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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (3365)	12/18/2007 2:52:03 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Marketing might have a higher budget than R&D, but probably not than R&D + testing and approval. If the government actually became the customer, you would not need much marketing at all. Not really true. There would be expenses associated with direct lobbying of government, as well as marketing to people to 1 - Get them to argue for approval, and 2 - Get them to want to take the drug. That last is probably the most significant, and it closely resembles the current marketing issues that drug companies face. Right now the customers often don't pay for the drugs, their insurance companies (including government insurance like Medicare) do, but the drug companies still have to market to the consumers. Do you think the US consumer should pay extra for all products to support corporate profits... or just drugs? I think that the US consumer should pay the free market price for products, not some government renegotiated for forced price. Also when the government really does negotiate a price (rather than set one by fiat) it often pays more. The tales of $500 toilet seats might exaggerate the effect, but the effect still exists.