In August, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Mark Cuban announced a joint campaign to take down “Big Medicine monopolies” and lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Texans should pay attention, and not because drug prices aren’t a problem, but because their plan sounds like another attempt to bring California-style politics to the Lone Star State. I saw firsthand while attending this month’s Republican midterm convention in Dallas: Texans want none of what California is offering.
Big Pharma deserves scrutiny. The skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs are a financial burden many working families can’t afford, and no one should have to choose between filling a prescription and buying groceries, paying the mortgage, or filling up the tank. Drug manufacturers, insurance companies, medical-services providers, and policymakers all share the blame in a broken system that too often leaves patients footing the bill.
But Texans should be wary anytime politicians claim the solution is for government to forcibly reorganize an entire industry.
Talarico’s proposal would push for antitrust legislation that targets vertically integrated healthcare companies, such as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), insurers, and hospital systems. Talarico has blamed healthcare consolidation and a lack of competition for rising care costs. Cuban, whose online pharmacy Cost Plus Drug Company sells generic drugs directly to consumers, praised the effort as a way to break up healthcare conglomerates and lower prescription drug and medical costs.
Cuban’s reinvention as a healthcare policy crusader is an interesting turnaround, considering that during COVID, he required his staff to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment, which was directly at odds with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting employer vaccine mandates. Of course, Cuban’s ability to transform himself when it’s politically expedient was on display when he actively campaigned for Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential race but then scrubbed all Harris- related posts from his X page after her defeat.
Texans can draw their own conclusions about Cuban’s character. But that kind of political flip-flopping and fair-weather opportunism is a good indication of what his approach to Texas healthcare policy might look like. Progressives like Talarico and Cuban want to transform Texas into California, where the instinct is to treat government intervention as the answer to every problem. High prices, complex markets, and policy disagreements are met with forced business divestment, micromanagement, and an imposition of new mandates and regulations. This approach is why California is the most heavily regulated state in the country, and now Talarico and Cuban want to try the same experiment here in Texas, with our healthcare industry in their sights as the first target.
Texas is an economic leader in the U.S. because the state has consistently prioritized free markets, competition, innovation, and accountability over heavy-handed regulation and centralized bureaucracy. We must hold drug companies accountable for pricing abuses, demand transparency and oversight from PBMs, and protect local pharmacies without adopting policies that hurt private businesses, hinder innovation, or limit patient access to affordable medication.
We don’t need California politics wrapped in a Texas flag. The Lone Star State has never been afraid to take on powerful interests, and we need practical healthcare reforms that put patients first, preserve consumer choice, and respect the competitive, free-market principles that have given Texas the most Fortune 500 companies of any U.S. state.
Texans should think twice before letting progressives like Talarico and Cuban gamble with Texans’ health.
Cindi Castilla serves as the president of the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative grassroots organization that advocates for policy at the state legislature. She lives in Dallas.
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