That's a very left-wing view of things - I don't necessarily disagree with it, but I think there are far less drastic changes that can be made to achieve a comparable result.

You'll have a hard time selling a plan like that to anyone even slightly right leaning - think about it politically for a second. The government decides what drug development gets priority? Remember the death panels talk from a few years ago?

It's viable, but involves a lot of trust in government, so much that even as a fairly left-leaning person myself I'd have to think twice about it.