King for Reform Before He was Against it?

Medicare Negotiation Bill Passes Veto Feared

See if you can make some sense of King's position on lowering Medicare drug prices, I don't really get it:

However, Congressman Peter King (R-Massapequa Park) was not convinced that this bill would help bring down the price of prescription medications. "While HR 4 may have offered the promise of lower drug prices, the reality is that it would do nothing to lower actual costs," King countered. "As a matter of fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined that it would have little effect on reducing the cost of prescription drugs. In addition, the dangerously vague language of HR 4 opens the door to restricting seniors' access to new drugs and multiple pharmacies."

But King said there are reasons to be concerned about the plan. "As seen in the debate on the House floor, supporters of HR 4 contend that the Veterans Administration offers a model in which drug prices are negotiated," he said. "What they have failed to mention, however, is that the VA offers a limited choice of pharmaceuticals available at select pharmacies. Three thousand of the 4,300 medicines covered by Medicare are unavailable under the veterans' program. Recent data shows that 1.5 million veterans are so unsatisfied with the coverage that they have chosen to buy a Part D plan." King added, "I have made it clear that I would support legislation giving Medicare more power to negotiate prescription drug prices if it would expand the purchasing power of Medicare beneficiaries and cover the wide range of prescription drugs and pharmacies currently available to those beneficiaries."

King cites the CBO report saying this legislation would have little effect on drug prices. What he doesn't tell us is that they believe this only because the legislation doesn't go far enough in "limiting choices". So basically King is being nonsensical: He accuses the Democrats' bill of not going far enough in granting Medicare negotiating leverage, but he's not willing to deal with the reduced options that come about from bulk purchasing, like in the VA program.

King wants to have his cake, eat it too, and blame the Democrats for taking steps forward.