Governor Newsom's announcement today that California will be launching a state-owned generic brand of insulin feels revolutionary not because of the impact I think it will have, but because of the message it sends to the pharmaceuticals industry.
The most straight-forward way to limit the price of insulin would just be to pass legislation limiting the price of insulin. A handful of states like Colorado and Illinois have already done this. This sends a message to pharmaceutical companies of, "We disapprove of what you're doing, but we're okay with you still doing it as long as we place limits on how much revenue you can make off it."
But California's plan to build an entirely government-owned pharmacy of generic drugs sends a far different message. This message to pharmaceutical companies is, "You all have proven yourselves to be outrageously horrific stewards of public health, and we don't even think you deserve this business anymore." That's a far different tone.
Do I support this motion from Newsom? Well, alarm bells always sound in my mind when a government tries to do anything that makes citizens this fundamentally dependent on their government. Government should exist to support its population, not make its population beholden to it. That being said, the uncontested most important role of government is to keep its citizens safe, and citizens who have to consistently ration their insulin supply because prices are out of whack are not "safe." I don't really have the pharmaceutical industry knowledge to gauge whether or not I think this effort as a whole makes any sense or will be successful, but if anything I applaud Newsom for at least being bold enough to pitch and begin following through on such a unique idea. Whether it works or not, it's refreshing in a political climate often defined by stalemate and inaction to see an administration say, "We recognize this is a major problem our citizens are dealing with, and it's time to fight it with guerrilla warfare."
Besides, if you chip away at Big Pharma's ability to squeeze every nickel and dime out of non-proprietary life-saving medication, they might actually be compelled to put more of their time and energy into building innovative, patentable medications, and that's what they're best at anyways.
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