One of the most basic arguments that Americans have these days is “what the role of government should be” and how that applies to any topic in question. This is not a new argument, in fact it was at the very heart of the founding of our constitutional republic. “What role should the government play in our daily lives? How much power should that government have over the citizens? What is the balance a government must achieve in order to provide security and personal liberty?”, are all questions that the framers debated, wrestled over, and even in some cases dueled over. In that respect, not much has changed. In our modern America we debate issues like “gun control”, “gas company profits”, “funding of Planned Parenthood”, the “cost of healthcare” just to name a few, but at their base, all of these issues and many more that we face-off over still come down to what we believe the role of government should be.
  For those people who hold that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America are divinely inspired documents meant to guide a Godly people to unprecedented prosperity and liberty want a federal government bound by a strict and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. The role of that federal government is very limited and very specific. That federal government is: to provide defense from those who would look to take resources from us by force, do harm to us in order to claim new territory for themselves, or those who pose a threat to our safety and/or “way of life”; to pass and enforce laws so that disputes between citizens may be settled in accordance with our societal values (which should be rooted in a sense of morality and liberty); and most importantly to foster a climate of opportunity and personal liberty which can most often be achieved by staying out of the daily lives of citizens as much as possible.  
  For those people who hold that the U.S. Constitution is an out-dated document with little to no value in our modern world, many want a central government with broad and nearly unlimited powers. Those people believe that only a powerful central government can provide the “help” that it’s citizens need and that it is okay for that central government to use whatever means are necessary to “provide” for those citizens. Those people are very often used by others who see the Constitution as an obstacle and who wish to grow their own individual power by pretending to fight for the cause of the day while really only working to dismantle the constraints on that central government and set precedent for wielding power which that government did not previously have allotted to it. Many who claim the label “communist”, “socialist”, “progressive” or “liberal” often desire the powerful central government with little thought or concern about the damage done to personal liberty.
  Now there are many Americans that fall in different places between the positions I described. This is why you will find some people who will side with the small, limited government philosophy on some issues but then come down on the powerful central government philosophy on other issues. It is in that fertile ground that those who wish to plant the seeds of discontent and division in America work their hardest to weaken the Constitution and the Rule of Law by confusing issues that are a matter of law with emotions, feelings, and “fairness”.  
  A new case in point is the effort to use the Bayh–Dole Act to “reduce to cost” of Xtandi, a prostate cancer drug. Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders along with other members of Congress sent a letter to the National Institute of Health (NIH), asking the agency to employ what is commonly called “march-in rights”. The Bayh–Dole Act is a law dealing with intellectual property arising from federal government-funded research which was passed in 1980 and was intended to establish a single policy for all government agencies to follow when dealing with patent rights when government funding was involved. (Before that each agency had it’s own set of policies and procedures.) One of the most contentious provisions of Bayh-Dole is the government’s “march-in” right which plainly put allows the funding agency (whatever government agency paid the grant for the research), on its own or at the request of a third party, to ignore the exclusivity of a patent awarded under the act and grant additional licenses to other “reasonable applicants.” This “right” is strictly limited and can only be exercised if the funding agency determines, after an investigation, that one of four criteria is met. The most important of the criteria, and the one most relevant to the argument being used is “a failure by the contractor to take "effective steps to achieve practical application of the subject invention” or a failure to satisfy “health and safety needs” of consumers.“
  Xtandi’s patent is held by a Japanese company which has subsidiaries and partners here in the United States. The complaint is that Xtandi costs four times more in the U.S. than in other developed countries. (Which is not an uncommon practice even for American drug companies.) Enter the calls of unfairness. Here Senator Sanders and others start chipping away again at Rule of Law in the name of "compassion”.
