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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

Sorry am I missing something here. If the cheap insulin across the border got the full brunt of American demand, it would obviously not remain abundant for that country. Even if this country (canada?) had price controls in place that would be no use to factories with a set supply.

Seems like the right solution is to increase supply right here.

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Americans got to Mexico for cheap insulin. Sometimes they get murdered for their troubles so that's a downside.

Crazy that people risk their life to save a couple bucks

Crazy that people who can't survive without insulin, food, and rent money see the risk of dying from violence as less than the risk of dying from poverty.

Crazy that people without a few bucks have to risk their lives to save their lives.

Diabetics die very quickly without insulin.

Either die for sure from lack of insulin, or have a chance of not dying by crossing the border. The math checks out

You understand that production can be scaled up right?

Arbitrarily? To how much? When building the factories do we know if Canada had accounted for servicing the American market (just the California market would be a 100% increase)

What's your point?

What would most likely happen is that insulin factories would scale up production and price would go down in the long term (economies of scale and increased competition). That's what free trade pretty much always does to prices.

Which is exactly what the California government funded? Just in Utah via a non-profit. Seems like a win-win.

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