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Going into a rant about John Edwards and the litigation's he was involved in as a lawyer has nothing to do with this topic at all. That's all we were trying to point out.

Now that we've gotten all of that cleared up, can we all at least try to be adults and stick to the topic?

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While I agree that singling out Edwards is a bit of a stretch, it's still more on-point than "I used to date the author's first cousin's ex-fiance."

My research on the subject shows three major drivers for the high costs of prescription drugs: (1) the heavy bureaucratic burden (FDA) - and enormous expense - required of drug manufacturers wanting to sell in this country, (2) out-of-control mass torts (class action lawsuits), and (3) lack of competition and/or alternatives.

The average cost for bringing a new drug to market ranges from $500 million to $800 million and approximately seven years. Approximately 1 out of 25 drugs ultimately get FDA approval. Therefore, the drug companies are massively in the hole from day 1 and push hard to find a winner (e.g., Lipitor, Claritan, Viagra). The U.S. market is really the only major market where they can charge a price that allows for a positive return on their investment. Also, Patent protection laws allow a monopoloy on a particular drug for 17 years (standard length of time), which stifles competition.

As for the John Edwards connection, he and his ilk will always go after the deepest pockets. Given that there are no caps on punitive damages in a case, a runaway jury can impose enormous and arbitrary awards to plaintiffs. There is a whole industry out there whereby plaintiff sues, anticipates settlement, and defendant must play the odds and settle to avoid the runaway jury. It's a sophisticated form of legal blackmail - and it's slowly destroying our healthcare system. We are reaching crisis levels now in many states, and electing politicians who will do nothing to curb the excesses will ultimately prove to be disastrous IMHO.

Slowing down excessive jury awards (via damages caps or other means) is by far the easiest and fastest remedy to this huge and very serious problem.

Pay now or pay later....

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