   The Constitution does give Congress the power to grant patents under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, so the congress was within it’s authority to pass Bayh-Dole. Xtandi was developed through research at the University of California, Los Angeles, with taxpayer-funded research grants so it would fall under the Bayh-Dole Act. But does a high price constitute “a failure to satisfy "health and safety needs” of consumers.“? Not according to the NIH in it’s previous decisions when asked to invoke the "march-in” right. (In the Case of NORVIR a prescription drug used to treat AIDS, Abbott Labs, who held the patent, raised the price of Norvir 400% for U.S. customers, but not for consumers in any other country. The NIH denied the petition finding no grounds to exercise its “march-in” rights citing 1.) The availability of Norvir to patients with AIDS 2.) That there was no evidence that health and safety needs were not adequately met by Abbott and 3.) That the NIH should not address the issue of drug pricing, only Congress. Then again  in the Case of Xalatan, a glaucoma drug held by Pfizer, The NIH said that “the extraordinary remedy of “march-in” was not an appropriate means for controlling prices.) In fact, in the 35 years since the implementation of Bayh-Dole the NIH has never invoked the “march-in” right for ANY reason, despite multiple requests by third parties to do so.
  Are you beginning to connect the dots yet? Why would Bernie Sanders or any other member of Congress ask the NIH to intervene over the price of a drug when the NIH has been so clear in the past on that point? The “communist”, “socialists” and “progressives” all play the long-game of incrementalism. They know that the people at the NIH change over time and that the new faces may not hold the same views as their predecessors. In the effort to once again increase the power of the central government they will take-up to cause of “helping the people” against (in this case) the evil drug company. In an effort to gain public support they will even lie as Sanders and company have done in a public statement where they claimed that “Under current law, NIH can take this step if federal funds supported a drug’s development and the company is selling it at an unreasonably high price.” A falsehood they know most Americans won’t know is a lie and even fewer will research to find-out. This group of politicians are counting on an uninformed, emotional response. One they are likely to get from those who normally support them.
  Make no mistake here friends. No matter where Sanders and company say they are drawing the line, the drug company is not the enemy they are fighting. It is capitalism that is the target. Bernie is a well-known avowed socialist and many of those whom he allies himself with may not be “out of the closet” but they do share the same powerful central government ideology which can not abide capitalism or personal liberty. The patent is a powerful tool of capitalism. It is what guarantees that those who create or invent will receive the fruits of their labors. The patent is more than just a tool of capitalism though, it is a driving force for innovation and breakthroughs that propel a nation forward and improves the quality of life for all. I would not expect a socialist to understand this simple fact, if they did then they wouldn’t be a socialist anymore, but I do hope that most American’s will understand this as truth.
  Bernie Sanders and his co-horts will tell you that this is for the good of the American’s in need of this medicine who cannot afford it (I guess Obamacare must not be working like they promised). He will tell you that the government already has this power and needs to use it for the “good of the people”. He will even tell you that this is only a one-time deal directed at the pharmaceutical industry. Knowing that what he is suggesting is a complete re-interpretation of the law, that the Bayh-Doyle Act was adopted to assist in the manufacturing of products to meet need during health or other public emergencies. And he will do all of this to play on the natural desire most Americans have to help one another while setting the precedent of “march-in”. And we all know that once that precedent is set it will be used again and it will be used in other industries as the central government (and those who run it) sees fit.
  The cost of drug development is ridiculously high. The patent protection is often the only guarantee that those who invested in bringing a new treatment to market will see any reward. This is not a justification to unfairly price a drug in different markets and something should be done but not “march-in”. Should a company be charging one group of people so much more than another group is a completely different question than if patent protection should be stripped away. A different solution, one with far less ramification on capitalism and personal liberty, can be found and should be implemented. Sanders isn’t looking out for the “little guy” here, he’s looking to move us yet one more step away from our Republic. 

       When you make a promise, you’re supposed to keep it. There may occasionally be times when circumstances arise that make it impossible for you to keep a promise but you should still stand ready to make good, as best you can, on that promise. It is a matter of honor and a testament to character that you follow through with your word and honor your commitments. This is something that you should have learned as a child. Sadly, it seems, that this is a lesson that many of our elected officials and many others in our governmental bureaucracies have either forgotten or never learned in the first place.  
