“Lawmakers push Covid-19 bills to prevent price gouging, track federal funds used to discover drugs.” To me, this article points to the problems created by government-funded science. People forced to subsidize the development of drugs and treatments reasonable expect government to regulate such things as the pricing of the developed products. I’ll note here that some people (Alex Tabarrok) have the idea of government offering cash awards for the successful development of certain treatments, after which government essentially owns the results. I do worry that politicians looking to control prices will disincentivize some companies from developing some drugs and treatments in the first place. The easiest way not to “excessively” profit from some product is not to make it at all.
Tags: price controls, science funding