I had an interesting thought about the role of government, and in my thinking of this, I wandered over to thoughts about its role in medicine. And so, I did a quick Google search: “how do pharmaceutical companies make money?”
Here is the site at the top of the hit results:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/truth-about-drug-companies
One hand we have conservatives, who say that the role of the government is to stay the heck out of socialized programs (healthcare) because it is anti-capitalism, or "anti-free market." However, I find a contradiction here, which is partly the same point that the Mother Jones article makes: The same industries, as well as their constituents, who are crying foul about government intervention in medicine want the government to protect them by keeping cheaper medicine out of the country and by supporting longer waiting periods before generic drugs can compete (in a free-market system).
And isn’t it odd that the argument is because of the cost of the research is costly, which is subsidized by a socialist structure (yes, the US government - see motherjones.com article above)? If the government gets out of funding altogether how much more sympathy will the drug companies request?
