“This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep.”
The Biden Administration pleasantly stunned health care reform advocates Tuesday by including short-acting insulin in its list of 10 drugs for which Medicare will negotiate lower prices, power vested in the White House by the Inflation Reduction Act.
The IRA was passed in the face of one of the heftiest barrages of lobbying in congressional history, with the pharmaceutical industry spending more than $700 million over 2021 and 2022 — several times more than the second- and third-ranking industries — much of it aimed at stopping the legislation, watering it down, or undermining its implementation.
A product which is only necessary for one group of people. A group who, through circumstances likely beyond their control, need that medication to maintain a healthy life. Thinking of life saving medication as a product to be sold is the problem.
I don’t disagree with your intent, but this is not the way laws work in the United States. I generally share your opinion that our current methodology is not the way laws should work, but that does not change the present reality.
You asked, “How is this not illegal” and I answered that question.
I’m not the one who asked that. I think “How is this not illegal” wasn’t intended to be taken as a literal request to explain our current legal situation in this country but more an exasperated rhetorical question to underline the jarring and obvious moral hypocrisy in our laws.
That makes sense. I often interpret people too literally, and to me the person seemed to be literally asking why this wasn’t illegal.
I understand the frustration, and to me, the current legal framework is the source of the frustration, which is why I thought the question was both literal and apt.