before you get too far along, realize that a LOT of what is listed as cost of 'r&d' is really advertising, marketing, kickbacks and payoffs.
universities also contribute a HUGE amount.
Agreed and agreed. However, what the universities contribute is of an essentially different nature from what drug companies do.
the profits are so high and the cost so truly low...
Costs so low? This doesn't square with anything we know about drug development. Do you have any figures to back up this assertion?
if you want to get right down to it, public health is an infrastructure as much as roads, electricity and clean water is. the fact that we attach profit to this kind of DISGUSTS ME, no end.
Ah, this is where we disagree. I consider increasing health-care outcomes more important than ensuring that no-one profits from health-care. I find it far more productive to yoke greed so that it produces results the results I want (in the long-term) than to simply do without.
But then I've never been part of the "far better everyone suffer than someone unjustly gain" movement.
not every fucking thing in life has to be for-profit. fuck you if you disagree.
No, not everything does. But when the desire for profits and what I would like to see happen, align in roughly the same direction, it makes sense to take advantage of the situation rather than do without. From my stand-point, I've gotten other, richer people's ability and willingness to pay for advanced medical technology (on the order of a trillion dollars over 20 years), to pay for my now affordable health-care. I get it later, but the price is right...
(As for water + roads + electricity - it depends. If you need a *new* network, then for-profit tends to work better and faster. For operating an existing monopoly, private enterprise operates pretty badly.)