Democrats are exploiting the Coronavirus epidemic in an effort to impose partisan, socialist price controls on lifesaving cures.
According to media reports, House Democratic leadership is proposing a Coronavirus emergency spending package legislation that includes price controls on any vaccine, therapeutic, or diagnostic developed to treat the disease.
Republicans in the House and Senate should reject this poison pill and ensure that medical innovation is protected in the supplemental legislation.
Manufacturers are acting swiftly to ensure the creation of Coronavirus cures. However, enacting price controls will suppress the research and development that is needed to create these cures. If this proposal is made into law, it will mean fewer cures and slower development. It could even lead to government rationing of Coronavirus cures, allowing the government to pick and choose who “deserves” a vaccine.
Price controls on Coronavirus cures will also set a precedent to put price controls on other lifesaving medicines, a long-held goal of the left. As recently as last year, Democrats passed a proposal to impose government prices on medicines under threat of a 95 percent excise tax on medicines.
This is the wrong approach to ensuring the development of Coronavirus cures and should be opposed by lawmakers.