Month: June 2022

My contribution to a symposium on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen is now up on SCOTUSBlog. It is pithily entitled: A minor impact on gun laws but a potentially momentous shift in constitutional method. In it, I describe the extensive “shall issue” process I underwent to obtain my concealed carry license in DC for the many who have no idea what this process entails.

I had to pay an application fee of $75. I had to submit my application in person at the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and be photographed and fingerprinted at an additional cost of $35. I had to pass a federal background check. I had to enroll in and pay for an approved firearms training course, which included 16 hours of classroom study of D.C. gun laws as well as the law governing the use of deadly force, plus another two hours of range instruction. In 2018, the course cost $250 plus $20 for the range fee. The monetary cost of the license amounted to $380. This was in addition to the $125 tax I paid to D.C. on the purchase of my handgun, which brought the total regulatory cost to $505. Since the course took 18 hours to complete, I took it on a Saturday and a Sunday so as not to lose two days of work.

There being no gun ranges in the District of Columbia, my course was taught in Virginia. The instructor was African American, and most of the other students in the course were members of underrepresented groups, which is unsurprising given the demographics of D.C. Since it is doubtful that any other Georgetown professor has a concealed-carry license, I suppose I too was a member of an underrepresented group.

Every two years, I must renew the license. If I miss renewing within the 30-day window before my permit expires, I have to start all over. So, two years later, I had to pay another $75 fee and complete a recertification class consisting of four hours of training, and two hours of range training from an MPD-certified firearms training instructor, which cost $160. I can afford all this, of course, though I cannot say the same for all other citizens of D.C.

This is the type of regulatory regime that, in Bruen, the court said it was not questioning: “[N]othing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes.”

I then discuss my effort to understand Justice Thomas’s “text and history” alternative to the “tiers of scrutiny” doctrine that has dominated constitutional law since the 1950s. I explain why am still not sure I completely understand how it is supposed to work. The essay is long and I cannot truly summarize it my uncertainties and reservations, so you may wish to click through to read it here. Here is a taste:

There is, however, an even more fundamental question raised by Thomas’ text-and-history approach. It seems to assume that, once we use history to identify the “outer contours” of a constitutional right, then any such right bars not only prohibitions on its exercise but also trumps any statutory regulation of it. Prior to the New Deal, however, rights were not viewed as trumps on the regulatory power of government. Instead, the existence of a right barred the complete deprivation of it — that is, a prohibition — and statutes were “strictly” or “equitably” construed to avoid this result. And the existence of a right also required that a regulation be within the power of a legislature to enact. At the federal level, this meant a power delegated to Congress by the Constitution. At the state  level, this meant what is called the state’s “police power.” While broad, the state police power was not unlimited….

Thomas seems to want to limit the original scope of a constitutional right by his historical inquiry. And then the right, so limited, may not be restricted in any way. If rights are this absolute, however, then we cannot afford to recognize very many if government is to function. This would explain Thomas’ apparent movement toward an “enumerated rights only” view of constitutional rights (though he has not yet committed himself to this view). But viewing rights as absolute in this way is quite modern and ahistorical, and its invocation in a purportedly originalist opinion is therefore surprising.

I do conclude with a tentatively proposed alternative:

Perhaps a better approach would have been to distinguish between prohibiting and regulating the exercise of a right. Any prohibition of the exercise of a constitutional right is per se unconstitutional. In contrast, a regulation of how a right may be exercised is permissible, provided the ends of such a regulation are within the legislative power of Congress or a state.

Under this distinction, because the “special need for self-protection” that was required by the New York system was “distinguishable from that of the general community,” the law amounted to a prohibition on ordinary citizens exercising their constitutional right to bear arms outside the home. Not only was this the scheme’s effect; it was also its intention.

By contrast, D.C.’s “shall issue” regime provides a means by which every “law-abiding” (per the background check) citizen of D.C. can obtain a permit, so it is not a prohibition of the exercise of a constitutional right. Unlike the New York law, it is a “regulation” because it proscribes the manner of exercising the right.

