.Originally Posted by OngBonga
There's a difference between profit and costs, dan. Things like wages and R&D are costs, not profit. Drugs can be sold at a price that covers the costs without the need for shareholders to be paid dividends. When it's in private hands, subject to market conditions, the drugs will be sold at whatever people are willing to pay for it, and when we're talking about life, people will pay whatever they can borrow. The excess isn't helping R&D, this isn't paying doctors' salaries, it's making shareholders rich.
it's the reason shareholders invested their money. Without it they would have invested it elsewhere. It seems you think it's OK for the provider of evert resource to make a profit, so the provider of labour gets paid, the provider of all of the things you have called costs gets paid, but the providers of capital for some reason shouldn't.
If medicine is in public hands, then drugs will be sold at the lowest price possible to cover costs. It's in a nation's interests to ensure public health is as optimal as can be. There is no need for any other incentive other than public health.
if it's in public hands, who is going to provide the capital?
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