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And who is going to be in charge of them? Will they not become corrupt? That's a rhetorical question, of course. When they do get corrupt what do we do, since

And who is going to be in charge of them? Will they not become corrupt? That's a rhetorical question, of course. When they do get corrupt what do we do, since it's the same guys with the guns and court houses?

robotresearcher 11y ago
Is there clean drinking water in your house? Did you pay insane amounts for it? Do you live in fear of oppression by the water company? There are some very messed-up public works, but most of the time it works pretty well.
- mason240 11y ago
  I'm not trying to be rude, but I can't fathom how you can think running a public utility like water treatment and capital intensive research and development are in anyway comparable to each other.
  - robotresearcher 11y ago
    Water works represent an enormous public investment in R&D over hundreds of years. They didn't and don't invent themselves. It's an engineering triumph that they feel so routine.
    - dlss 11y ago
      To return this to drug companies, what you are suggesting is a nationalized manufacturing of drugs, not a nationalized R&D of drugs. FWIW unlike 90% of this thread, this suggestion doesn't sound insane to me. We could look at the number of people with a disease, and the QALY swing caused by the treatment, and then pay the team which designed the drug for the patent for (expected number of treatments) * (expected gains in QALYs). This would allow the drugs to be any price the government liked once created, but still convince financially motivated smart people to work in medicine. Bonus points if the solution included ever-rising-prices for long untreated diseases (kind of like an auction).
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Water treatment is private where I am. Some places in the country it's (still) government ruled. They are on a regimen every other month it seems. Also the streets turn into rivers when it rains heavily. Oh... and their bills are higher too.

robotresearcher 11y ago

Is there clean drinking water in your house? Did you pay insane amounts for it? Do you live in fear of oppression by the water company? There are some very messed-up public works, but most of the time it works pretty well.

mason240 11y ago
I'm not trying to be rude, but I can't fathom how you can think running a public utility like water treatment and capital intensive research and development are in anyway comparable to each other.
- robotresearcher 11y ago
  Water works represent an enormous public investment in R&D over hundreds of years. They didn't and don't invent themselves. It's an engineering triumph that they feel so routine.
  - dlss 11y ago
    To return this to drug companies, what you are suggesting is a nationalized manufacturing of drugs, not a nationalized R&D of drugs. FWIW unlike 90% of this thread, this suggestion doesn't sound insane to me. We could look at the number of people with a disease, and the QALY swing caused by the treatment, and then pay the team which designed the drug for the patent for (expected number of treatments) * (expected gains in QALYs). This would allow the drugs to be any price the government liked once created, but still convince financially motivated smart people to work in medicine. Bonus points if the solution included ever-rising-prices for long untreated diseases (kind of like an auction).
blumkvist 11y ago
Water treatment is private where I am. Some places in the country it's (still) government ruled. They are on a regimen every other month it seems. Also the streets turn into rivers when it rains heavily. Oh... and their bills are higher too.