California aims to make its own insulin brand to lower price

Previous discussion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=31649237" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=31649237</a><p>I think my comment there still applies. There&#x27;s a simple way to buy insulin for 10x cheaper: Drive over the border. Any border will do. The extremely high prices are unique to the United States. Other countries have the same insulin brands, from the same companies, at literally 10x lower prices.<p>That should make the solution clear: Undo the laws that prevent retailers from driving over the border themselves. If US drug stores could import insulin from Europe, Canada, and Mexico, then it would be impossible to maintain such a large price difference, and the US price would come down.

They are, will be, contracting with established companies. It&#x27;s a good way to go. Pharmas have found out that they can buy a company that makes an established med and hike the costs of the med since it&#x27;s the only med available and it&#x27;s very expensive for new competitors to come in. Martin Shkreli got in trouble for trying to do that but it has been an established way of doing business for a long time. He didn&#x27;t invent it. Other CEOs have gotten rewarded for doing just that.<p>I hope California can show that government can come in and help with the situation since the free market is only making it worse.

Legitimate question - how is the state allowed to compete with private merchants to sell a product?<p>It is a market that is likely going to have multiple competitors with the patent expiring, and those competitors are not likely to succeed if they compete against a state with a bottomless pocketbook. It appears likely this would result in less competition and - over a long run - higher prices?<p>Not trolling, I am genuinely confused how this is supposed to work.