How did you arrive at that conclusion? All of the evidence provided in the article is prior to the “freedom of regulation” as you call it.
To me, it’s indicative of a rotting regulatory institution that lost its way. FDA is about safety, not low cost drugs. I don’t know how that mandate became mission critical for them but it happened before the current administration.
The US is long past the point where we need to stop talking about medical regulation generically. Some regulation and enforcement needs to be increased, and others need to be decreased or eliminated, at least in my opinion.
To me this sort of thing is fraud, and I feel like the FDA needs more resources and oversight to fight it. But with other things I think the FDA needs to back off completely, where it's overstepped its useful mission. I personally would like to see the FDA stop telling people what they can purchase or receive from whom, but spend more time guaranteeing that whatever is on the label is what it says it is and nothing else.
To continue making a follow on point, also needing nuance - pharmaceutical manufacturing is exactly the type of industry that can and should be brought back to the US. First, through outright subsidies [0] to get the plants built. And then when domestic supply is high enough, through regulations prohibiting healthcare management plans from buying imported drugs.
[0] spending some of the surplus from having a reserve currency on deliberate policies rather than it being blindly given to asset holders
