Ethics and principles are pesky things.  They never go away, and can rear up and bite you when you least expect it.

Such should be the case for Mike Bettiga, former President of the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board who has been asked by Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights to testify at a hearing on Tuesday, December 6 on the Express Scripts/Medco Merger.

Mr. Bettiga, a pharmacist by trade, is now Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Shopko Stores, a retail chain headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Shopko has 135 stores in thirteen northern tier states and California, and a robust retail pharmacy division.

Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions are two of the country’s largest pharmacy benefit managers – companies that administer prescription drugs benefits for insurers, large employers, government agencies and unions.  The two recently proposed a merger which is currently under review by our government.  Proponents claim the merger would provide economies of scale, which, in turn, would lower consumer costs.

Opponents, which include some drug store chains, have used trendy Occupy Wall Street-lite catch phrases such as “windfall profits,” “corporate control,” and the dreaded “wasteful mail order spending problem” to bolster their anti-merger case.

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The federal government, as part of Obamacare implementation, is trying to figure out how to get its hands on everyone’s healthcare records.

It may seem like a small boat in the ocean of bureaucratic incursion that is Obamacare, but given the construction of the new law and the priority its authors and supporters place on “bending the cost curve,” allowing government access to American’s most personal records is a critical step in its effort to control healthcare costs at the expense of care.

The path to achieving this is to use treatment outcomes and other health data as instruments of rationing and denial of care through the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research — created by President Obama — and based on European rationing boards.

There are several ways for the government to access our health records, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is already contemplating options.  One would be for the federal government to collect them directly. Another is mandating that the states, as part of Obamacare’s new healthcare exchanges, collect the information and pass it along to the federal government.  A third would be to force private insurance companies to make the data available to the feds.

Notwithstanding any discussion of the government’s right to our private records, none of these are good ideas but not as bad as another option that some have floated; let a private contractor bid on the project to collect and maintain the information on behalf of the government.

Allowing a private company to access everyone’s healthcare records is an open invitation to disaster and a gross invasion of personal privacy.  And more so as about the only company that could handle the job with any degree of competency appears to be Google.

Google’s business model is tracking and collecting preferred sites and other information from its users. Everything from favorite restaurants to marital status is fair game for the Internet behemoth, which uses sophisticated algorithms to identify who accesses the web in a given home — capturing birthdates, age, gender, imputed income and other information useful to determining what products and services might be of interest to a person when they go online.

Google collects and utilizes this information whether it has permission from the user or not, which is where the issue of private healthcare records comes into play.

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In the months between George W. Bush’s first Inauguration in January of 2001 and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Republicans in both Houses of Congress were busily patting themselves on the back for retaining control of Capitol Hill and gaining the White House.

The conservative public policy community and its health care scholars were delighted that after years of economic and practical analysis, market-based, patient-centered reforms that expand choice, increase access to care and stabilize costs would be achieved.

After 9/11, our leaders focused on keeping our nation safe – and rightfully so.   The domestic policy agenda was largely ignored and little attention paid to passing meaningful health care reform.  When Democrats re-captured majorities in the House and Senate in 2006, contributing to their success was anger and disappointment by voters who felt the GOP squandered its chance to pass health care and entitlement reform.

Democrats, however, did not make the same mistake.

From the moment Barack Obama became president, they pushed for big government health care and passed ObamaCare over the objections of the American public.  Many aspects of ObamaCare were presented dishonestly, with several line items removed after proponents claimed they weren’t there in the first place.

“Here,” said ObamaCare supporters, “is your long awaited health care reform.”

ObamaCare is not health care reform.  It is a massive tax increase of at least $500B to be paid by Americans over the next ten years. It is expected to increase federal spending by one trillion dollars in its first decade and nearly three trillion when fully implemented – adding to America’s already mind-numbing debt.  It adds a myriad of regulation and new bureaucracies to an already bloated system that will result in yet another unsustainable government entitlement program for taxpayers while limiting health care choices for patients at a personal, private and painful level.

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“In recent injury/product liability news, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit against the FDA alleging it failed to regulate toxic substances in certain consumer products.”

Thus began the latest manufactured consumer crisis illustrating the powerful union between radical environmentalists and the trial bar.   Add a sympathetic Congressman and a manipulative triad is born.

Product liability wrangling follows a clear path – first the setup, then vague accusations of the product’s damaging properties followed by class action cash flow.

In just one sentence, the above blog comment posted by Texas personal injury law firm captures the essence of how product liability wrangling starts – and, ultimately, why.

