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Comment by purple_turtle | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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.

> 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.

>this is a greed problem.

I'll take it even further, if you look at the price of goods over time, it's even possible to see the ebb and flow of greed in the numbers:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G5Qi8_vXwAAbRTn.jpg?name=orig

I wonder if prices are really a measurement of fluctuations in some underlying supernatural or cosmic psychic force?

> this is a greed problem.

Also that. But overregulation makes too hard for others to compete and offer cheaper insulin.

Which may also be expressed as an expectation for a particular quality at a particular cost. There are no deadweights to exploit in insulin production. It seems to some people that regulation is the deadweight but without that quality guarantee you’re dependent on suppliers which duplicates the cost of “self regulation” across the sector.

Greed explains nothing. People will be greedy when they are incentivized to be greedy, and thrifty when they are incentivized to be thrifty. There are plenty of incentives, I might add, for regulators to be greedy though.

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.

2026?

yes, thanks.

> The problem in USA is that producing insuline is so regulated that setting up and maintaining production is obnoxiously expensive.

This has absolutely nothing to do with insulin costs. Nada. Zip. Nil.

> As noone will want to produce insuline if required paperwork costs more than it's selling price.

Where are you getting this information from? I've been in the industry for a bit now and this is a first for me. That the reason why insulin is so expensive in the US is because it costs money to make????

>This has absolutely nothing to do with insulin costs. Nada. Zip. Nil.

Why do you think there are so few insulin producers then?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/15/4229352...

How many insulin producers are there in europe?

Because it’s such a basic commodity with very little differentiation so profitability can only be achieved at scale.

You're sharing a 10 year old article to back up your claims?

And the answer is because it's a monopoly that the govt refuses to regulate.

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