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Comment by H12 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's fair to characerize this as a symptom of the emplyment/insurance/hospital loop outlined in issue #1 of the original comment.

That relationship between those three parties is the root cause of the messed up incentive model responsible for the ridiculously high costs of all products/services in US healthcare; pharma included.

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The true root cause of high pharmaceutical costs in the United States is our competition crushing patent system. If we eliminate patents, we open up the market completely to competition. More competition will bring extremely low prices. Innovation will not be harmed as most innovation is done in universities and is government funded, in the private innovation will happen anyways as the first mover advantage in these markets is huge.

it’s been a long while but i remember it takes ~15 years and 500 million to push a major drug through fda testing. The argument was who would do that if a competitor could just copy it at the end? has that situation changed? What other changes would need to be included with removing patents to alleviate that issue. genuine question, even 10 or more years since i read up on this.

Pharma regulators in many countries recognize testing done by selected other countries. It's called "mutual recognition" in the lingo.

Do we really need the FDA? What if we created a agency that simply does independent testing but leaves it up to the consumer to make their own choices?

How does the Oxycontin debacle fit into your theory here?

can't end worse than it did in our current system

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