Do Socialists want to find a cure for COVID-19?
Back in December, price controls were all that the socialist left could talk about. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was busy touting her socialist price control bill, H.R. 3, which attempted to lower U.S. drug costs by forcing manufacturers to “negotiate” rates with the federal government. So much so that the socialist wing shouted down the President during his State of the Union Address.
And they haven’t stopped. Amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the price control comrades are doing their best to profit during this unprecedented pandemic. After attempting to include a provision that would have allowed the government to dictate the price of any COVID-19 vaccine developed using federal funds, it was stripped from the final version. Perhaps it’s because they know the majority of Americans reject European-style government price-setting schemes that have proven to deliver devastating impacts on patients and innovation.
In the face of a true public health crisis in which staggering numbers of cases and deaths have been linked to the coronavirus in the U.S. alone, the world needs a vaccine and cure for COVID-19. This won’t be an easy feat, and it certainly won’t be cheap. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development estimates that developing a new drug takes between 10 to 15 years and $2.6 billion before a drug can reach the shelf. It’s a process that requires constant trial and error – with nearly 86 percent of all drugs failing in clinical trials. In other words, a coronavirus cure requires a country with innovative minds that incentivizes risk-takers to pursue investment in research and development to back the arduous process.
Yet, despite seeing their loved ones becoming sick with COVID-19 and understanding the best chance of a cure comes from these companies, they’re continuing their chants for price controls.
Thanks to our current innovative environment, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, along with the National Institute of Health and other researchers, America serves as a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. Our scientists are working at lightning-fast speed to find a COVID-19 cure. Last week, Johnson and Johnson announced a lead vaccine candidate for COVID-19 and a commitment to supply one billion vaccines worldwide. Many other firms have already begun early phases of clinical trials on cures or vaccines.
It’s medical breakthroughs like these that Pelosi’s drastic proposals threaten to undermine. Socialists want a COVID-19 vaccine as much as the rest of us. But for some reason, they continue to vilify the power and ingenuity of America’s bio-medical industry and risk the tremendous value that we would lose under their socialist scheme.