It may not always be easy to distinguish a prohibition of a right from a mere regulation of its exercise. For example, is a ban on a particular class of firearms a prohibition or merely a regulation of the manner by which the right to keep and bear arms may be exercised? However, at the extremes it can be quite obvious, as I think it is with New York’s law and the D.C. and Chicago gun bans the court held to be unconstitutional in Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. (Even after Heller, D.C. still regulates the types of firearms that can be kept in the home or carried concealed outside.)

Rather than use modern tiers of scrutiny, when considering the appropriate regulation of constitutional rights, we should look instead to the type of eyes-open arbitrariness or rationality review that preceded the adoption of modern tiers of scrutiny. This is not, I should stress, the same as the modern eyes-closed rational basis scrutiny, which the court today considers its default approach under its tiers-of-scrutiny doctrine. (See Dobbs. “A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, … must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.”)

I put the sentence above in bold because I realize how prohibitions can be characterized as regulations and vice versa. But at the extremes there is surely a difference between telling someone they cannot do something and telling them how they must do it.

Such are my preliminary thoughts on the reasoning of Bruen, whose outcome I applaud. I look forward to benefiting from the thoughts of others about the text and history approach before reaching any final verdict on its merits.

The post Preliminary thoughts on NYSRPA v. Bruen appeared first on Reason.com.

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Justice Kavanaugh joined, in full, the two most significant cases of the term. In Dobbs, Kavanaugh did not join the Chief’s concurrence-in-judgment. And in Bruen, Justice Kavanaugh, as well as the Chief, fully endorsed the majority’s reasoning. To be candid, I did not expect both votes. Even after the leak, I had my doubts about whether Kavanaugh was prepared to overrule Roe. His concurrence in Ramos certainly provided the predicates to jettison Roe, but it was no certain thing. Moreover, I worried that if Kavanaugh bit the bullet in Dobbs, he would chart some middle-course for Bruen. But no, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Both majority opinions had five solid votes.

Still, Justice Kavanaugh wrote concurrences in both cases. And, in my view, the Kavanaugh concurrence is the new Kennedy concurrence. Let’s start with Bruen.

First, Kavanaugh observes that the Court “employs and elaborates on the text, history, and tradition test.” So far, so good. Indeed, Kavanaugh has personally pushed the “text and history” approach in several cases, back to his service on the D.C. Circuit. Still, in a recent concurrence, Judge Newsom (CA11) cast doubt on “tradition” prong of this text:

I say “largely” because it has never been clear to me what work “tradition” is supposed to be doing in the tripartite “text, history, and tradition” formulation. The duly adopted and ratified text of the Second Amendment, as originally (and thus historically) understood, governs the interpretive inquiry. To the extent that “tradition” is meant to stand in for the original (i.e., historical) public meaning of the words on the page, it is duplicative. And to the extent that it is meant to expand the inquiry beyond the original public meaning- say, to encompass latter-day-but-still-kind-of-oldish understandings-it misdirects the inquiry.

I’m with Newsom.

Second, Kavanaugh “write[s] separately to underscore two important points about the limits of the Court’s decision.” There’s that word again: “underscore.” Like Justice Kennedy before him, a Kavanaugh concurrence with two votes has the power to constrain a majority opinion.

Third, Kavanaugh suggests that the shall-issue regimes in 40-odd states are permissible. But he did not simply endorse”background checks” and “firearms safety course,” as did Justice Thomas’s majority opinion. He listed another criteria that “shall-issue” regimes can require:

By contrast, 43 States employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes. Those shall-issue regimes may require a license applicant to undergo fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements.

The requirement of a “mental health records check” was not at issue in this case. Yet, Kavanaugh reached out to decide that this requirement was constitutionally permissible.  I fear that this exception will be exploited by states to probe into a person’s confidential medical history to deny carry licenses. Indeed, the California Attorney General’s guidance specifically cited the Kavanaugh concurrence on this point:

Bruen recognizes that States may ensure that those carrying firearms in their jurisdiction are “‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.'” See also id. (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (States may “require a license applicant to undergo a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements”). Accordingly, in assessing whether an applicant has established “good moral character,” issuing authorities should recognize that Bruen does not eliminate the duty or authority of local officials to protect the communities that they know best by ensuring that licenses are only issued to individuals who—by virtue of their character and temperament—can be trusted to abide by the law and otherwise ensure the safety of themselves and others. The investigation into whether an applicant satisfies the “good moral character” requirement should go beyond the determination of whether any “firearms prohibiting categories” apply, such as a mental health prohibition or prior felony conviction.

