A Stitch in Haste

Or, more correctly, his "War on Drug Companies" --

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants to reduce the cost of U.S. health care by removing patents for breakthrough drugs and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care.
...
Edwards' plan would remove long-term patents for companies that develop breakthrough drugs and then reap large profits because of the monopolies those patents provide, according to a statement by Edwards obtained Wednesday evening. Edwards said offering cash incentives instead would allow multiple companies to produce those drugs and drive down prices.

From his socialized medicine manifesto (PDF - 26 pages):

Pursue Prizes as Innovation Incentives: Edwards will convene an expert panel to identify disorders where prizes -- not patent monopolies -- would offer new incentives to researchers, guaranteed gains to companies, and lower costs to patients. Drug companies would know that if they generated a life-saving breakthrough, they would be guaranteed a significant payment in exchange for allowing competition in manufacturing and distribution. With prizes, the government will pay more up front, but it will save taxpayers in the end because companies will generate breakthrough drugs more quickly and at a lower cost. Key questions about the pricing of prizes, the appropriateness of prizes for different diseases, and the relationship to patent protections remain to be resolved, but prizes are a promising innovation that Edwards will pursue.

I've debunked the retarded delusions of the "government prize" crowd previously. In this iteration, one need focus only on the words "an expert panel to identify disorders." Translation: The government -- politicians and bureaucrats -- will decide which diseases are more important than others. If you get sick, you better hope you have the "right" (i.e., the politically favored) disease. If not, then too bad so sad.

Welcome to "universal health care."

Who, after such data points as "Reagan and AIDS" or "Medicare and Viagra," could possibly be naive enough to think that politics would not infect such "expert panels"? Who could possibly be arrogant enough to think that they are better equipped to command and control the pharmaceutical industry (i.e., to determine what consumers actually want and need) than the pharmaceutical industry itself?

The answer to both question is, of course, "John Edwards" (who, last time I checked, was neither a physician nor a pharmacist, and who has also never been an entrepreneur in any field, nor ever worked for a private entrepreneurial firm in any field). This is the man who claims to "just knows best."

Anyone even vaguely familiar with Edwards' 2004 campaign, let alone his current screeches, knows that his "vision" for this country is a mile wide and an inch deep. It's "all class warfare, all the time." Looting (there is no other word for it) the intellectual property of drug companies is just one eddy in his ocean of un-American (un-Two-Americas?) blather.