No pill, no subsidy

Here's an idea. Pharmacy students will tell you that it's pretty expensive to go to pharmacy school. But the students only pay a part of it; society picks up the rest of the tab because we need pharmacists to count the pills, agitate the bromides, emulsify the elixers, and do whatever else pharmacists do.

Presently, there are some pharmacists who are agititing for a "conscience clause," that would permit them to refrain from dispensing prescriptions to which they have moral objection. The bill presently in the hopper - at least in the Minnesota House - is not limited to any one type of drug or device, but it is pretty clear that birth control pills and the "morning after pill" are the principal objects. Spot even wrote a little doggerel about it in his last post.

Here's what we do: ask entering pharmacy students if there are classes of drugs, like birth control, that the students wouldn't dispense. If they don't sign up to be a full-service provider, the state would not subsidize their pharmacy school education.

We could probably raise some money for a new stadium at the U this way!

To deal with pharmacists who "develop a conscience" after graduation, we could have a claw-back system for the subsidy.

This could work, people.