Radical American conservative propaganda aside ("The government can't do anything right!"), actually, creating a nationalized pharma research and development pr

Radical American conservative propaganda aside ("The government can't do anything right!"), actually, creating a nationalized pharma research and development program is an interesting idea definitely worth considering. The public sector has shown itself to be very capable of scientific innovation (see NASA, NIH, NOAA, the Internet, the Manhattan project), and even if several tens of billions were invested in the program, it would probably even become a net positive for the government if discoveries are licensed and sold at highly reasonable prices, both giving the program direct income and reducing national healthcare spending. And, of course, the agency would be able to focus on drugs which aren't the "Take 10 pills for the rest of your life while we bill you" kind. At the very least, there needs to be better regulation of big pharma practices and prices in the US. Unfortunately, due to the lobbying power of the industry, I doubt we'd see any real solution anytime soon.