I also liked that the machine must have run on sunshine and gumdrops and cost $0 to use because of course that is how health care works, we definitely have the means to heal every person on the planet, the only thing preventing us from doing so is evil white people.
If you can't, I'll do you one better - worldwide, infant diarrhoea is the second leading cause of death in children under five years old. It can be treated with pennies worth of clean water, sugar, and salt. It can be prevented just by providing access to clean water. We absolutely have the resources to heal every child on the planet of this disease, if we cared.
Hepatitis C is curable, but it is purposefully priced out of reach for much of the affected population, hoping that the local government will pick up the tab. Epi Pens have skyrocketed in price over the past few years, and the manufacturer that makes them has claimed that there is a shortage of the generic version, while plentiful supplies of the on brand version.
This is Late Stage Capitalism.
Gilead did pay $11 billion to acquire Pharmasset and at one point was facing a $2.5 billion patent infringement ruling (later overturned) for that same drug.
AbbVie’s a new entrant which can treat certain strains at at about a third the cost.
Damn that Late Stage Capitalism developing a miracle cure for Hep C which is painless and effective.
Companies making tens of billions a year while poor people suffer and die does seem to be a fairly negative situation, however you care to label it.
There are absurdly massive inefficiencies if as you say they aren't making profits.
I find it comical actually, in a grotesque way. It's a situation I would expect in the Simpsons: family huddled around a very ill relative, when the door opens and a tragic robot vaguely reminiscent of a Dyson vacuum cleaner rolls in and announces that the patient is going to die in short order.
The entire scene could be more bizarre only if upon this announcement, a small tray popped open with a tranquilizer pill that expedites the demise of the suffering person and prints a receipt for the "care" rendered.