I don’t disagree with that. Medicare for All would be a fundamental improvement for society. I believe that’s at least a decade out for this country. It doesn’t provide justice or retribution for what has already happened. I want the profiteers at the stocks.
Justice and retribution are fine; I was taking exception to your argument "that's the only recourse." Here's the question, though - when you say "everybody" do you mean "everybody?" From the top down, we've got the Sackler family. The buck obviously stops with them. We've got their direct reports, who were making them money. We've got the senior sales team, who probably knew something was up. But then we've got the sales reps who are spouting back what they've heard in as convincing a manner as possible. You've got the doctors who are largely doing what all their colleagues are doing. In order to get where we got there had to be a lot of people who didn't think or know they were doing anything wrong. It's the same problem as with the 737 Max or with Vioxx - people are dead because a lot of people made some not-quite-perfect choices in an environment that rewarded imperfect decisions. The opioid crisis is obviously awful and obviously a lot more ongoing but I'm unconvinced punishment is going to prevent similar problems in the future. Martin Skreli isn't in jail for doing anything wrong, not really, and you know it. He's in jail for being an asshole and jacking prices. Heather Bresch? Woman who raised the price of the Epipen to $600? Survived the scandal, merged Myland with Upjohn, retiring with a golden parachute after seven years earning $17m a year. Vengeance is appealing but it rarely fixes anything.
All of those people should be fined heavily or in jail. Fuck the Sacklers, fuck the low level salespeople and fuck Bresch (I hate paying $250 a year for my auto injectors, it’s a racket). Being too stupid or careless to think about what you’re doing while you get your quarterly bonus doesn’t absolve you of the role you played in creating a public health crisis and ruining lives. You’re right that it doesn’t solve much, but if it makes some of these bad actors are example then I’m all for it.