-I agree this is a problem, and I wouldn’t favor any universal health-care system that didn’t address it in a proper manner. One option is to simply award money to companies based on how many lives their drugs save, or how much function they restore in cases of debiliating rather than fatal conditions, along with some type of eventually drop off in payments for each individual treatment to simulate patents expiring and generic copies entering the market. Of course this puts a heavy penalty on things like Viagra or anti-depressants where the benefit is harder to measure, but perhaps the universal healthcare system should only cover serious physical ailments and leave things like Viagra and anti-depressants to the free market.

“Pharmaceutical companies that enjoy the rights to exclusively sell a drug do not have to under produce to increase revenue. They simply charge more money because the state has granted them a monopoly on production.”

-As you well know, under-protection and higher prices are essentially the same thing, since they don’t produce more than they can sell and higher prices mean fewer people can buy them.

“The exorbitant price reflects the high cost of research and development of the drug… Plus the company needs to turn a profit.”

-I agree, that’s why I said that these companies should make the same amount as they do now under the new system.

“You know what won’t eliminate the middle man from health care? State sponsored health care.”

I really don’t agree with you on this. yes some parts of our government have devolved into over-fed beauracracies, but many parts have not. In particular, the fact that health care would be universal means that very little record-keeping should be needed- after all, the majority of the paperwork in any hospital today is who is on what insurance, whether the insurance comapny will or won’t cover a procedure, how much they will ccover and who pays for the rest, etc etc etc. If patients just walk in, get treatment, and walk out, i really can’t imagine that there will be as much beauracratic overhead as there is right now.

“You sound like an idiot stating that no matter what the condition the insurance companies will refuse to treat Ana for the rest of her entire life.”

-Read what I actually said- that she could never get health insurance again, meaning she could never afford the huge premiums they would charge her for entering with a pre-existing condition.

“Fortunately people like you are free to set up a charitable foundation.”

-We’ve argued about charities plenty before. I don’t want things to be run that way, I don’t think cahrities work because the person receiving the benefit isn’t the person paying for it, which violates teh assumptions of the free market, etc.

“It seems wise that insurance companies raise rates when one gets themselves checked for HIV.”

-Of course this makes sense in the current system. However, it makes economic sense for the companies- it makes absolutely no sense from a public-health perspective, as it discourages people from getting tested and seeking early treatment. As I meant it to, this illustrates how the current system DOES NOT encourage public health (which I HOPE we can agree should be the primary goal of a health-care system).