> The alternative is that the supply of masks stay the same in the short term and long term, and the masks is randomly distributed (at best) or held in the hands of a small number of hoarders.
This is an utterly false dichotomy and a big reasons why government exists and is actually useful. Governments can do things (and compel others to do things) that don't fall in the optimal spot on the supply/demand curve. If supply is limited masks should not be "randomly" distributed, but distributing based on who can afford them is probably not any better than random in an epidemiological sense. Should the first people to get vaccinated be billionaires or health-care workers?
>If supply is limited masks should not be "randomly" distributed, but distributing based on who can afford them is probably not any better than random in an epidemiological sense.
This appears to be a shifting of the goal posts. Your original comment remarked about how "Increasing prices on preventative medicine/devices is a great way to make sure fewer people use them", however now you seem to advocate for central allocation of medical resources. If the government is in charge of allocating resources, prices would be a moot point.
This is an utterly false dichotomy and a big reasons why government exists and is actually useful. Governments can do things (and compel others to do things) that don't fall in the optimal spot on the supply/demand curve. If supply is limited masks should not be "randomly" distributed, but distributing based on who can afford them is probably not any better than random in an epidemiological sense. Should the first people to get vaccinated be billionaires or health-care workers?