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Well, the idea of excluding pharmacy market from classical economic rules isn't that bad and impossible at all. We do already have excluded army, police and in

Well, the idea of excluding pharmacy market from classical economic rules isn't that bad and impossible at all. We do already have excluded army, police and in many countries educational systems and entire healthcare systems. We all agreed to take common responsibility and bill for those in taxes, as we find it so crucial for our societes. It is enough to find same for pharma market and go further, find it not nation level crucial, but world level crucial. If just most of the countries would participate in it then there could be enormous funding.

simonh 5y ago
I live in the UK and we operate exactly this model in our health service, it's funded by the tax payer just like the army and police, and purchases equipment and supplies from private suppliers just as the army and police do. Those suppliers include the pharma companies, just as the military procure weapons from defence manufacturers. Some of those wea[ons are based on tech development part funded by the defence department, and some drug development is part funded by the state, such as the Oxford jab. Even in the US the government bought the vaccines from private companies, just like the army buys from Lockheed, Boeing, etc. Nothing you described is an alternative, it's actually how it already works in most of the world. I genuinely don't understand, what is it about what you're proposing that's different?
- danielEM 5y ago
  Well, you got my entire message wrong. But I get it, some things seems to be just granted. Let me explain you that I'm not talking about private suppliers of army or police. I'm talking for services that army and/or police serves itself for you (hope you get that difference that armory without army is actually worth nothing). You might think it is for free, granted or so. Nope. You receive a bill for these services in your taxes. So this isn't about what army and police outsource to private companies. Army and police are itself a kind of "gov owned companies" that serves you and that get paid for it's services and it works well enough so we don't need to go for private police and private armies and pay for it every month with your credit card ;-) Hope now you get the point. If you see any problem that would make it impossible to work same with pharma let me know. So far I think it is more than possible and if established on world level could bring even more benefits, opposite to when it is left just to private companies. I'm from Poland, we have dual healthcare system here. Public and private. And here is a thing: private healthcare can do anything that public can, no limitations, but apparently private services are focused only in certain areas of healthcare - these areas which brings most profits, not these that saves most life. That is natural for business. I don't blame anyone, I'm just saying that free market doesn't work well in this area as it won't for police or army. Free market is good for mobile phones, cars and so on, but when it comes to general health or your safety I don't think it is the most optimal way to push progress or spent your $$$.
  - simonh 5y ago
    >Free market is good for mobile phones, cars and so on, but when it comes to general health or your safety I don't think it is the most optimal way to push progress or spent your $$$. Pharma is product development, manufacturing, sales and distribution. Bear in mind nationalised pharma would want to sell their products abroad even if they are free at home, so you'd still need marketing and sales operations. That's all much more like a nationalised mobile phone or car maker than it is like a service organisation such as the police or health care.
    - danielEM 5y ago
      If it was up to me the product development and designing sample manufacturing lines I would leave to some sort of world pharma organization that should have set a participation budget related to GDP or other similar factor (thus also poor countries would be able to afford such an participation and benefit from it). All the data and information produced by such an organization should be free to any participant countries. The rest could be up to participating countries itself (eg. production licenses given for free to a company offering lowest end price of final medicine). Marketing? Viagra drugs maybe need it ;-) But I would be scared of medicine doctor prescribing me a drug for cancer based on advertisement he saw somewhere :-D (they do actually have a databases of drugs and they just browse it if case is a bit more unusual and requires unusual drug)
      - simonh 5y ago
        So a manufacturing organisation run by committees of international bureaucrats. I struggle to imagine anything more likely to fail utterly. You were absolutely right when you said the free market is best at cars and phones and such. But that’s exactly what pharma is, it’s the same sort of thing at the general level. Capital intensive product development and manufacturing. It it did an incredible job last year, not once or twice, but a dozen times on multiple vaccine programmes. Name one successful international government run manufacturing operation.
        5y ago

simonh 5y ago

I live in the UK and we operate exactly this model in our health service, it's funded by the tax payer just like the army and police, and purchases equipment and supplies from private suppliers just as the army and police do. Those suppliers include the pharma companies, just as the military procure weapons from defence manufacturers. Some of those wea[ons are based on tech development part funded by the defence department, and some drug development is part funded by the state, such as the Oxford jab. Even in the US the government bought the vaccines from private companies, just like the army buys from Lockheed, Boeing, etc. Nothing you described is an alternative, it's actually how it already works in most of the world. I genuinely don't understand, what is it about what you're proposing that's different?

danielEM 5y ago
Well, you got my entire message wrong. But I get it, some things seems to be just granted. Let me explain you that I'm not talking about private suppliers of army or police. I'm talking for services that army and/or police serves itself for you (hope you get that difference that armory without army is actually worth nothing). You might think it is for free, granted or so. Nope. You receive a bill for these services in your taxes. So this isn't about what army and police outsource to private companies. Army and police are itself a kind of "gov owned companies" that serves you and that get paid for it's services and it works well enough so we don't need to go for private police and private armies and pay for it every month with your credit card ;-) Hope now you get the point. If you see any problem that would make it impossible to work same with pharma let me know. So far I think it is more than possible and if established on world level could bring even more benefits, opposite to when it is left just to private companies. I'm from Poland, we have dual healthcare system here. Public and private. And here is a thing: private healthcare can do anything that public can, no limitations, but apparently private services are focused only in certain areas of healthcare - these areas which brings most profits, not these that saves most life. That is natural for business. I don't blame anyone, I'm just saying that free market doesn't work well in this area as it won't for police or army. Free market is good for mobile phones, cars and so on, but when it comes to general health or your safety I don't think it is the most optimal way to push progress or spent your $$$.
- simonh 5y ago
  >Free market is good for mobile phones, cars and so on, but when it comes to general health or your safety I don't think it is the most optimal way to push progress or spent your $$$. Pharma is product development, manufacturing, sales and distribution. Bear in mind nationalised pharma would want to sell their products abroad even if they are free at home, so you'd still need marketing and sales operations. That's all much more like a nationalised mobile phone or car maker than it is like a service organisation such as the police or health care.
  - danielEM 5y ago
    If it was up to me the product development and designing sample manufacturing lines I would leave to some sort of world pharma organization that should have set a participation budget related to GDP or other similar factor (thus also poor countries would be able to afford such an participation and benefit from it). All the data and information produced by such an organization should be free to any participant countries. The rest could be up to participating countries itself (eg. production licenses given for free to a company offering lowest end price of final medicine). Marketing? Viagra drugs maybe need it ;-) But I would be scared of medicine doctor prescribing me a drug for cancer based on advertisement he saw somewhere :-D (they do actually have a databases of drugs and they just browse it if case is a bit more unusual and requires unusual drug)
    - simonh 5y ago
      So a manufacturing organisation run by committees of international bureaucrats. I struggle to imagine anything more likely to fail utterly. You were absolutely right when you said the free market is best at cars and phones and such. But that’s exactly what pharma is, it’s the same sort of thing at the general level. Capital intensive product development and manufacturing. It it did an incredible job last year, not once or twice, but a dozen times on multiple vaccine programmes. Name one successful international government run manufacturing operation.
      - 5y ago