Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The New York Times has an excellent piece on the high cost of asthma medicines in the United States. However there is one major error in the piece. It attributes the high prices to the market. In fact the whole piece points to the opposite. It details how government granted monopolies allow drug companies to charge prices that are close to ten times as high as the price in other countries.
Without government intervention the market would lead to much lower prices. The United States is unique in having the government play such a large role in raising prices to consumers.