Tom032506sowellHere is another part of Tom Sowell’s chapter on Health Care. The series has been running in Investors Business Daily. I have posted the first and this one(sixth) of nine-parts. Those interested in the entire series can probably find it on IBD.

How Regulation Of Drug Industry Discourages R&D And Costs Lives

Posted 06:55 PM ET

This is the sixth installment of a nine-part series excerpting the chapter on medical care from the new edition of economist Thomas Sowell‘s “Applied Economics.”


IBD Exclusive Series:
Thomas Sowell on The Economics of Medical Care


While past costs are irrelevant to present decision-making — they are history but they are not economics — those past costs do matter when pharmaceutical companies decide whether, or to what extent, to invest in developing more new drugs. If those past costs have not been covered, future costs may not be as readily incurred to create future drugs to cure or prevent such scourges as Alzheimer’s, AIDS or cancer.

To read rest of this section, click here.

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