Yesterday I noted that two bills (A.10877 and A.7468) working their way through the New York Assembly are feel-good pieces of legislation that could pose mischief for the market-based advancement of science.

If you liked those, you'll love another one, A.11187 (summary and text).

Among its provisions:

• Prohibit (with some exceptions) physicians and others from receiving more than $50 a year from drug manufacturers.
• Require physicians to disclose any payments they receive from drug companies for giving talks at professional meetings.
• Require PBMs to tell their customers (health insurance plans) the financial arrangements they have with drug companies.
• Requires PBMs to tell patients and doctors when they switch patients to a drug other than the one prescribed by the doctor.

The Business Council of New York says that the bill "would have a significant, adverse impact on the ability of these manufacturers to market their goods and services, as well as on clinical research in New York." For one thing, it effectively establishes one particular way of paying participants for their help with research trials, which could reduce the number of such projects.

There's a lot of language in the bill that attempts to sell its PBM provisions as being in the great interest of health plans, and eventually patients. But it's all so much speculation, along the lines of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" What's a fair price? Whatever two parties agree to.

To borrow from the academic discourse of centuries ago, it also reminds me of the followers of the astronomer Ptolemy as they added rule after rule and hypothesis after hypothesis in an attempt to prop up a failing system.

In this case, each political distortion of health care causes outrage, which is addressed by yet more distortions.