Later, Kavanaugh refers to the “mental health records check” as an “objective licensing requirement.” Far from it.

Likewise, the 6 States including New York potentially affected by today’s decision may continue to require licenses for carrying handguns for self-defense so long as those States employ objective licensing requirements like those used by the 43 shall-issue States.

Now, government bureaucrats who are hostile to guns will have vast discretion to abridge a person’s constitutional right based on nebulous judgments about mental health. I have to think that Kavanaugh’s dicta here was affected by the assassination attempt, in which a person with apparent mental health problems tried to kill the Justice.

Finally, Kavanaugh block-quotes the two paragraphs from Heller that the lower courts have treated as the only relevant portions of the case.

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. . . . [N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [Footnote 26: We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.]

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those in common use at the time. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.” Heller; see also McDonald.

Kavanaugh and Roberts went out of their way to reiterate these limitations.

Now, onto Dobbs.

First, Part I of Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence addresses the policy debate about abortion.

Abortion is a profoundly difficult and contentious issue because it presents an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of a pregnant woman who seeks an abortion and the interests in protecting fetal life. The interests on both sides of the abortion issue are extraordinarily weighty.

But after this discussion, Kavanaugh pivots:

The issue before this Court, however, is not the policy or morality of abortion. The issue before this Court is what the Constitution says about abortion.

Part I reminded me of Kavanaugh’s American Legion concurrence: a stray digression on policy debates that has no bearing on the bottom line.

Second, in a footnote, Kavanaugh identifies one limit on abortion laws:

In his dissent in Roe, Justice Rehnquist indicated that an exception to a State’s restriction on abortion would be constitutionally required when an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother. See Roe v. Wade (1973). Abortion statutes traditionally and currently provide for an exception when an abortion is necessary to protect the life of the mother. Some statutes also provide other exceptions.

I’m not sure that Justice Alito’s opinion squarely stated a life-of-the-mother exception was “constitutionally required,” but I think that is a fair reading of the majority.

Third, Justice Kavanaugh gave some props to his former boss, whose handiwork he voted to overrule:

I have deep and unyielding respect for the Justices who wrote the Casey plurality opinion. And I respect the Casey plurality’s good-faith effort to locate some middle ground or compromise that could resolve this controversy for America. But as has become increasingly evident over time, Casey‘s well-intentioned effort did not resolve the abortion debate. The national division has not ended.

Fourth, Justice Kavanaugh–like in Bruen–reaches out to decide novel questions:

But the parties’ arguments have raised other related questions, and I address some of them here. . . .

Second, as I see it, some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter. For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel. May a State retroactively impose liability or punishment for an abortion that occurred before today’s decision takes effect? In my view, the answer is no based on the Due Process Clause or the Ex Post Facto Clause. Other abortion-related legal questions may emerge in the future.

“Not especially difficult”? Generally, courts can decide if a case is difficult after reviewing arguments from both parties. But here, Justice Kavanaugh looked at important issues in the abstract. Suddenly, everyone has become an expert on the right to travel. I have no idea how a right to travel under the Privileges and Immunities Clause may apply to abortion cases. I would not prejudge the issue.

Moreover, Kavanaugh’s discussion of “liability or punishment” is not limited to the criminal context; he also seems to suggest the civil context is at issue. (The Ex Post Facto Clause applies to the former, and not the latter.) There is ongoing litigation over Texas’s fetal heartbeat law that does seek to impose civil liability for actions taken prior to Roe. But now, the deciding justice in Dobbs has weighed in on the issue.

