[freeopinion]

I'm suffering from fatigue from all the political commercials in which every single Democrat apparently single-handedly reduced the price of insulin. As if government-mandated pricing were a good thing.

If something is overpriced, somebody should jump in and take advantage of a business opportunity. If nobody is jumping in, perhaps the item is not overpriced. Or perhaps there is some systemic issue preventing willing competitors from jumping in. Imagine if somebody tackled the real issue and it unclogged the plumbing for producers of all sorts of medicine beside insulin at the same time.

If a government mandates the sale of an item below the cost of production, they drive out all producers and that product disappears from the market. That is, unless they create some government subsidy or other graft to compensate the government-appointed winners. Any way you slice it, it is a recipe for disaster.

If parties are allowed to compete fairly with each other, somebody will offer a cheaper price. This is already the case with AWS. Consumers may decide that the cheaper product is somehow inferior, but that is not a problem that lawmakers should interfere in.

[linsomniac]

Interesting you should choose insulin, as it's made by ~3 companies, and 2002-2013 the price went up 6x, while the price of the inputs dropped. ISTR that right after that it went up another 3x to over $300/vial. Thankfully, I only needed a vial once every few months, it was for my cat.

"Evergreening", a process where the drug manufacturers slightly change the formula or delivery when one patent is running out, to gain a new patent, then stop manufacturing the old formula.

Not saying I want to see AWS bandwidth prices regulated (though I think they could come down and still make a massive profit). But in the case of insulin, the industry has left little choice but government intervention.

[Auracle]

Except in insulin’s case all they did was cap out of pocket costs, meaning insurance takes up the rest of the bill…which means the rest of us pay for it - and worse yet, it effectively stops any pressure on those companies to lower prices. That’s both political pressure and market pressure. Why the hell would anyone care or use cheaper insulin now?

[freeopinion]

So all the politicians pat themselves on the back without fixing the real problem. Instead, they just add one problem on top of another.

[ekianjo]

> But in the case of insulin, the industry has left little choice but government intervention.

drugs are not made without government approval or something. the FDA tells you what you can or cannot do.

[dools]

I think you’re forgetting that it is regulatory capture that has made medicine cost so much in the US in the first place.

[ekianjo]

> If something is overpriced, somebody should jump in and take advantage of a business opportunity

insulin is off patent. anyone can in theory manufacture it, but the ROI is just not worth it even at the current prices. Manufacturing it is not easy, there are humongous amounts of regulations, you will probably need to do a couple of clinical trials too... so you end up with an oligopoly that are incumbents that nobody wants to challenge, and prices that are all aligned.

[drowsspa]

Is it, though? Even a poor country like Brazil can afford to give out insulin for free

[tekknik]

interesting. so the solution is to pile on more regulation yes? if a little is garbage and destroys the system then more must be better right?