Government Is the Scourge of Diabetics, Not Their Savior

Michael F. CannonCongressional Republicans have defeated a proposal by congressional Democrats to mandate that private insurance companies cap out ‐​of‐​pocket spending on insulin by their enrollees at $35 per month. Republicans were right to do so. Government is already driving insulin prices sky‐​high. Further intervention would make matters worse.Diabetics need insulin to live. Insulin prices should be falling over time, yet they have more thandoubled over the last 10 years. Many diabeticsstruggle with those rising prices, sometimes withdeadly consequences. A humane health system would make insulin increasingly accessible to diabetics.Government has made the U.S. health sector inhumane toward diabetics.First, to bring a new insulin product or delivery system to market, manufacturers must go through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ‘s wildly expensive processes for approving new drugs and medical devices. Elsewhere, my colleague Dr. Jeffrey Singer and I report“in 2019 dollars, the average estimated cost of each new drug approval has risen from $523 million in 1987 to $1.2–1.8 billion in 2000 to $3.2 billion in 2013. The cost grew at an average annual real rate of 9.4 percent in the 1970s, 7.4 percent in the 1980s, and 8.5 percent from 1990 through th e early 2010s.” The high cost of government regulation discourages the development of new insulin products, reduces the number of insulin manufacturers, and increases the prices...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs