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Comment by ahoy | Hacker News Reader

Especially when lives are at stake! Market capitalism is probably fine for coffee shops, less so for insulin pumps.

The part of medicine that's often overlooked is the creation of new medicine. Usually the discussion goes along the lines of "we can make pill X for $0.1 each, but these greedy pharmaceutical companies just want profits". But what they're missing is that without those pharmaceutical companies we probably would have far fewer treatments/drugs in the first place. Doctors and labs need money to run. Investors help with that. If you chase investors out then less research will be done. You won't feel it immediately but after a decade or two it will catch up with us.

> If you chase investors out then less research will be done. You won't feel it immediately but after a decade or two it will catch up with us.

I don't think you'll feel it... BUT, if we keep investing in drug research we'll feel it :)

You don't have to look far to fine an article like "Cancer Statistics Report: Death Rate Down 23% in 21 Years"

I'm not sure we'll notice if the improvements don't keep coming, but we will notice if the improvements keep coming :)

Today, we're keenly aware how HIV isn't a death sentence anymore.

Can you name a country where the latest technology is developed by the gov't? Even in the highly socialist systems of Europe they rely on private companies to develop products.

> Can you name a country where the latest technology is developed by the gov't? Even in the highly socialist systems of Europe they rely on private companies to develop products.

And if you look at the actual financial statements, those private companies in Europe rely disproportionately on sales in the US market to fund their operations.

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