[geeks] Drug prices [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro]

[Micah R Ledbetter]

On May 23, 2008, at 13:02, der Mouse wrote:

> One model that strikes me as at
> least plausible is to nationalize drug research and development, to  
> pay
> for it with tax dollars and not restrict the results with anything  
> like
> patents.  The anti-socialism crowd would scream, of course, if such a
> thing were to be tried in (eg) the USA, but somewhere more heavily
> socialized might find something of the sort appropriate.  (I don't  
> know
> whether anyone has tried it; I can't recall hearing of any.)

Interestingly, this is one of the tenets of the Pirate Party: <http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical_patents 
 >.

In essence, they argue that since the money is going directly from the  
government to the drug companies in the vast majority of cases (due to  
government-paid healthcare, if I infer correctly) /anyway/, they might  
as well pay those companies directly and abolish patents, to  
everyone's benefit.

  - Micah