The Minister of Healthcare of Ukraine Uliana Suprun proposes making sales of certain medications without a doctor’s prescription a criminal offense. The Libertarian Party of Ukraine condemns such an initiative and considers it a crime against freedom.
We articulate the inalienable human right to health as the prohibition to deprive persons of health against their own will or make them risk their health. Hence the person’s health is his or her own responsibility and nobody can enforce or prohibit him or her usage of certain medications. Any restrictions, regulations, or control from the government in such affairs contradicts to the new edition of the Constitution of Ukraine we suggest.
We also believe that giving doctors an exclusive right to prescribe certain kinds of medications artificially monopolizes access to this category of products and creates a conflict of interest. Doctors will be incentivized to prescribe expensive medications as they do not bear their costs, but could obtain benefits from the pharmaceutical companies, which will have a nonmarket competitive advantage from colliding with doctors. The libertarians consistently advocate the free and fair competition and are against artificial barriers and monopolies.