2005, the FTC issued a report entitled "Pharmacy Benefit Managers: Ownership of Mail-Order Pharmacies." The report, in response to a Congressional request in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of2003, examined whether private sector entities that offer prescription drug coverage pay more for such drugs when using a mail-order pharmacy owned by a PBM, as opposed to using a mail-order or retail pharmacy that the PBM does not own. The report concluded that the prescription drug plan sponsors generally paid lower prices for drugs purchased through PBM'owned mail-order pharmacies.

Now maybe you are buying into this line of reasoning by the FTC, although I cannot, as any thing that is done in the Pharmacuetical Industry in Washington DC is done on behalf of lobbyists for the industry and not the consumer or competitive market place unless it serves that industry and the Big Pharma. That is my opinion (this whole article is opinion CYA), what do you think of the FTC and there ploys to increase their budget with our tax dollars. Let me know if you are ready to scream yet. Consider all this in 2006.