7 ms·

Yeah, I agree that the incentive structure is inverted, but 1) if the government simply buys whatever rate Mylan sets, there can be no "market rate", because th

Yeah, I agree that the incentive structure is inverted, but 1) if the government simply buys whatever rate Mylan sets, there can be no "market rate", because the market can then bear anything at all, and 2) we have had a successful (now underfunded) model for getting smart people to innovate -- by funding projects through NSF, ARPA, and the NIH. There is room to allow Mylan to make a profit, but there is little evidence that they are reinvesting these profits in beneficial work, or attracting research talent for potentially useful projects. Spending government dollars on Mylan's ridiculous prices seems unhelpful when we have proven programs for spending government dollars much more effectively (and again, if you simply don't subsidize these prices, kids die).

rayiner 10y ago
> we have had a successful (now underfunded) model for getting smart people to innovate -- by funding projects through NSF, ARPA, and the NIH. You're cutting out a huge number of top-flight people if you limit the field to those happy making GS scale or whatever you can justify as a government contractor (which isn't much better). My brother is a recent graduate of an Ivy. Tons of his classmates (who majored in hard science fields, not economics or finance) went to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. It's the rational thing to do. You can go to Netflix and make $300k as a twenty something figuring out how to efficiently deliver the new Voltron remake to viewers, or you can get your PhD in biochemistry, making $40k for years as a post doc before topping out at $150k at NIH. It's a no-brainer.