The Supreme Court last week upended one of the underpinnings of administrative law by weakening the authority of federal health agencies to rely on technical expertise as they regulate medical products, issue coverage decisions, and respond to public health crises.
There is general agreement that the United States spends too much on health care, especially on pharmaceuticals. But what we spend on drugs is not simply a function of price. If eggs double in price, people can simply cut the number of eggs they eat in half. Simply stated, cost is the product of (price per unit times the number of units purchased).
