Business Insider:
The passage of President Obama’s health care reform will make a difference in the live of tens of millions of people. The subsidies will make insurance affordable to millions of families who could not pay the unsubsidized rate. More importantly, by prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people with serious health conditions, those who are currently covered will have real insurance for the first time. People will no longer have to worry that a serious illness will cause them to lose their job and then their insurance.
This is real progress, but the bill does little to change the fact that health care in the United States is ridiculously expensive and, if current trends continue, will grow more unaffordable through time. While many issues on controlling costs are complicated, some are very simple. At the top of the list is bringing the price of drugs, medical equipment, and medical supplies down to their competitive market price.
Under the current system, patent monopolies allow drug companies and the manufacturers of medical equipment and supplies to charge prices that are often several thousand percent above the free market price. In the case of prescription drugs, the vast majority of drugs could be sold profitably as generics for just a few dollars per prescription, if there were no patent protection. Instead these drugs can sell for hundreds of dollars or even thousands of dollars per prescription.
