A reader writes concerning the notion that going to a one-payer system might have unforeseen consequences for the development of health therapies:
A large amount (most? I’m too lazy to go research it) of pharmaceutical research is paid for by us, the taxpayer, through the government. NIH sponsors a lot of other medical research. So I don’t buy that we wouldn’t have these products, procedures and drugs if the USA didn’t allow private corporations to extort the US populace over health care. I don’t buy that at all. Costs in other nations for procedures done the world over (and most likely not invented here) is a fraction of what they cost here. There is gouging and profiteering on every level of our health care system. Every. Level.
I do not contest my reader’s point concerning basic research – but it’s also incontestable that U.S. companies spend $ billions trying to bring these therapies to market, and often fail. The lure for the businessman, which is often far different than for the researcher, is the immense profits, and those immense profits, if attained, pay for all those failed attempts.
If you can’t point at potential profits to carry the cost of your failures, who invests? It’s an interesting question. Do we then make it all a government operation and let the taxpayers cover them? In some respects, such as vaccinations and anti-venom drugs, as I’ve noted elsewhere, this may actually be a net positive for the system. But for novel therapies for maladies which have proven difficult? That conclusion isn’t nearly as clear. Unlike some, I like the idea of using a methodology of setting medical research priorities through some other method than where the biggest profits might be found – but I could be wrong. Maybe profit-dowsing is more effective.
Unforeseen consequences. It’s worth worrying about.
