First off I am not going to offer any answers in this post, this will be just another one of my ramblings... It is a fact that that the US produces more medical breakthroughs than the rest of the world put together (this is true in most tech areas), and it is true that these developments are due to hefty profits... without the profits we wouldnt have the breakthroughs... but we do need to look at profits versus 'gouging'... And the drug companies do gouge- they charge obscene prices in the US and I am not adverse to having them reigned in a bit... of course it is a risky road to go down...

I understand research is expensive, probably more expensive than I can imagine (My employers have learned that asking me for financial estimates is good only for comic relief... I have learned to take my first estimate and multiply by 4, and that is usually still too low).

we need to find a happy medium...