Vaccines and Cures are hurt by price controls

By: Phil Green

I’ve been an airline pilot for over 20 years. The industry has had its share of challenges during my career, but I’ve never seen anything like today. The threat of COVID-19 has caused a severe reduction in business and tourist travel. This holiday season, fewer people will be boarding a plane to visit family or friends.

This is sad for my family personally and it’s also led to layoffs across my industry. The best way out is a COVID-19 vaccine.

That’s why I was thrilled about results recently announced by multiple biopharmaceutical companies. If vaccine progress continues at this rate, it seems likely that 2021 will be a far better year for families, communities, travel and tourism, and businesses of all types—and thank goodness for that.

The speed of this success is proof positive that America got it right with our free market system for pharmaceuticals. Our model supports maximum research and development so when an urgent need like COVID-19 arises, there are technologies and promising vaccine candidates at the ready.

Our elected officials must protect this system. Government price-setting and other interventions in the market have no place here. I only hope the leaders we elected this fall will stand firm against destructive prescription drug policies so that we can finally defeat COVID-19 and get back to work—at the airlines and in research facilities across the country striving cure other devastating diseases. 

Phil Green is a Mesa voter and a pilot for a major airline