The Societal Costs of Price Controls

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: Bernie Sanders may be out of the running for President, but his destructive socialist ideas remain. Joe Biden may not say it as loudly as Bernie did, but he has been pushing for price controls since the very beginning. And with a renewed push from Speaker Nance Pelosi in the midst of a pandemic, there is no indication that these politicians plans to stop any time soon.

Because the threat of price controls remains as immanent as ever, we want to remind everyone of just how dangerous and life-threatening this policy would be. The easiest way to demonstrate this is by looking at the nation’s most urgent and pressing matter right now: finding a vaccine for COVID-19.

The opportunistic use of the COVID-19 global pandemic to stir up the public’s fear helps and promote their socialist price-setting scheme is shameful. The socialist left claims that price controls will lower the cost of potential cures or vaccines. It may, but what’s the larger societal cost?

On average, it costs billions to produce a new drug, and up to 15 years to bring a drug to consumers. In other words, to find a new vaccine, companies need a realistic chance to recoup their tremendous investments in innovation, and with the absence of a potential profit, the lifecycle of innovation is rendered untenable.

In fact, it’s the free market that make us the greatest contender in the race to a COVID-19 cure. It’s also why the U.S. is responsible for nearly half of all new drugs. It’s why Pfizer was able to find a promising potential coronavirus treatment so quickly – with plans to begin testing as early as this summer – along with Johnson & Johnson, who has also begun human trials much earlier than expected with hopes of having developed a vaccine for commercial use in early 2021.

We are counting on the most brilliant minds to find a cure to deliver the world from this pandemic – and we must make sure that our policies promote an ecosystem of innovation to support and enable them in their race for a vaccine for COVID-19. These uncertain times make plain the stakes; if Biden, Pelosi, and the left were to have their way, our health care system would suffer tremendously, and with it, our engine of innovation that continues to find life-saving treatments that the world so desperately needs.