Research should be paid by the people with an interest to pay for research. And the government should put as little stops and costs into that process as possible.

I would find it better that patents in pharma were eliminated, but also that the FDA approval process should be optional. If you want to save lives, you need to loosen up.

Oh, I see, having a conversation here probably won't be very productive. "If you want to save people, you should just let people try any old untested medical device, procedure or supplement, and wish them the best if that's what they want." That's how you kill people. There's a reason we have an FDA approvals process and it's not because the barbershop surgeons and snake oil salesmen were doing so well that big government needed to step in and ensure we didn't save so many.

> That's how you kill people.

You also kill people by not giving them the medication they would want to get, or making it to expensive for it to exist. There is no "clean-hands" solution on this.

> here's a reason we have an FDA approvals process and it's not because the barbershop surgeons and snake oil salesmen were doing so well that big government needed to step in and ensure we didn't save so many.

Yes, the 1920's of medical licensing, restricting doctors supply, hospital grants etc. You can see how medical expenses became an issue right after that.

I wonder what happened to the slope of the graphs for rates of various adverse outcomes over time did right around then, too. I think price, by itself, is an absurdly meaningless metric. If it gets more expensive, but gets better, that's potentially worthwhile.

What's happening in the US healthcare system now, however, is that it's on the order of twice or more as expensive as anyone else's — and climbing — with worse outcomes than many of those, and are getting worse.

No matter your views on who should pay for it, you can't be in favor of that.

Imagine if every late-night "male enhancement" pill was instead a cancer treatment. That's what the world of snake oil salesmen was like. That's the world you're advocating for. God help us all if you get your way. It's like how the rivers dont catch fire anymore so we don't need an EPA </scarcasm> I bet you the costs of disposing of dangerous waste products went up exponentially after the EPA was established, and yet, nobody cares because it's better all around.

Out of interest, how do you feel about vaccines?

The world of people advocating for ineffective cures is already here, you have homeopathy, and you also have plenty of actual pharma that have much bigger placebo effects than clinical effects, or the overstated claims about the latest diet, paleo, keto, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free.

Can you imagine having diets having to be clinically approved by the FDA? 10 years plus billions of dollars to say you should eat less sugar.

When someone dies because they can't afford insulin, they are paying with their life for your sense of security. But! There is also a way to satisfy your desires, and satisfy mine. You buy your FDA approved drugs, and the ones that don't want to...don't. You get your security, and I get cheap medication.

No, I get medication and you get unregulated death pills.

Mine cost more under your model than they do now because lower volumes will drive up prices. The market further segments, only the wealthy can afford real medicines and the poor, barely able to afford medicine in the US as is are forced to risk their lives on unregulated garbage snake oil. This is just a way to kick the poor harder but with extra steps.

Funny that my unregulated deathpills have nothing to do with yours, but you want to ban them so your meds are cheaper!

You're not giving them insulin either, you're giving them who knows what. That's the problem. Regulations aren't there to hold the little guy down, they're there because life was the worst before, and little by little, we pushed back until it was pretty good.

It's a pointless argument. This is right up there with Antivaxx and crypto enthusiasm, and it's a libertarian pipe dream. You acknowledge the lack of regulation has led to a pile of worthless garbage and your argument is let's keep doing more of that, instead of lets regulate the homeopathic medicines and male enhancements, and yes, diets. If you want to claim your diet is effective, then we should have that statement approved. It'd kill the industry because they're largely all baloney. And I'd be totally ok with that.

We live in a society, believe it or not, and yes your unregulated garbage does interact with my regulated medicine via market economics. As I explained. You're basically just arguing we accelerate the path to Elysium. That's an argument you can make, though let's be honest about it.