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Comment by goodpoint

3 years ago

> What should it cost instead?

To patients? It should be free.

To society? The initial research cost plus the bare manufacturing cost.

> To patients? It should be free.

Someone has to pay. Who pays?

> To society? The initial research cost plus the bare manufacturing cost.

And we're back to a society which is poorer in terms of both health and wealth.

  • Ah yes, a society with low cost medicines and a healthy research investment - definitely a recipe for low wealth and health. /s

    • I also dream of utopia but when I wake up I have to supply the logic that fills in the gaps else it remains a dream.

      If you remove the profit motive then investment falls, new medicines become less likely and lesser in number, and medicines remain higher in cost due to lack of pressure (competition from new drugs, competition from new entrants, new techniques etc).

      Altruism, necessary as it is, does not fill that void alone, and it certainly won't be filled by hoping government makes everything "free".

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