Comment by lenkite
7 hours ago
The U.S taxpayer already pays for this. ~40% of FDA-approved drugs have direct NIH funding behind them. Nearly all modern drugs rely on NIH-funded foundational science. Taxpayer money additionally also floats through BARDA, DOD and DARPA.
COVID mRNA vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna) got billions in public funding. Yet, patents usually belong to the private company and prices are not capped as a condition of public funding. It is gross corruption begging for heads to be put on pikes.
Correct, people should be asking their federal politician why the US federal government is not spending the few billion dollars on drug trials to avoid having to pay extra to pharmaceutical companies.
But instead, people rail at health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and others who can’t or won’t make a difference.
> But instead, people rail at health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and others who can’t or won’t make a difference.
Because this is the Corrupt Evil Nexus that continues to ensure that taxpayer funds and exclusive patents keep flowing to them, while keeping prices high. They buy political power via campaign financing by the bucketload and the congressman/woman changes their vote to kill/oppose bills that would make a difference. You can find dozens of examples. Do your own research. As an example, take a look at the voting for the bill to permit Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Look at who received bribes and from whom to vote "No".
Which bill are you referring to? The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed with a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
(Although it is, of course, true that having special drug rates for Medicare trends against rather than towards "clear and consistent pricing".)
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