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Imagine that incentive for R&D. “If you invest hundreds of millions and it turns out to be life changing, we’re going to seize it”
by refurb 1y ago
Imagine that incentive for R&D.
“If you invest hundreds of millions and it turns out to be life changing, we’re going to seize it”
- int_19h 1y agoEminent domain implies fair compensation. The point is that you don't get to withhold the drug from people to maximize profits.
- loeg 1y agoWouldn't fair compensation more or less be equivalent to medicaid paying for the drug? And if so, why eminent domain it?
- int_19h 1y agoNo. Fair compensation means that the company doesn't end up with a loss, and gets rewarded, but it doesn't mean "give them as much money as they could otherwise extract by exploiting the monopoly that the patent gives them on the market".
- loeg 1y agoDoesn't seem fair to me.
- int_19h 1y agoAnd withholding access to drugs that would extend everyone's lifespan by several years to maximize profits doesn't seem fair to me either. In fact, it's outright sociopathic.
- loeg 1y agoThese drugs are covered for the people whose lifespans would be extended by having them! They pay nothing! The situations where insurers/medicaid don't want to pay are more marginal cases. And even then, it's like, 1/5 the cost of child care in a major metro and only getting cheaper. If you're going to use an extraordinary mechanism to seize private property, it better have outsized impact -- seize surface parking lots and sell them to developers to build more housing.
- jart 1y agoThe people can wait seven years for the patent to expire.
- int_19h 1y agoPatents are a form of artificial monopoly that only exists because the people (acting through their government as a representative of their will) decided to have them, and did so because they presumably are a net social benefit. Consequently, governments are not obligated to treat them as sacrosanct, and most certainly not in a case where they are not beneficial to public interests.
- jart 1y agoIt's a social contract between the people and the enlightened. The people always win on a long enough timeline. But the deal is there should be some sliver of reward for a brief window of time to those who bring permanent light into our lives.
- int_19h 1y agoThe "enlightened" are the scientists who actually developed this stuff, not the CEOs and corporate shareholders collecting economic rent from other people's hard work who pocket the vast majority of the profits. If we only had to fairly pay the people who actually did the useful work and not all the capitalist deadweight, these drugs would be orders of magnitude cheaper.
- jart 1y agoAnd you think scientists should be working for the communists instead of the capitalists? Well that's fine too. Scientists are like spoils of war. Scientists were treated well and able to do a lot of good work when they were all employed by the soviet state. Maybe not as good as the Americans did. They also seem to be doing well over in China. But just because you don't like someone or how they do business, that doesn't make them deadweight, and no I don't think you know how to get products to consumers cheaper.