Bring Back the Free Market System, or Pay $90,000 for Pills

   Heed the law of supply and demand, or end up paying up to $90,000 for medicine to treat hepatitis C. Oh, hepatitis C (transmitted by contact with infected blood and sometimes through sexual activity) is deadly, killing an estimate 15,000 in 2007 (do we have figures since then?), and this new medicine is a cure, stopping the virus in 9 out of 10 patients.
   But, that does not mean it should cost $90,000 in pills -- $90,000!
   Now, if a person could charge whatever they wanted for something, and if the customer had the choice between dying or paying it, and if there was someone rich enough to come up with the money and pay it for the customer . . .
   Well, get the picture? It's the picture of how our health system is set up. It's the way we do business (health business) these days. Pretty, pretty wise, aren't we.
   Sovaldi -- that's the name of this mega high-priced medicine -- has a corner on the market. It has customers whose lives are on the line. And, even though the patients clearly cannot afford it, these days patients don't have to pay, insurance does.
   Not that private insurers and Medicaid aren't balking, for they are. But, ultimately, if the product saves lives, how do they justify not covering the medicine?
   America, you love your patent laws and have your licensing laws, but this should have you reconsidering that affection. If companies are going to charge extortionate rates, you have got to quietly tell them you won't stand for it. If rewriting and loosening the patent laws and changing the licensing laws is what is needed to give us free enterprise and a free market, then do it.
   You've listened to lobbyists too much, America, and you've reaped the whirlwind. They are behind the patent laws and perhaps some of the other restraints upon free business. They came calling, saying allow inventors to be the sole sellers of a product, and you thought that was reasonable. If our patent and regulatory laws are to be good, they must not chase away much competition.
    We have monopolies. Our laws create them. Then, when prices get exhorbitant, we throw up our hands trying to figure out why and do not understand why prices are so high. If Sovaldi is clearly a step better than the other drugs, and no one else is allowed to duplicate it, that is a type of monopoly.
   A monopoly that demands as much as $90,000 for its product.