Despite a forty-year record of reducing germs, slowing their transfer and being deemed safe by the FDA and EPA, the latest victim of the NRDC and friends are antimicrobial products – particularly those with ingredients Triclocarban and Triclosan.

These synthetic antimicrobial agents kill or retard the growth of fungus, mildew and bacteria in commercial and consumer products including hand soap, toothpaste, cosmetics, restaurant equipment, air conditioning coils, surgical scrubs and the Swiss Army Knife.

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When First Lady Michelle Obama held a press conference last January to announce a collaboration between Walmart’s new “Nutritional Charter” and her “Let’s Move” Campaign, she was heralding more than just an alliance with the world’s largest retailer and grocer.

Walmart’s Nutritional Charter pledges to reduce sodium, sugar and trans fats in products, create “healthier product” labels, and drop prices on healthier foods, fruits and vegetables –even though lower costs in the grocery department are likely to be balanced with increases elsewhere.

Although Walmart and conservatives used share principles and be friends, this event publicly confirmed the company’s leftward shift.

After experiencing shakedowns by liberal activists, Walmart believed concessions might silence the din.  But instead of a few capitulations, the left now controls Walmart, leaving conservative support in its battles – including unionization – in shards on the floor.

Walmart’s lurch left was an orchestrated, strategic change led to a great extent by the man standing on the dais with Michelle Obama – long time Democrat strategist and liberal environmental operative Leslie Dach.

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Recent student protests against tuition increases in the U.K. and California demonstrate that such upticks invoke strong reactions in student communities and can quickly spiral out of control.

For two years President Obama and Congressional Democrats have pushed federal policies that separate low-income and minority students from quality education.  It is only a matter of time before the breadth of these cuts becomes part of the national dialogue and minority students notice — and erupt.

In March 2009, the President terminated the Opportunity Scholarship Program – school vouchers providing educational lifelines for 3,700 African-American students in the nation’s capital.

In five years and half the per-pupil cost of DC’s abysmal public system, voucher students increased reading scores by 19% and high school graduation rates 12%.  Every year saw four times more applicants than slots.

Current students are safe until graduation, but future opportunity was stolen from DC’s at-risk youth when the President and Congress – led by the Congressional Black Caucus – canceled the program and voted down Republican amendments to extend it.

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The first plastic was created in 1855 by British metallurgist Alexander Parkes.   As nobody knew quite what to do with it, plastic remained obscure until the 1890’s when another Brit developed polymers called “silicones.”

By 1910, plastic was a fully synthetic compound revolutionizing industry, consumer products and military supply.  It is still the world’s most utilized material.

When plastic became readily available in 1910, life expectancy in the U.S. was 50.  Today it is nearly 79 and there are about 80,000 American over 100 years old.  Clearly, plastic is not a serious health concern.

Nevertheless, the Obama Administration has just unleashed yet another attack on plastics, using an end-run by bureaucratic fiat, hoping we won’t notice.

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is a Carter-era law governing the Environmental Protection Agency’s management of chemicals through collecting data and designing regulatory protections.  Although its original intent was to address toxic PCBs, bureaucrats found other chemicals needing management once that crisis passed.

Some of the agency’s regulations have been good, such as rulemaking on lead paint and asbestos abatement.  But now EPA is abrogating the process by focusing on silicone.

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Sometimes being in the baby poo business means you just can’t win.

If your disposable diapers take too much room in landfills, environmentalists boycott you.  If you update old diapers, a handful of parents complain about the new.  If a baby gets a diaper rash, trial lawyers target you.

Then they all come together in a perfect storm of consumer indignation and sue the disposable pants off you.

Parents have loved disposables since 1961, and market competition kept improvements like self-sticking tape, elastic waistbands, skin protectants and anti-microbial agents coming regularly.  New fibers made diapers lighter, more absorbent and landfill-friendlier.  Potty training?  Disposable training pants.

As parents (figuratively) rejoiced in their disposables, they held no interest for trial lawyers — until Pampers introduced new “Dry Max” Cruisers.

Goods manufacturers anticipate complaints after any product change or improvement.  When Pampers introduced new Cruisers in Fall 2008 with no accompanying marketing campaign, complaint levels remained static.  But after converting its packaging and announcing the change in late 2009, objections flew immediately.

In late November, Twitter and Facebook pages were created by a mom complaining the new diapers weren’t as good as the old, and Pampers should have instituted a more vigorous campaign to announce the change.  The “Bring back the old Cruisers” campaign was born.

