Health care costs are going higher and higher. So are taxes to pay for the growing number of people who are on Medicare. With the Baby-boomer effect, more and more burden will be placed on the tax payers to cover the medical costs. And a large portion of this cost comes from prescription drugs.

I propose this: Take some of the mutli-billion (trillions?) dollars of social security, medicare tax money and buy controlling interest (lots and lots of stocks) in the biggest drug makers. Once you have control of the company, any drugs that comes out of the companies research lab will immediately be "generic" so the cost will be many times cheaper. This will have two effects. 1) Drugs will be cheaper and Medicare can spend less money on drugs therefore lowering the tax burden. 2) Any profits/dividends made by the companies will be turned back to the social security and medicare funds.

Surely insurance companies can do the same thing too.
-- JohnnyOla, Jun 06 2003

Medicare already dictates the price it will pay for medicine and medical services.
-- DrCurry, Jun 06 2003


Once Medicare has a controlling interest in a drug company that company will probably become another government agency and all innovation will stop.

Also, the main contribution of drug companies to a new development is often the effort to get FDA approval. Most scientific information comes for (nearly) free from universities.

Since the FDA is already a government agency Medicare should talk to them first to get the approval process streamlined. That could save a few billion $$$ and labrats a year.
-- kbecker, Jun 06 2003


Why not simply repeal all so-called "Intellectual Property Rights" protection laws. That way anyone can make generic varieties.
-- Great Satan, Jun 07 2003



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