IMHO the Atlantic article does demonstrate the folly of government’s involvement in attempting to set prices or to determine how much medication should be made, which Gary, Tyrone Butler and I recognize. This is a key point you’ve missed and one that should be taken seriously, especially when the Atlantic is not a “conservative” journal.

According to those I know in the pharmaceutical industry, not all drug trials depend on federal funding from government agencies like NIH. And when they do, more money is spent by the pharmaceutical firms themselves than from money acquired via Federal funding (which is awarded primarily to those scientists and doctors involved in studies that will yield marketable drugs). Neither you nor chance nor MT – LA have replied credibly to Tyrone Butler’s observations regarding the pharmaceutical industry. May I suggest that you address his comments too, before making such demands from me?

As for my observations pertaining to Darwin and Marxism, they are on the mark. Darwin relied on Adam Smith’s thinking on free market capitalism, along with Thomas Malthus’ “Essay on Population”, in developing his Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection (As an aside, independently of Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace relied on Malthus too in developing his version of Natural Selection, but his wasn’t nearly as fully developed as Darwin’s.). So if Cobain wishes to lash out at those of us who accept the economic validity of free market capitalism, then does he want to include too, Charles Darwin? Cobain’s insipid form of reasoning is all too similar to those I have encountered from fanatical “conservative” creationists elsewhere online; whereas they belong to the loony Right, Cobain’s remarks, so pregnant in their breathtaking inanity, demonstrate that he belongs to the loony Left that’s dominated by diehard Marxist-Leninist fanatics and others of their ilk, including many, but not all, Occupy Wall Street participants.

I figured you weren’t suggesting we should scrimp on quality control. That’s why I’m asking – what barriers do you think exist that could be eliminated?

That Atlantic article you linked to was interesting, because it touched on both the problem of unintended consequences (which was your point), and the existence of an opaque, captive, essentially dishonest “market” that the government was trying to get a better look at with its refusal to pay more for drugs without proof that everyone else was paying more as well. As soon as the government stopped allowing itself to be ripped off, we got shortages. It’s difficult to interpret this situation as the government’s fault.

Cobain, whatever you think of his politics, made some very specific points about how and why the drug market is NOT a free market in any meaningful sense of the word. Your response is to ramble about Marxists and Darwin?

Can you point out which of his claims about how the drug market works you believe to wrong, and why?

Speaking of “free-market kool-aid drinkers”, one of them was none other than Charles Darwin, who was inspired by Adam Smith’s thought in conceiving of his “economy of nature”, as noted by noted skeptic Michael Shermer in his “Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design”.

As for pharmaceutical R & D, the major companies still invest a lot of their money in that.

I respectfully submit that your anti-free-market capitalism screed is replete with a lot of the irrational thought I have read that emanates from diehard, lunatic Marxist-Leninist sympathizers who claim that they are genuine Democratic Socialists. Judging from your irrational commentary that borders on hysteria, you’ve demonstrated here that you are most likely one of those sympathizers who cling stubbornly to a failed political philosophy that was soundly rejected in what is now the former Soviet-occupied portions of Europe and Central Asia.

Whether McCain should or should not have been the Republican presidential candidate is a decision that isn’t mine, but rather, those fellow Republicans who were active participants in both the primary and national campaigns.

As for causing “financial problems in the 70′s”, if you are referring to the “Keating Five” scandal – which was in the late 1980s – he was exonerated. Speaking of research, I think you need to do yours.

You do realize, I hope, that virtually all pharmaceuticals were and are developed using taxpayer money? Oh sure, drug companies spend some on R&D (although less than they do on marketing). Their R&D puts the last rung on a ladder constructed from medical research financed by government agencies like the NIH. That goes for most medical procedures as well. It’s interesting that free-marketers always fail to bring this up, since it’s a form of reverse socialism. All taxpayers contribute to medical research, but only those with health insurance can fully realize the benefits of that research. An honest free-marketer would call for the abolishment of the the NIH and all government funded medical science research, but then consistent, rational thinking isn’t a trait of free market ideologues.

In such a tightly regulated market, with some drugs there isn’t enough demand to sustain more than one manufacturer, or sometimes there is enough demand, but one manufacturer drove the others out of business and now has a monopoly on production. At least two things make it difficult for a smaller company to compete, the first is economies of scale, and the second is the cost of receiving FDA approval. There’s not much to do about the first, but we could lower the costs of testing to secure FDA approval. Would we want to? In America when someone gets prescription drugs, they can be reasonably certain they’re safe, why would we want to change that? A perfectly free market could weed out bad manufacturers, since their customers would die quickly, but most rational people don’t view that as a solution.

Given that monopolies are inevitable in the pharmaceutical industry, and that a corporation’s board and shareholders demand maximum profits, it’s easy to see the benefit of failing to meet demand. Maximum profits will not be acheived by producing enough of the drug to fill all the written prescriptions, but at a point where most of the prescriptions are filled, but due to scarcity the price is driven up. In a free market this is where a new competitor steps in, but due to safety concerns and economies of scale, this doesn’t happen in the pharmaceutical industry. The company holding a monopoly always has the option of flooding the market with excess supply to drive prices prohibitively low for any new competitors to survive.

Of course, we already know that if the FDA deregulated the pharmaceutical industry and people started dying, the free-market kool-aid sippers would blame it on big government regulation and declare that the solution is more deregulation.

One more point, respnse to:
“What’s happening now is, by the way, exactly what many conservatives have predicted: crude rationing of needed care.”

It’s remarkable how detached from reality this analysis is. Health insurance companies have been rationing care for decades, along with putting corporate beaurocrats between patients and their doctors. Obamacare will make this problem worse, not because it’s some leftist conspiracy, but because it’s founded on right-wing kool-aid drinking principles. The plan not only fails at establishing an alternative to for-profit health care rationing, it guarantees the for-profit medical insurance industry an enormous, endless supply of customers. The idea that government mandated private health insurance as a socialist ideal is breathtaking in it’s stupidity.

You need to do more research. John McCain should never have even been a president candidate.
Go do your homework on him before making such statements please?
Or are you aware that that he caused the financial problems in the 70′s?
Anyways research is your friend America!