The US Government could just start making drugs like insulin and devices like the epipen as a solution to price spikes

The following is a comment I posted in response to the above Richard Wolff video essay:

There is a third way of lowering drug prices: make it ourselves.  By 'ourselves' I mean the US Government owning and operating the means of production of medical drugs and medical devices and distributing those products according to need.  The Government Printing Office has for decades manufactured and sold their own published products.  So there is precedent there and if anyone wants to they can go to their website and browse and maybe buy one of their books:

If they can own the means of production for one type of product, books and other publications, why can't the US Government also own the means of production for other types of products; namely medicines and medical devices?  I think they can and should start to manufacture drugs and medical devices -- especially those products that have fallen outside of patent protection.  And the two products that have gotten the most press recently for price spikes are outside of patent protection; insulin and epipen type devices.

But even for those products that are under patent protection the government should intervene and manufacture those products if the patent owner refuses to lower the price to a much more reasonable level.  The drug company may balk at the idea and complain that they wont be motivated to invest in research if they think the government might preempt any patent rights they might gain from a newly developed medicine -- We can respond that if that is the result then the government can start doing all the research, but doing it for the right reasons; patient health rather than profitability and shareholder value.  Because as it currently stands, the only reason drug companies develop any drug is if and only if they think it will be profitable -- and meanwhile much of the rest of society keeps working under the unsafe assumption that what is best for Big Pharma is also going to be best for patients.

I've written Senator Klobuchar a couple times with my suggestion and she just replies with her explaining her proposed solutions.  One of the main solutions she wants to enact is a bill she introduced that would make it quicker and easier to get generics onto the market and let competition drive down the prices.  My response is that, for one thing, there is nothing mutually exclusive about trying to achieve both my idea and her idea simultaneously.  For another thing, her generics to the market idea seems like just another futile attempt to depend on free enterprise and capitalism to solve are most pressing problems even though a non-capitalist solution is staring at her straight in the face.  I keep thinking about  the movie Jurassic Park near the ending (I'm assuming anyone reading this has seen the movie and thus doesn't need a spoiler alert)  where the park visionary Hammond, even after all the damage and carnage wrought by the dinosaurs, instead of giving up, still is trying desperately to come  up with a way to make it work.  Now, even amidst the aftermath of all the carnage wrought by the involvement of predatory capitalist sharts in the field of medicine, Klobuchar is still trying to figure out ways leave our medical well being in the jaws of those sharks without us getting hurt.  I think it is time to give up on that route and realize that under the exigent circumstances, we need to get started as soon as possible manufacturing and distributing, according to need, those medicines and medical devices.     

Medicare for All for American Greatness

by Glen Wallace

To the editor:

In the article announcing Angie Craig's plan to run for Congress in 2018, Jason Lewis was quoted as saying: "One candidate already wants to threaten Medicare solvency with a government-run single payer plan...", presumably in reference to DFL Congressional candidate, Jeff Erdmann, and his support for Medicare for All.  I find Lewis's stance to be rather negative and pessimistic.  

I'm sure if Erdmann is elected to the House, he will work with the other members of Congress to find ways to fund Medicare to insure its solvency.  America's greatness is due to a history of big thinkers who had a can-do attitude and envisioned the wonderful possibilities that could be achieved through cooperation, perseverance and a positive attitude.  For instance, it was that positive attitude that Republican President Eisenhower had when he supported building the interstate freeway system -- a government built system that has provided the freedom for Americans to hop on the freeway, without charge, and enjoy a safer, more streamlined route between locations all around the country.  

Imagine what might have happened if Eisenhower had Jason Lewis's negativity and pessimism? Surely then Eisenhower would have then nixed the freeway plan after concluded that building such a highway system would lead to insolvency in whatever government department that took it on.  But fortunately, instead, we had an optimistic visionary in Eisenhower who made possible the single-payer federal government owned and operated interstate highway system that we largely take for granted today.
  
But still, unfortunately, healthcare coverage in America seems to be one area that got overlooked by the visionaries of yesteryear.  As a result we are left with the costly mess that is the private insurance based system -- a system that has been a drain on businesses funding employee coverage and a drain on families struggling to meet monthly dues and who sometimes find themselves mired in a struggle to get insurance companies to cover pharmaceuticals and needed surgeries.

But there is a way out of this mess and it's called Medicare for All.  To get there, all we need is some old-fashioned American can-do spirit.

Single payer government health care as an incentive to bold entrepreneurship

by Glen Wallace

From the perspective of what I like to call 'applied social political philosophy', I prefer to bypass the whole debate about whether health care is a privilege or a right that the state is obligated to provide.  Instead, I ask the question, is a society that provides universal health care coverage achieving an ideal compared to a society that doesn't?  Can that ideal be practically achieved using a reasonable level of human and material resources?  If the answer to those two questions is 'yes', then proceed with taking steps towards the state providing universal coverage.  If there isn't yet sufficient support from the constituents for such coverage, then proceed with arguments and facts to sway them otherwise.

Regarding any counter arguments about government coverage leading to complacency, I think the facts and reasons point in the opposite direction.  If memory serves me correctly, I believe I read a statistic that European nations are greatly outpacing the U.S. in rates of business startups.  And given that universal single payer coverage is much more common in Europe, it would stand to reason that that difference is a fundamental reason for Europe besting the U.S. in such bootstrapping.  That's because here in America, the worker is much too dependent on their employer for health care coverage and thus discouraged from even dipping their feet into the business startup waters.  

Compare the American worker with dreams of starting their own business but are wary of leaving their employer with its comfortable health insurance coverage with the Scandinavian worker who knows they and their family would be assured of health care coverage whether their business startup idea works or not.  Our system of private insurance, generally provided through employment, acts as a disincentive to bold entrepreneurship.  Conversely, a single payer universal coverage system, by limiting risk, would act as an incentive to the sorts of bold bootstrapping that built the United States business empire -- an empire that is now showing signs of flagging compared with the rest of the developed word that wisely provides universal healthcare coverage.

VA problems are no reason to abandon single payer idea

by Glen Wallace

While some may like to point out how the VA has supposedly done such a bad job, as a reason why the government shouldn't take over health care, they are ignoring some important counter arguments or reasons supporting government takeover.  For one, the negative accounts about the VA that people tend to refer to, are to a large extent brought to you by private, for profit, news media that gets a substantial portion of ad revenue from private insurers that have a vested interest in retaining the private health insurance system.  As a result I believe the private news programs are highlighting, focusing and magnifying the VA's problems, while largely ignoring similar issues and problems that plague the private health insurance system.  One need only look at the online reviews of private insurers to find a plethora of examples that make those insurer's look even worse than the VA.  And if a single payer system were implemented, then it would be more of an expansion of Medicare than an expansion of the the VA.

Before Obamacare was implemented, while listening to an NPR feature about individuals having problems with private insurers, if I remember correctly, I believe they quoted a statistic that two thirds of all individuals that declare medical bankruptcy, already had health insurance at the time of their bankruptcy.  And the reasons for such bankruptcies wasn't just due to high deductibles, many were the result of disagreements between insurers and providers about what procedures are, or should have been covered.  As a result, a patient ends up being responsible for for medical bills they thought were covered.  Sometimes the patients can end up getting such bills lowered or covered by the insurer, but getting to that point often turns into a full time job for the patient in the form of phone calls, and negotiations with a hospital and insurer.  Hearing such stories one has to wonder "There has to be a better way!"  Well there is a better way and there also is no need to reinvent the wheel -- that better way is already being used successfully in most of Europe in the form of a government run single payer health care system.