>More accurately, you are paying higher because pharma can hire congressmen and senators Corruption might exist, and I agree it should be eliminated. But the p

>More accurately, you are paying higher because pharma can hire congressmen and senators Corruption might exist, and I agree it should be eliminated. But the patent system is far, far older than this industry. And I doubt it would go away if you eliminated corruption. >>If the US market didn't pay for these drugs, they wouldn't still be cheaper in India. They likely wouldn't exist at all. >Doubt that much, its quite a strong claim and requires strong evidence. My beef is that we have never even come close to testing this hypothesis I don't think this is that controversial a claim. No one is preventing other countries from developing their own drugs, and some do. It's not like there is a finite number of chemicals or diseases that need treatment. In what way is the existence of US drug companies preventing anyone else from developing drugs? >But if huge development costs are the reason for these protections to exist, guess what, these costs will continue to remain huge. Its just self perpetuating. They have every incentive to decrease the costs wherever possible. It's just fundamentally a very expensive process. Especially if you want the very high levels of guaranteed drug safety and effectiveness that the FDA requires.