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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Seattle's $20 Epipen replacement

That's the game, though. Whenever you have capitalists making money off of a social service there will be jousting across the 50 yard line.

- Army develops Mark IV as a way for total newbs to deliver life-saving neurotoxin antagonists

- Private sector spins that technology off as a way for total newbs to deliver life-saving steroids to prevent anaphylaxis

- Public sector adopts private sector solution

- Private sector sees monopoly opportunities, extends monopoly in order to increase profit

- Public sector bends under the weight of the private sector and adopts

It's like with cholesterol. Under heavy lobbying the cholesterol guidelines were lowered in 2008 right about the time a new class of statins came out. 13 million more people were put on anti-cholesterol medication. Those statins got more and more expensive and fewer and fewer doctors stuck to the guidelines so eventually the guidelines changed again. It's not like all of a sudden cholesterol was worse for you and then suddenly better; it's that all of a sudden, someone wasn't making enough money and then suddenly they were making too much.