Politics & Power Quote by John Lynch

In one clean move, Lynch recasts state government from a stodgy regulator into something far more familiar to voters: a hard-nosed buyer who hates overpaying. The intent is unmistakably practical. By calling New Hampshire “a big customer,” he frames prescription drug costs as a procurement problem, not a moral crusade or ideological fight over “big pharma.” That matters because it drags the debate out of the culture-war swamp and into the realm of basic fiscal competence: if you have leverage, you use it.

The subtext is sharper. “Just as businesses do” is a deliberate bit of triangulation - a signal to moderates and business-friendly Republicans that this isn’t anti-market politics; it’s market discipline applied by the public sector. He’s borrowing private-sector language to justify public-sector assertiveness, implicitly arguing that refusing to bargain hard is not compassionate, it’s negligent. The line also quietly concedes the existing power imbalance: drug companies set prices in a system that often treats public programs like captive payers. Lynch’s “we should” pushes back against that resignation.

Contextually, this sits squarely in the era when state budgets were getting kneecapped by rising pharmaceutical spending - Medicaid, state employee plans, and retiree benefits all funneling money into the same pricing machinery. Lynch is offering a politician’s version of collective bargaining: aggregate demand, negotiate, and make the industry meet you at the table. It’s incremental, not revolutionary, which is precisely why it’s politically potent.