] If big pharma price-discriminates rationally, it
] guarantees the following query from some representative
] in some committee hearing: "How come a hospital in Lagos
] spends $1 for this pill, but the local Catholic hospital
] in my district must pay $5,000?" And, of course, in the
] Inquisition that is congressional testimony, there is no
] effective way to answer such a question.

] What's needed here is shame. Politicians know that most
] voters understand squat about how monopolies work best.
] They also know that there won't be a rally on Capitol
] Hill in favor of price discrimination. It is therefore
] cheap to scold big pharma for the "windfall profits" made
] by charging so much more for drugs in the US than in
] other countries. Cheap, and criminal. This behavior by
] politicians simply denies medicine to those who need it
] most.
]
]
] If politicians don't like the logic of price
] discrimination, then let them fund pharmaceutical
] research in a different way. Abolish drug patents, and
] grant rewards for great inventions, or give huge
] subsidies to universities and companies to develop new
] medicines. There are many who believe that would be a
] less expensive, more effective system. And there are many
] who believe that patents in any case, and in every case,
] do more harm than good.

[ A good analysis by Lessig... hits on a major problem with politics in general. The system makes it easy to say you "stand for" something that's actually intractible in the real political world. Seems like there should be a Consumer-Reports for politicians, comparing their stated positions to their real actions, calculating a "waffle score" for how often they are self-contradictory perhaps. My cynical side argues that no one would bother to use it, or partisans would refute it's accuracy... -k]