[toomuchtodo]

Medicare dictating a price sounds fine. Gravy train is ending (pharma dictating the price) and pharma is in shambles.

I’d like the Times and the media in general to start reporting the names of the individuals participating in these efforts, instead of faceless corporations.

[willio58]

Agreed. Recently we’ve seen some multi-million/billionaires called out specifically for saying horrific things about their workers striking and it’s great. When you hoard so much wealth I honestly don’t know how it could be argued you should have privacy. We should have public accounting of their goings on, they’re sometimes more influential than our presidents.

[miley_cyrus]

How about we dictate a price on whatever industry you happen to be in? Maybe your product cost billions of dollars to develop, but how about we force you to sell it to everyone for peanuts?

There is no logical reason that pharma should be on the receiving end of all this hate. Especially considering that their job is literally to save lives.

[toomuchtodo]

> How about we dictate a price on whatever industry you happen to be in? Maybe your product cost billions of dollars to develop, but how about we force you to sell it to everyone for peanuts?

If I work in an industry where human life depends on it, yes! I entirely agree. This is not a market to corner, regardless of your innovation and how clever you are.

> Especially considering that their job is literally to save lives.

Positive contributions must not lead to “these people can hold those who have medical needs economically hostage.” Don’t like the deal, get out of pharma and let other people (operating under a different ideology on the topic) build.

https://time.com/6257866/big-pharma-patent-abuse-drug-pricin...

> Today, 1 in 4 Americans cannot afford to take their medications as prescribed. Too many seniors are having to ration their treatments to get by until their next social security check arrives. And contrary to what industry lobbyists argue, soaring drug prices are not the inevitable result of research and development costs to bring breakthrough drugs to market. It’s time to put this widely debunked excuse to bed.

https://www.i-mak.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Overpatente...

[BurningFrog]

The point is that if pharmaceutical research is made unprofitable, that doesn't mean "other people" will do it.

It means no one will do that work.

[toomuchtodo]

Roads are profitable? Non profits are profitable? There is an enormous amount of valuable work done in aggregate, every day, funded without the intent to profit and with work performed by people not maximizing for comp.

DARPA's mRNA research that directly led to rapid COVID vaccine development comes to mind. Cut out the middleman. Fund the research directly. We're paying for the end result one way or another (if not with direct government payment, with government payment to companies who are then taking profit, spending marketing/admin expenses, etc).

You make it sound as if nothing will get done if poor corporations can't lock medical tech up behind economic gates. We can always go back to ruthless capitalism if pharma price controls don’t work.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8426978/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

[BurningFrog]

I'm not aware of anyone except for profit corporations getting drugs FDA approved.

Hoping that such actors would appear when needed seems optimistic.

[hackeraccount]

If I don't have a house I can't live.

If I don't have food I can't live.

There are any number of industries that people need to live. You really want Donald Trump (or someone just as crazy) dictating what the prices are for those industries?

[mistrial9]

There is no logical reason that pharma should be on the receiving end of all this .. "windfall profit" ..

Especially considering that their job is literally .. "preserved by natural monopoly and law, forever"