The mom complained in the same vein until February 9, 2010 when she posted, “do you think pampers (sic) violated consumer rights when they switched diapers without fair advertising or marketing?  Is (Pampers) guilty of this?”

Then on April 7, the first diaper rash reference magically appeared.  Both sites eventually lurched into an aggressive discussion of serious rashes allegedly caused by the new Dry Max Cruisers.  Facebook members were advised “not to talk about how much we like other Pampers products” and admonished to only upload photos through site administrators.

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Five years ago when Congress was considering a requirement that nasal decongestants be placed behind the counter to combat their use in methamphetamine production, I was one of many policy analysts who argued against this restriction.

I believed it would do little to curb meth use, make the purchase of cold products by law-abiding citizens time consuming and inconvenient, and shift methamphetamine production to Mexican drug cartels.

Since the bill passed, seizures of domestic labs dropped while meth use rose, and consumers now wait behind prescription customers just to buy cold pills. Mexican drug cartels increased in power and violence while becoming the primary supplier of methamphetamine to the U.S.

Unfortunately, I was correct on all counts.  Yet here we go again.

Government is limited in its ability to fight the war on drugs, leading bureaucrats to pick low hanging fruit.  To fight abuse of marijuana, prescription drugs, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and over-the-counter drugs, it must find producers, identify distributors and catch users – all of whom operate in the shadows.

Cough medicine on the other hand, is easy.  There it is, in plain sight, on store shelves.

In an effort to pass a ridiculous regulation and then declare a victory in the drug war, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a rule that would require a physician’s prescription for your favorite off-the-shelf cough medicine.

Yes, I know; I can’t believe it either.

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As pre-November primaries come to an end, inquiring political minds will be asking Americans, “What is the singularly most important issue that will drive you to vote this year?”

Almost certainly, the answer will be “jobs.”

Republican proposals to reduce taxes, regulation and government to stimulate growth are right on the money.  But they still won’t overcome one of the GOP’s most serious problems – its post-Reagan divorce from “the working man.”

In April, a bi-partisan poll was released by the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) measuring support by GOP and Tea Party voters for American manufacturing as an agent of job growth.  The results will come as a surprise to no one – except, perhaps, elected Republicans.

Millions of Americans associated with manufacturing have long felt ignored by the Republican Party for many reasons — primarily Democrats’ strong union ties.  But that paradigm could shift in 2010 based on current political trends.

Of the 37 Governors’ mansions currently in play, nineteen are held by Democrats and 18 by Republicans.  Four states – Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan – are big losers in the manufacturing employment race to the bottom and are expected to be swing or trending states in the 2012 Presidential contest.

Since 2000, Michigan lost 434,000 manufacturing jobs; Ohio, 392,000; and 291,000 in Pennsylvania.  Massachusetts, America’s original factory state, shed 150,000.

In these key states the current governor is a Democrat, yet the nation’s top political prognosticators are listing them as “toss up” or “leaning Republican.” Republicans could pick up four to seven governorships overall.

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California is broke.  Its nearly bankrupt status leaves residents with few financial resources to deal with imaginary threats to health and safety.

Yet in the face of an economic meltdown, the state still allows special interests to dictate high cost administrative procedures.

The reasons California is suffering severe economic woes is clear:  It has the highest sales tax in the country and the 6^th largest overall tax burden.  As its voluminous environmental restrictions are based on political interests rather than sound science, they significantly hamper the ability of California’s entrepreneurs to conduct business profitably.

According to a recent California Legislative report, regulation costs Golden State businesses approximately $493B in lost output and 3.8M jobs – resulting in a tax revenue loss of $16M.

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The United States Air Force was handed good news on March 23^rd when the World Trade Organization made its final ruling on a complaint brought by the United States Government.  It found that $178B in launch aid given to France-based EADS/Airbus for its family of jetliners was improper and illegal.

Further, the WTO determined that $5B given specifically to provide EADS with an unfair advantage over America’s Boeing to build new U.S. aerial refueling tankers broke trade laws – and the spirit of legal and fair international competition.

That the subsidies were illegal or that EADS/Airbus cheats to win contracts comes as no surprise to trade watchers.  The ruling that they broke laws and put an American company at an unfair disadvantage should remove any obstacles for the Pentagon to move forward immediately with a contract for these much-needed flying gas stations.

Emphasis, “should.”

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