Hacker News Reader

I would be interested to see how the output of drug companies change after they are nationalised. Like would they focus on simple solutions that solve problems (rather than expensive solutions that hide problems)? And would they struggle at being yet another public service with a huge budget to be cut. Will their best staff move abroad for better salaries? Stuff like that.

View on HN

I suspect surgery can give us some interesting insights here.

My understanding is that surgery research mostly takes place at university hospitals. I think that, outside medical devices, there isn't the same kind of non-practising science industry behind surgery research - it's all done by surgeons at research hospitals.

Research hospitals tend to be university hospitals and outside (and even inside) the US, university hospitals tend to be loosely government controlled.

So if we want to know what state controlled medical research could look like, I guess we just look to surgery.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com