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Comment by remotecool | Hacker News Reader

I don't look forward to this day.

What many people don't realize is that the majority of new medicine is patented and created in the US. Once it's released, governments that have socialized health care create generics and get around these costs, mostly because they don't have to put any money into R&D.

The world of medicine will be in trouble without our system, because govetnments are really not that good at innovation.

Socialized medicine is great for simple checkups, but breaks down as you get older and need major surgery.

I really don't want the government making these life or death decisions.

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So you prefer that private for profit companies make the life and death decisions for you. Interesting. In my experience, they are much more likely to kill you by denying coverage as, unlike the government, they have every incentive to do so (profit) and no incentive not to. This is what's happening right now. It happened to someone very close to me and believe me, if you or a loved one end up in that situation, you'll regret it dearly when you or them die due to some corporation that will use that money to pay a CEO to buy a new Lamborghini rather than saving your life or the life of a loved one. You clearly have no idea what kind of immoral system you're defending.

>The world of medicine will be in trouble without our system, because govetnments are really not that good at innovation.

Medicine is not like building a factory, completely different capital model for Medicine is about "discovery" there is a universal truth out there (yes there is differences in genes not making it perfectly universal) , and advances in medicine is figuring out this discovery.

It actually appears most of our medicine discoveries use basic research that is governmentally funded and not privately funded.

Pretty much you are applying top down ideology that government is bad no matter the situation or context.

I`m applying top down ideology because I've never seen a socialized government industry out-compete any private pharma company by coming up with new/innovative medicine.

The reason is because you need to risk lots of money for R&D well beyond "basic research" and historically, governments arent nearly efficient enough to accomplish this.

Private industry/the free market is the perfect way to do this and historically has proven itself over and over again.

Another problem is that FDA approval takes over a decade and many billions of dollars. We need to find a way to improve this, without sacrificing quality.

A couple of good examples of the free market working in the free market is LASIK eye surgery. 20 years ago it was thousands of dollars. Competition brought it down to less than $500.

You don't get this natural competition with the government monopolizing healthcare and price fixing.

We all win with more competition, and government-run healthcare is the exact opposite of this.

If we all win with more competition, why do so many people have to declare bankruptcy in the US from medical bills? Why are millions of people uninsured or underinsured? Why are prices so high for medical services in the US vs other first world countries with universal healthcare, while outcomes are worse?

"Socialized medicine is great for simple checkups, but breaks down as you get older and need major surgery"

That's a very odd statement - at least in the US - because health care for the elderly is paid for through Medicare. It's done that way because the elderly are more-or-less uninsurable due to the high costs of providing care. In other words, the US's free-market-style health care only works for the elderly because it's socialized.

Private insurance makes those decisions already (care rationing), as does the government when you’re on Medicare (government run healthcare with very high approval ratings from those on it [per Gallup and AARP]).

You’re hand wringing over a system that is already here, and your fears are unfounded. If you want more drug R&D, up the funding for the National Institute of Health; it’s then publicly owned, and you’ve cut out yet another middleman (drug companies).

> Socialized medicine is great for simple checkups, but breaks down as you get older and need major surgery

I'm going to have to ask for a source on this, it sounds like BS.

> I really don't want the government making these life or death decisions

I really don't want for-profit private corporations making these life or death decisions. History has shown that when corporations get to choose between life and profits, they choose profits.

Trying to make this into an IP issue is bizarre. Most new, patented drugs are "me too" drugs that are just sufficiently different from existing drugs to achieve the patent. Doesn't cost much in R&D. Occasionally you'll get advances here and there -- a lot of them funded by government grants, though. (Not sure if you want to count that as government innovation, when they're not government employees, or just government-funded innovation.)

The biggest costs in bringing a new drug to the market aren't in R&D, but in gaining the FDA's approval (which is similarly arduous even in the "me too" drug cases) and in advertising. Here, a small snapshot of just one segment of the health industry: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/22/the-apa-meeting-a-phot...

Patent fees?

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