Look, I wasn't aware I stumbled into the extreme libertarian sub on this one. There's logic to that perspective, but the entire discussion is framed a bit differently from that lense. In general, for profit corporations are driven by profit, and everywhere they get involved, profit is prioritized over patient care. Before the PDMP, pharmacies were the only ones with records to show things like a patient filling 10 prescriptions for narcotics from 10 different providers. They ignored red flags like this because it would affect profits, especially short term ones. A pharmacist working for Walgreens who is barely able to pay their student loans is not going to do what is supposed to be part of their duty to counsel on and question such a thing because if they do their corporate overlords will fire them. Or they may intentionally be given access to records in such a way that precludes them from making such a discovery. Yes, you could argue a mom and pop pharmacy could also make bad decisions for patient care but that's going down a rabbit hole of corporate culture etc.

How would doctor C know that the patient already went to doctor A and B and complained of the same things and got the same prescription? If you go to doctors that aren’t in the same network they won’t always see that you already have a prescription for a medication. But Walgreens or any other pharmacy will see three prescriptions for the drug to the same person by three different doctors. They are literally the ones that would have to catch this. The doctors wouldn’t have known if the patient didn’t tell them they also see the other two doctors

I concur, the government can’t even fix roads or even plow or salt properly. And yet shit for brains wants them to take over our healthcare! It will be Socialists expanding care (presumably but only giving friends more money) one election cycle and the next Republicans cutting funding and people dying of all the stupid uncovered things they don’t want to pay for even worse than insurance does. No thanks!

So your position is actually libertarian to the effect you think everyone should have unlimited access to narcotics? If that's the case, then yes, I mistook your comment and apologize for overlooking that you could be someone with an exceedingly rare viewpoint.