More ruminations regarding the economics of health care tonight. A while back, my friend Mark, who's a professor at the local medical school, wrote a really good article for the local paper regarding drug companies and how much they really contribute to society and health care. His argument, in summary, is that their claims about all the benefits their research bring are not really sincere. They claim money they spend on that research is all for the drugs that save sick children, Lance Armstrong and all those nice old people in their TV ads. The truth, as Mark observes, is that most of the research money is spent trying to replicate competitors' drugs to grab the big market share afforded by blockbuster drugs like Lipitor and Viagra. He notes that most of the drugs that really, really do something new are funded by government and not the drug companies.


So, why do the big drug companies get such favorable tax treatment? Why are they shielded by the feds from competitive purchasing practices? Could it be because they are the most profitable industry in America? And you thought it was Big Oil, right? And guess which industry spends the most on lobbying Congress and campaign contributions! This is an industry that needs regulation--or, rather, deregulation where we are allowed to create purchasing combines and stop giving them ridiculous patent rules and tax breaks.

CDs listened to today:

• The Annuals: Be He Me
• Morton Feldman: Coptic Light
• INXS: Listen Like Thieves
• Hebert Vazquez: String Quartet No. 1
• Sergei Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 2
• Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Let's Face It
• Dafnis Prieto: Absolute Quintet
• Olivier Messiaen: Catalogue d'Oiseaux, disk 3 (Peter Hill, piano)