Big Pharma is encouraging employer drug programs:

Another motive for the business world could be to stave off a greater government involvement in health insurance, now that most presidential candidates and other politicians are promoting health care reform.

Big drug makers like Pfizer and Merck, which could benefit politically and financially from the employer drug programs, are also supporting the effort.

Richard T. Clark, the chief executive of Merck, made the political connection in a recent trade journal article. “If we all don’t do a better job, the private employer-based market will continue to weaken and the country will move forward toward rationing of care and greater government control, with greater pressure for a single-payer model with price controls,” Mr. Clark wrote in the American Journal of Managed Care.