  There are many bureaucracies that our government has established that fall short of serving the people of our nation. In fact some like the IRS, the EPA or the BLM seem to have forgotten altogether that they are supposed to serve the people, not act as a means for our central government to grab power not authorized by the Constitution. Like many things our government has done they were created with the “best of intentions” but as their “extra-constitutional” powers grow our personal liberty disappears. One of our bureaucracies, the Department of Veterans Affairs, while not growing it’s power is committing an atrocity just as unforgivable; failing to keep the promise made to the many American citizens who answered the call to serve in our military during times of war or “police actions”.  
  This is not the first time the VA has been called out for their failures to serve the brave men and women who are today American Combat Veterans. Just last September the outrage of 307,000 veterans having died while waiting for the Department of Veterans Affairs to process their healthcare applications, 867,000 veterans having their healthcare applications listed as pending, and poor data management prompted VA employees to arbitrarily delete 10,000 records from the database after marking them as complete, even if they were still unfinished and in need of resolution, was made public. The response to this historic debacle was to replace the head of the VA and then, under duress, implement a free choice program which would allow veterans to seek out and receive private medical care if “the VA is unable to provide the care needed within a month of being requested, or if there is not a VA facility reasonably close to their homes.”  
  This program, called The Choice Card program, was one of the common sense solutions offered up to solve the problem of the veteran backlog waiting on much needed treatment. It was actually passed by congress in 2014 when word was first getting out about the backlog, before the reports of exactly how bad things had gotten at the VA were made public. And now the program is in danger of being ended. Not because of expenses or inefficiency but because the VA hasn’t been paying the non-VA doctors and hospitals who have rendered service to the veterans who could not get care at the VA.
  It’s not hard to understand why non-VA doctors and hospitals might want to shy away from taking Choice Card patients if they are not going to get paid. So it’s also not surprising that there is a growing number of non-VA doctors who are no longer taking Choice Card cases. The problem is that once again our veterans are not getting the healthcare they need. The central government, through the VA, has an obligation to pay these health care providers per the program’s creation and by not doing so they are once again failing to keep the promise to take care of our vets.  But why they are choosing to not pay the Choice Card invoices is mind-blowing.
  First of all, the American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union which represents most of the VA’s workers was opposed to the program from the beginning. Why you might ask, well why do labor unions ever oppose anything… it will cost them money. In this case, the AFGE thought the move to have non-VA workers treating veterans would reduce the growth of their membership rolls. Without the Choice Card program the VA would have had no choice but to add more employees which would in turn would mean more membership thereby increasing the membership dues. So as far as the AFGE is concerned, the veterans be damned they want money and could not care less if anyone is getting the care they need.
  Second, the VA wanted you, me, and more important to them congress to believe that it was in fact the Choice Card program that was the cause of the VA’s image issues and not the wait-time scandal. Yes, that’s right folks, they refused to pay the service providers and then acted like the program was failing due to the service providers taking steps to get paid. Both the AFGE and the VA tried using the failure to process payments to justify ending the program. The AFGE leadership told members to contact and demand Congress end veterans using private healthcare providers, saying that Choice Card “has already led to veterans being hounded by bill collectors” and “VA staff being forced to spend hours on the phone with insurance companies and for-profit providers.” And the VA Under Secretary For Health, David Shulkin said in a March 10th Senate hearing, “The problem, our reputation has been hurt incredibly, and you’re hearing it from the veterans, because the Choice program hasn’t worked.“
  By March 14 the VA decided to come clean, my guess is that someone was going to blow the whistle on them, and released a new statement. The “VA acknowledges that delayed payments and inappropriately billed claims are unacceptable and have caused stress for veterans and providers alike, there should be no bureaucratic burden that stands in the way of veterans getting care.” Now, once again, we are offered empty-sounding apologies and we are told that they, the VA, are working to fix the problems so that the veterans will receive the care they need. Many vets, however, feel that this has happened by design in an attempt to force veterans back to the VA in order to justify the existence of VA. Our veterans have already paid the price. Promises were made and should be kept. If our federal government can find billions of dollars to help illegal invaders and foreign governments that hate America, then there are no excuses for not taking care of those to whom we owe so much.  And since when is a government employee’s job more important than the lives of the veterans they are supposed to be serving?