Story

‘People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,’ Santorum said, ‘but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.’

The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.

This is the guy who has a daughter with a rare genetic disorder, whose treatment is paid for entirely at the taxpayers expense. Maybe he’s hoping that all those pesky poor folks dragging down the US economy will just die off.

Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs.

‘You have that drug, and maybe you’re alive today because people have a profit motive to make that drug,’ Santorum said. ‘There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: ‘You drug companies are greedy and bad, you can’t make a return on your money,’ then we will freeze innovation.’

Except that publicly funded universities and government research grants pay for must of the R&D these companies do. They are profitting form taxpayer-funded research and using it to relentlessly gouge us in return.

Not only that, but they know that Insurance companies don’t pay anywhere near the full price for these drugs because they cut insider deals with the manufacturers. Sick kids meanwhile are left to fend for themselves.