[cjhopman]

This is actually pretty much the dumbest argument if you take just a moment to think about it.

Imagine some drug that costs $100 million to develop and that the most it can earn in the market is $70 million at a price of $1000. Okay, but then the government thinks it's really important to provide, so it's going to subsidize the development to the tune of $40 million. The drug company could then spend $60 million for development and earn $70 million. Over the typical drug development and sales lifetime, that's actually a quite mediocre return, but let's not worry about that.

But wait, the government paid 40% of the development cost. Why the fuck should that company be able to charge $1000, they should only be able to charge 60% of that, they should charge $600. Well, then they are fucked because they are right back at the same equation for whether it is profitable to work on that drug.

In general, with a moment's thought, any intelligent person will realize that expecting discounts on products based on how much the development was subsidized by the government completely obviates the entire point of subsidies.