[Broken_Hippo]

Which is fine, honestly. I don't actually pay money for either of those (Obviously I pay with data and things). They also aren't something that is going to save my life in the same way as insulin does for a diabetic or an epi pen does for those allergic enough to need one.

I don't actually care what percentage profit the drug companies make so long as the end user can both access the medication and clearly afford to pay for them.

[rayiner]

> They also aren't something that is going to save my life in the same way as insulin does for a diabetic or an epi pen does for those allergic enough to need one.

Which is more reason for those companies to be profitable, not less. The bright kid choosing between making $200k straight out of college peddling advertising or entertainment and making that much mid-career with a bio-chem PhD is willing to take a little bit of a haircut to work on socially-valuable things, but probably not that much of one.

> I don't actually care what percentage profit the drug companies make so long as the end user can both access the medication and clearly afford to pay for them.

That's a failure of the government's healthcare programs, not drug companies' pricing methods.

[Broken_Hippo]

I'd agree they should be more profitable, but like most things, profit doesn't follow good works.

The point was more that it doesn't matter that entertainment companies make a higher profit because that profit doesn't generally put folks lives in danger. Unless the government reorganizing health care to provide more straightforward profits, upping the profits hurts folks because they are more likely to feel the increase. Hence the last statement: The important part is that the end folks get access.

And you are right, that is the government's fault. It isn't just healthcare programs, however. They could go different routes to reimburse drug companies for r&d costs, for example. Sure, the money would still come from taxes, but hopefully(!) it'd be more transparent with some of these things.

[panabee]

while i sympathize with the implication that facebook and google are not socially valuable, it's important to note that those advertising engineers help finance free worldwide communication, self-driving cars, and smartphones.