Why? Why decide these questions, without the benefit of any briefing, that are almost certainly likely to come to the Court. Here, I think Justice Kavanaugh cannot let his opinions be seen as too radical, so he takes steps to moderate his views. I don’t have any problem with this approach in the abstract. But I do object when this desire for middlingness compels a judge to summarily adjudicate questions that are not presented–such as the mental-health checks in Bruen and the right to travel in Dobbs. Alas, by now, these aspects of Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence are entirely predictable. If ever the price of a fifth vote, as the saying goes. And the lower courts will dutifully follow.

The post The Kavanaugh Concurrences in <i>Bruen</i> and <i>Dobbs</i> appeared first on Reason.com.

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“I’m at city hall,” Angela Pence says via text message. “By a guy with a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag.”

Even amid the vibrant scene along Main Street in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday morning, the modified Gadsden flag—a rainbow-colored one, but with the familiar coiled rattlesnake and slogan—stands out. Before crossing the street to meet Pence, however, I have to make way for a drag queen riding in the bed of a bright red pickup truck and fist-pumping along to a blaring Lady Gaga song. It’s a message of defiance as subtle as the rainbow-colored Gadsden flag—particularly here, at the first-ever Pride parade in Rome, a city of about 37,000 nestled in the state’s deeply conservative northwest corner.

Pence is a part of that spirit of defiance even as she is hoping to capitalize upon it. A political novice, Pence is running for U.S. Congress as a Libertarian against incumbent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial first-term congresswoman who in many ways embodies the GOP’s post-2016 fixation with culture war politics and conspiracy theories.

Earlier this month, Greene warned that straight people could go extinct “probably within about four or five generations.” In another tweet, Greene claimed that “an entire #PrideMonth and millions in spending through corporations & our government on LGBTQ sexual identity needs to end.” Against that backdrop, simply showing up to an event like this sends a message. 

Before Pence can even start a real campaign, however, she has to gather more than 23,000 signatures from registered voters in Georgia’s 14th congressional district by July 12 in order to satisfy the state’s difficult ballot access rules. She came to Rome on Saturday hoping to gather some of that total. It’s tedious work, one that requires volunteers to carry clipboards and the willingness to explain—over and over again—how the state’s ballot access laws work to people who may not care.

“I think the people here deserve to have another choice,” she tells me as we walk with a few hundred other parade-goers, heading for a small park along the Coosa River where the rest of the day’s festivities are planned. Once there, she circulates among the attendees and vendors, working with a handful of volunteers and friends who have come along to help collect signatures.

Often, all she has to do is mention that she’s running against Greene to get attention, though Saturday’s parade is not a true cross-section of a district that President Donald Trump won by more than 50 points last year despite narrowly losing the state as a whole. (When Trump wanted to hold a post-election rally in Georgia to pressure the state’s officials into reversing the outcome, the event was held at an airstrip not far from Rome.)

“Realistically, Democrats don’t have a chance here,” Pence repeatedly tells people. A Libertarian might not either, but arguably might have a better shot of carrying the district’s few blue spots (like Rome, where Trump lost every precinct in 2020) while also engaging Republicans who are fed up with Greene or open to a true small-government message.

If the state will let her on the ballot, that is. In all likelihood, Pence’s effort will fail, and a ballot access law will once again deserve credit for protecting an incumbent.

There’s not much love for the incumbent on display Saturday. “I came to this just because it is in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district,” says Melanie Kelly, who lives in Atlanta. Her wife, Krista, is open-carrying a pink and white AR-15 at the parade—the most ostentatious, but not the only, celebration of the Second Amendment at Rome’s Pride event.

The Pride parade and the visitors it attracts to Rome illustrate the changing cultural tides in northwest Georgia—even in a place that’s undoubtedly Trump country. “This could never have happened here” 10 or 15 years ago is a common refrain when I ask people to share their thoughts on the city’s first Pride parade. It’s easy to see how some conservatives, like those holding protest signs along the parade route, could interpret this as a triumphant march of progressive ideology that until recently was contained to more urban areas and specific subcultures. The mainstreaming of LGBT culture means a higher level of acceptance of individual autonomy and human freedom, but it’s also generated a political reaction that increasingly defines the conservative movement—and one that encourages the wielding of government power to limit the self-expression and free choices of others.

