The history of government price-control policies that seek to impose price ceilings on goods and services is both long and replete with failure. That’s because price controls discourage innovation and investment, and lead to shortages in the marketplace, among other unintended consequences.

No targeted industry is immune from the predictable negative impacts of prices controls – not even prescription drugs, which seem to be a primary target in the price-control crosshairs of policymakers at all levels of government.

In his latest cartoon, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez sums up the negative consequences of prescription drug price control policies – whether they take the form of direct price caps, “negotiated” Medicare and other prices, or Most Favored Nation…[more]