Is the answer "negroes"? It must be. It always is.

OK, lets break it down for the slow members of the class.  When a pharmacist compounds each dose individually, the cost is $20.  When the FDA grants a monopoly to a pharmaceutical giant, the price jumps to $1500 per dose, even though the process for producing the drug is now automated and should be cheaper.  The insurance companies (or since Gray decided to make this a racial issue, the taxpayers picking up the healthcare tab for uninsured negroes) wind up paying for this, and everybody’s premiums and taxes go up because of this outrageous profiteering.  This is just one example of why healthcare costs in America are out of control.  Whether it’s the nice rich White lady with insurance who needs this drug, or the welfare kneegress crack whore, you the taxpayer and/or policy holder will end up giving the money to the shareholders of the company who have the monopoly.

fnord wrote:

OK, lets break it down for the slow members of the class.  When a pharmacist compounds each dose individually, the cost is $20.  When the FDA grants a monopoly to a pharmaceutical giant, the price jumps to $1500 per dose, even though the process for producing the drug is now automated and should be cheaper.  The insurance companies (or since Gray decided to make this a racial issue, the taxpayers picking up the healthcare tab for uninsured negroes) wind up paying for this, and everybody’s premiums and taxes go up because of this outrageous profiteering.  This is just one example of why healthcare costs in America are out of control.  Whether it’s the nice rich White lady with insurance who needs this drug, or the welfare kneegress crack whore, you the taxpayer and/or policy holder will end up giving the money to the shareholders of the company who have the monopoly.

I'll agree with Fnord on this one here.  This is what happens when government gets involved in capitalism which is just as bad as when government gets involved in communism.  Both capitalism and communism are perfectly fine systems (though I feel capitalism is a far more efficient system).  Our medical industry has been hijacked for years by special interest groups and lobbyists that use legislation, licensing and trademark laws to screw us over.  The reality is that people are self-interested creatures and that will never change.  As long as we have a system that allows people to enforce a monopoly of services over others at the point of a gun this will continue.  My mom is currently on Tasigna for her leukemia and they are getting her for $9,000 a month.  How can they justify that price?  It seems that Novartis has claimed intellectual property rights on their product to quash any competition.