It’s been three years since commentator Sohrab Ahmari, then an editor at the New York Post, set off a conservative schism by calling out conservatives like The Dispatch’s David French for being insufficiently militant towards drag events that include children. In that time, “drag queen story hour” has become a source of viral rage for a segment of the political right. Greene recently escalated the rage into a threat of using actual government force by announcing her intention to introduce a bill banning drag events that include children.

“This needs to be illegal,” she said earlier this month. “What’s the difference in children stuffing cash in a drag queen bra and a stripper’s bra? Nothing. It’s wrong and it’s indoctrination.”

Rome’s Pride festival included a drag queen story hour. 

“I don’t see what the harm is in drag queens reading stories to kids. Politicians do it all the time,” Pence says with a shrug, though she also draws a line between events where reading is the main activity and taking kids to outright drag shows where provocative dancing might be the focus. “I think that if parents want to take their kids to a drag queen story hour, that’s their choice to make,” she says.

It’s the kind of sentiment that probably needs a more prominent place in our civic discourse—one fundamentally at odds with the notion that members of Congress should get to decide how anyone raises their kids. Later, when Pence crosses paths with India Mills, the head of a local drag troupe and the queen who’d led the parade down Main Street from the back of a pickup truck, the two share a quick laugh about the heat ruining their makeup.

The fact that Rome’s parade attracts crowds from outside the area actually complicates Pence’s effort to get on the ballot here. Only signatures from registered voters who reside in the district count toward the tally she needs, which means her volunteers have to collect addresses as well and check them against the state’s voter rolls. With redistricting having been completed in Georgia only a few months ago, she says, lots of people aren’t even sure which district they reside in now.

But Pence is determined to work it. The monthslong effort to get enough signatures to become the first third-party candidate to qualify for a congressional race in Georgia since the 1950s requires the kind of grit that she might have learned from an earlier career as a professional dancer—”Fighters Keep Fighting” reads the tattoo on her right arm, the letters intertwined with a pair of pointe shoes—or perhaps from being a mother of eight children, all of which Pence homeschools. (A ninth is on the way, due in January.)

Even if the effort ends in failure, it’s worth it for the party to pursue races in what would otherwise be single-party districts with high-profile incumbents, argues Chase Oliver, the man carrying the rainbow-colored Gadsden flag and marching alongside Pence. He’s the Libertarian Party’s (L.P.) candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia—and he’s already on the ballot since the L.P. has done well enough in recent elections to secure automatic ballot access for statewide candidates. Bizarrely, it’s more difficult to get on the ballot for a state legislative or congressional race than for a gubernatorial or senatorial race in Georgia.

“I call them ‘the sexy races,'” Oliver says. “Having people run for those offices raises awareness about the party and helps us recruit and compete in lower-level races too.”

Among some longtime L.P. types, there is concern that the party’s new leadership will shy away from backing candidates like Pence who are challenging conservatives. Oliver specifically expresses frustration over some of the maneuvers at the recent Libertarian national convention, where the party’s delegates voted to remove a longstanding plank in the L.P.’s platform condemning bigotry as “irrational and repugnant.” But circulating within traditionally left-wing spaces, like Pride events, and pushing for a society that’s more accepting of self-expression and individuality has always been foundational for libertarians, he argues.

“I’m trying to remain myself in this whole sea of people who constantly want me to be something else,” Pence tells the owner of the Frisky Biscuit, a Rome-based sex shop, who is enthusiastic about signing a ballot petition for someone to be challenging Greene.

She could be talking about her place in the broader spectrum of Libertarian politics or her status as the ultimate outsider in a congressional district where the outcome of November’s election is practically assured by a combination of ballot access laws and partisan redistricting.

The local entrepreneur signs as Pence wraps up her pitch: “We’re here to fuck up the system.”

The post On the Pride Parade Route With the Libertarian Hoping To Challenge Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared first on Reason.com.

