It's not a defense against universal healthcare. Rather, it points out that the mechanism for universal healthcare _might_ have to just be taxes or state-owned

It's not a defense against universal healthcare. Rather, it points out that the mechanism for universal healthcare _might_ have to just be taxes or state-owned R&D rather than legislating that drugs have to be cheap. > Altruistic enough to... There's no altruism involved. US consumers are willing to pay those prices (inelastic demand), and companies are able to charge them (lack of competition, legal barriers). Predicated on that fact, marginally it's also profitable to manufacture for other countries as well, but if the rest of the world didn't exist you'd still expect to see the current behavior.