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The power to charge what you want comes from lack of competition. Regulation can make entry into a market too high, especially for small start ups. Ensuring th

• rusk 11mo ago
  > competition We don’t need competition in insulin production. It is a know quantity with fixed and closed quality parameters. Fix the price and let suppliers compete on cost.
  • pastage 11mo ago
    There are many kinds of insulin variants on the market. The easy way to differentiate them is by release rate and duration. Gone in an hour for some and 24hours for others. There are other factors as well that make them incompatible with each other.
    • rusk 11mo ago
      All clearly categorised and regulated. Fill the boxes and ship em and STFU
  • purple_turtle 11mo ago
    The problem in USA is that producing insuline is so regulated that setting up and maintaining production is obnoxiously expensive. Note that if you cause by regulation or stupid laws something to be expensive to produce/import and then make it illegal to sell above that price - then you will get shortages. As noone will want to produce insuline if required paperwork costs more than it's selling price. Note that even if currently adding more regulation to solve problems caused by more regulation will not cause it, it may happen in future. US healthcare regulations are on Nth round of that.
    • rusk 11mo ago
      > setting up and maintaining production is obnoxiously expensive. This is what I meant by compete on cost. The manufacturers that are best at cutting these costs will make the most profit. That’s where competition should be focused on such generic items.
      • mexicocitinluez 11mo ago
        None of this is while insulin is so expensive in the US. None of it. We've been producing insulin for 100 years now. You guys are just making things up and it's wild. I don't think a single person who is claiming that regulation is driving up insulin prices has even Googled it to make sure what they're saying makes sense. Spoiler alert: It's not. The cost of insulin is a result of monopolies, pharmacy benefit managers, patents, and most importantly: a LACK of regulation on drug prices.
    • fragmede 11mo ago
      We will have to wait see where it goes, but California is trying to make their own insulin, so starting January 1st, 2025 you can buy a pack for $55 a as a resident.
      • purple_turtle 11mo ago
        2026?
        • fragmede 11mo ago
          yes, thanks.
    • toofy 11mo ago
      > The problem in USA is that producing insuline is so regulated that setting up and maintaining production is obnoxiously expensive. i don’t buy it. no other oecd nation has insulin prices as absurd as the us. this is a greed problem. the only people to blame when the government starts producing insulin will be the pharmaceutical companies and their refusal to be decent members of society. if they were even a tiny fraction more decent they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re directly causing. far too often companies are directly to blame for regulation as they repeatedly absolutely refuse to self-regulate and be decent pieces of society.
  • sophrosyne42 11mo ago
    Nothing has fixed and closed quality parameters. At least not if your concern is quality as understood by the people who want or need insulin as opposed to whatever arbitrary standard a bureaucrat could make up.
    • rusk 11mo ago
      > whatever arbitrary standard a bureaucrat You do know these people are scientific experts and have teams of scientific experts working for them, right. It’s not some blazing skulls stuffed shirt lol
      • sophrosyne42 11mo ago
        No amount of scientific expertise will turn a subjective thing (which is what product quality is) into an objective thing. Credible, ethical, and well-trained scientists should be able to recognize that and desist from dressing up their preferences into scientific dress and passing it off as the results of objective science.
        • rusk 11mo ago
          > subjective thing There is nothing subjective about insulin quality you dimwit
          • sophrosyne42 11mo ago
            The quality of a product is subjective to the user of that product. This is a scientific fact of economics, and insistence otherwise is science denial.
            • rusk 11mo ago
              That’s why we have regulation LOL toxicity is not subjective Oh Lordy what has become of HN a load of fresh dummies with no grounding in the basic principles of libertarianism. All the fire none of the intellect. Just no sport.
  • pipes 11mo ago
    That would ensure that it is extremely unlikely we get innovation in insulin production as it removes the financial incentive to take the risk with innovation.
    • zbentley 11mo ago
      People don't innovate to compete on cost?
• DarkNova6 11mo ago
  The barrier for entry is primarily capital these days: have a moat, prevent competition, extract money, cease R&D. And if a competitor does come up, just buy them outright. This is the current economic model, as it is practiced by Private Equity. Power has become infectious and capitalism has changed. The game is about power and extracting more and more money from the productive economy, making it less competitive. Who wins? Those who already have excessive capital. The only one who would have enough legal power is exclusively the state. It’s no surprise the state is under attack from so many fronts.
• littlestymaar 11mo ago
  > The power to charge what you want comes from lack of competition Competition alone is never good enough to make price down, because companies and shareholders hate competition and will happily “consolidate” competitive markets into much more profitable oligopolies (when it's not straight monopolies).
• gorbachev 11mo ago
  You could make an argument that the problem is entirely due to bad regulation, because the regulations haven't mandated effective enforcement. I don't know if this applies to insulin production, but in several other areas enforcing anti-monopoly regulations is lacking at such a degree that the regulations are almost completely ignored.