Remember that Nails song...

..."Head Like a Hole"?

Specifically, as I read this excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed, I thought of the lines, "Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve."

Big Pharma bowed down to the government, hoping that by playing nice with the bullies, they would get huge profits out of a sweeping healthcare bill that would force more Americans to carry insurance, thus turning more Americans into consumers of medications. Now that ObamaCare is in a shambles, Democrats look likely to turn to the strategy of passing multiple smaller, less controversial bills so they can still say they "did something" about health care.

So now, Big Pharma might just get what it deserves for having worked with Congress instead of proudly standing against it...because you know what's less controversial than a giant bill that involves lots of new taxes and requirements that affect Everyman? Smaller proposals like putting price controls on Medicare-purchased drugs, allowing reimportation of prescription drugs from countries whose governments control drug prices, and cutting into drug companies' patent exclusivity on biologics.

The pharmaceutical industry can't protest that such measures would be a violation of their rights to charge what they please for their medicines without direct intervention from the American government or indirect intervention from a foreign one (which is what reimportation is). They gave up any pretense of caring about rights when they tried to help Congress hog-tie insurance companies to get a share of the loot.

As the author of the op-ed says, "There's a lesson here for corporate America. Try standing up for the free markets and limited government that have always been the foundation of U.S. business."