I don’t know what to believe when listening to the many candidates running for president, but each of them seems to want to appeal to senior citizens by means of fixing their Medicare. As the lady in the nursing home in Iowa said to Kamala Harris, “Don’t mess with our Medicare.” She didn’t mean that Medicare was perfect, but she knew she could rely on it as-is.

One of the ideas is government rate fixing. Sometimes this is called price controls, but no matter what title it is given, it is a very bad idea and wherever it has been tried it always makes the situation worse. Even if it sounds good on the surface, price controls lead to shortages in the market and frequently limits access. Wherever price controls have been tried, it always leads to shortages. Medicare patients live in fear of not being able to access their life-saving drugs.

Additionally, countries that have implemented price controls have virtually ceased to do research and development. The U.S. leads all nations in biopharmaceutical research and development, producing more than half the world’s drugs. Countries that have set price controls produce just a tiny percentage.

We need to contact our congressmen and let them know that government rate fixing will lead to bigger problems for Medicare patients.