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Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy was founded to sell prescription drugs at the lowest and most transparent prices possible. As Cuban recently told PBS News Weekend, when it comes to medication, “the reality is the only number that matters is cost. What can we as the retailer or the distributor, buy it for and how low can we sell it? So we decided to take the exact opposite approach that politicians have been taking.“

That approach involves selling generic drugs for a 15 percent markup, plus $3 for pharmacy labor and $5 shipping. The result is that Cuban’s company is able to sell generic drugs at significantly lower rates than typical retail prices. For example, a 30-day supply of Amlodipine, a common high blood pressure medication, costs only $3.60 at Cost Plus Drugs, while the typical retail price is $50.10.

Some drugs have even higher savings. Becker’s Hospital Review recently published a list of the 50 drugs with the biggest savings at Cuban’s pharmacy. Albendazole (generic for Albenza) topped the list, saving consumers over $6,000 for a 30-count supply. In all, 14 of the top 50 discounted drugs save consumers over $500 for a 30-count supply when purchased from Cost Plus Drugs.

Cuban’s company is restricted to unpatented generic drugs. While Cuban can sell these drugs at a massive discount, it is worth noting that research into new drugs, as well as the costs of clinical trials, is funded by the high profit margins derived from patents. While Cost Plus Drugs is a welcome innovation for drugs that are no longer patented, Cuban’s business model likely can’t fund drug innovation. 

Praise for the company exploded this month as customers took to Twitter to share the massive discounts Cost Plus Drugs offered on their medications. One user tweeted, “so one of my medications is $990/mo for 9 pills… with insurance… Mark Cuban’s new company @costplusdrugs has it for $3.90/pill.” Another person wrote, “My monthly generic meds would be less than half the price of what my insurance charges me,” saying that Cuban’s company “could be a game changer.” Even Kim Kardashian shared her excitement for the company, writing that “everyone should be able to purchase the life saving medications they need at affordable prices!”

Why hasn’t this model been done successfully before? “I don’t believe it’s too simplistic to say that the answer is ‘greed,'” says Lucia Mueller, the vice president of operations and communications at PharmacyChecker, an organization that helps patients find affordable medication. “If your desire is to center profit instead of health outcomes, the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries have spent decades putting on a masterclass.”

Cuban himself notes that Cost Plus Drugs isn’t the first company to try this approach, but it is the first to succeed: “Entrepreneurs like myself will build up the companies, the equivalent of a costplusdrugs.com. And then…the five big pharmacy benefit managers or the big insurance companies, they’ll buy them.”

Last week, a new study from the Annals of Internal Medicine estimated that if Medicare Part D plans had purchased generic drugs from Cuban’s company, Medicare could have saved $3.6 billion in 2020.

The study compared expenses on 89 generic drugs and found that 77 of the drugs were cheaper to purchase at Cost Plus Drugs. The authors wrote that their “findings suggest that Medicare is overpaying for many generic drugs.” They add that “generic drug competition is a major source of prescription drug savings in the United States, but the lower prices from a direct-to-consumer model highlight inefficiencies in the existing generic pharmaceutical distribution and reimbursement system.”

Cuban has been vocal on Twitter about the study, asking President Joe Biden and other political leaders to “have your people call my people and let’s get this done.” However, as exciting as reducing Medicare’s budget sounds, progress on the issue seems unlikely. Legislative solutions to the high price of prescription drugs have often been slow-moving and stalled by partisan bickering. 

According to Cuban, political inefficiency was a major driver in the creation of Cost Plus Drugs. “It was obvious there was not going to be a political solution,” he told PBS News Weekend. “And even the attempts that are being discussed don’t really get to the heart of the problem, setting a price or doing a discount against other prices. All these numbers work from artificially set retail and wholesale prices.“

With government action on affordable health care patchy at best—despite massive spending—Cuban has used a simple idea to provide life-saving, truly affordable drugs to millions. “That people have to choose between eating, you know, their rent, and taking their medications or buying their medications in United States of America and 2022. It’s just wrong,” he said. “I’ve been incredibly blessed in that my next dollar is not going to change my life. But my ability to invest in costplusdrugs.com is an ability to change millions of lives in this country, if not tens of millions over the next two years.”

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