Gail Devore has been doing this ad asking for the President and Congress to do something about the high cost of drugs. Since I could not find Devore’s ad online, I settled for this video. Here are couple of other links describing the lady.
- Drug price hikes lead to patients rationing meds, government promises to get costs lowered (fox4now.com)
- GAIL DEVORE (patientsforaffordabledrugs.org)
Must admit Devore advertisement is gut-wrenching. She seems like a thoughtful and energetic lady. Unfortunately, in her commerical Devore does not say what “historic” something she wants our President and Congress to do. So I looked up the outfit she represents. Here is what they say about Finding Solutions (patientsforaffordabledrugs.org). Their ideas largely involve more government involvement. Good idea?
Let’s think about this. Why would the price of insulin go up? It should not be patented. We have known how to make insulin for a relatively long time, but we are depending upon the government to keep the price down. And this should be easy for the government, right? Politicians are trustworthy. None of them peddle influence. Don’t they all leave our nation’s capital and the capitals of our states poorer than when they first got there? There is no such thing as crony capitalism. Greedy corporations should not have any influence over our leaders? Our leaders don’t set themselves apart from and think themselves better than the people they represent, do they?
So, what then is obvious solution to the outrageously high cost of insulin? What do we need to do to keep the cost of our medical care down? More government! Right? More government always leads to lower costs and lower prices. Got to admit Patients for Affordable Drugs has a great idea.
So, why The rising price of insulin (medicaleconomics.com)? Check it out. Is there too much or too little government meddling? Is the healthcare sector too highly regulated or not regulated enough?
Keep in mind that corporations are government creations. When we pit evil corporations and the government against each other, we are being silly. Corporations operate under heavy hand of government. The difference is that the people who run corporations make their living by turning a profit. So, corporate leaders have to find a way to make government regulations work for them. Sometimes in the pursuit of profit they do not make ethical choices. Then their customers suffer. Of course, politicians also have let them get away with it.
Citizen Tom 
I seem to remember linking to this blog before (very liberal doctor, but he is the rare open minded solution oriented sort of person who can think outside his bubble). He did a post on the price of drugs.
In his post he mentioned the epi-pen…which is a very good example.
Insulin is a little different in some respects. Though insulin was discovered long ago, there are many variations, and some of the better ones are fairly recent (long acting, short acting, intermediate et al). Diabetes management often requires a variety.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-drugs-vs-chairs/
Imagine that the government creates the Furniture and Desk Association, an agency which declares that only IKEA is allowed to sell chairs. IKEA responds by charging $300 per chair. Other companies try to sell stools or sofas, but get bogged down for years in litigation over whether these technically count as “chairs”. When a few of them win their court cases, the FDA shoots them down anyway for vague reasons it refuses to share, or because they haven’t done studies showing that their chairs will not break, or because the studies that showed their chairs will not break didn’t include a high enough number of morbidly obese people so we can’t be sure they won’t break. Finally, Target spends tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and gets the okay to compete with IKEA, but people can only get Target chairs if they have a note signed by a professional interior designer saying that their room needs a “comfort-producing seating implement” and which absolutely definitely does not mention “chairs” anywhere, because otherwise a child who was used to sitting on IKEA chairs might sit down on a Target chair the wrong way, get confused, fall off, and break her head.
(You’re going to say this is an unfair comparison because drugs are potentially dangerous and chairs aren’t – but 50 people die each year from falling off chairs in Britain alone and as far as I know nobody has ever died from an EpiPen malfunction.)
Imagine that this whole system is going on at the same time that IKEA spends millions of dollars lobbying senators about chair-related issues, and that these same senators vote down a bill preventing IKEA from paying off other companies to stay out of the chair industry. Also, suppose that a bunch of people are dying each year of exhaustion from having to stand up all the time because chairs are too expensive unless you’ve got really good furniture insurance, which is totally a thing and which everybody is legally required to have.
And now imagine that a news site responds with an article saying the government doesn’t regulate chairs enough.
@Liz
Great link! Liberal or not that explanation is better than mine.
Thanks.
My pleasure Citizen Tom! Glad you like it. 🙂