In 1951, Congress stopped letting drug makers decide which drugs they would sell over the counter and which would require a prescription and turned that decision over to the FDA. Drugs already available without a prescription were “grandfathered.”
That is why, to this day, people can buy regular and NPH insulin without a prescription. Because those forms of insulin are off‐patent and because consumers comparison‐shop, they are relatively cheap: “ReliOn,” a brand available from Walmart, can cost as little as $25 a vial. Evidence suggests that prescription requirements correlate with higher drug prices and that removing them correlates with reductions in drug prices.
Category: Drug Prices & Regulations
Wednesday Links
- Most new drugs do not cover the cost of their development. So, the pharmaceutical industry needs a few blockbusters (with annual revenues of $1 billion or more) in order to survive. HT: Tyler
- Railroad deregulation occurred under Carter, not under Trump and accidents and derailments plunged thereafter.
- Humans share 98.8 percent of their DNA with bonobos and chimpanzees.
- Is Biden about to surrender authority over US pandemic policy to the WHO?
- Prof. Marty Makary: Ten myths about Covid that were propagated by the “experts.”
- How different federal agencies view the origin of Covid.
- Yglesias on the lab leak theory.
Amazon Wants to be Your Primary Care Provider
What living man or woman has done more to make your life better than any other person? This is probably not something you have thought about. Most people would likely say their parents, although my parents are no longer living. I’ve thought about this question and I have a definitive answer: Jeff Bezos. Yes, Jeff Bezos. An Amazon truck stops at my house on a daily basis dropping off purchases, sometimes multiple items per day. In the early 1990s who would have thought that in the future you could go to a website and choose among 353 million products, most of which are priced lower than you can find locally. Furthermore, the prices elsewhere are lower than they otherwise would be because of the competition created by Amazon. In addition, these products are delivered to your doorstep, sometimes only a day or two after you ordered them.
Saturday Links
- Study: GoodRx often beats Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs on low prices.
- In the past century, human heights have skyrocketed. Globally, humans grew an average of about 3 inches. In South Korea, women grew an astounding 8 inches and men grew 6 inches on average.
- Near 100% marginal tax rates for the wealthy and a return to the 35% corporate income tax would not be enough to save Social Security and Medicare. (NYT)
- Democratic senators want the Biden administration to close down short-term insurance plans by reinstating Obama’s executive order. (gated)
- Study: Because of burnout, workload, and other stresses, 20 percent of physicians and 40 percent of nurses say they plan to leave their practice within two years.
- There are actually such things as lazy ants – but they serve a purpose.