[danielweber]

Perhaps they should be different, but people get most upset about the awesome drugs that cure things completely being under patent for so long. They don't care about that antacid drug so much. You would find yourself very short on allies with your proposal.

All the money going towards marketing would instead go towards lobbying, towards getting the government agency in charge of deciding "what really counts" for deciding that this drug should be one of them. When the US government was looking at how to create incentives for invention, they did look at rewards systems, and this was the common problem. Using the market system, for all its faults and ways it could be improved, at least sends proper price signals to producers and consumers.

[cmdrfred]

You are probably right. We might have to accept less innovation in order to make the products affordable.

[danielweber]

We are being asked to make the same hard decisions that each generation before us has made. And we are doing it while being far richer and having a greater repository of knowledge than them. Something's wrong with us if we quit where they preserved in worse conditions.

[grasshopperpurp]

WHO is far richer, and WHO should pay for it? Are we fine with these companies spending 1/4 of their combined profits and marketing on R & D, as J&J does? At best, this is a remarkably inefficient way to drive innovation.

The largest 10 pharmaceutical companies spent a combined $32.5B more on sales and marketing than R & D. No problem here? People are skipping dosing to stretch their meds further. Some people can't afford meds at all.