I will never understand US healthcare. If Mark Cuban's idea was so straightforward, i really wonder what took it so long. Perhaps, all that was needed was an interested billionare who did not want unlimited profits ?
To be honest, the same is true of many countries with socialized medicine, but the snag is not with cost but with availability and speed of care. And some medically solvable problems cannot be solved because changing anything is almost impossible.
It's just like it sounds, it's the military industrial complex but with insurance companies and large corporate hospital systems, etc.
Just look at the story of Wendell Potter [1], an ex US health exec who basically came out and detailed all the lies he spread about Canadian healthcare. So many people in the US believe those lies still to this day.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/27/884307565/after-pushing-lies-...
When a politician receives benefits for passing certain laws (often hard cash to their campaign!) they are a corrupt politician.
The term “lobbying” is the same kind of linguistic exceptionalism involved in the word “expat” vs “immigrant”.
Shire pulled this trick with Adderall XR: they signed a deal (can't recall who it was, Teva maybe?) to provide the actual drug that the generic maker stamped with their name. When Shire (bought by Takeda) was getting ready to release Vyvanse they suddenly cancelled the contract and stopped providing the XR to Teva. There was a US-wide shortage for almost a year, during which many patients scrambled to find alternatives... some of them ended up with Vyvanse prescriptions as designed.
I don't want to discount what you are saying though: the generic process should be streamlined. For Schedule II medications the extra regulatory burden definitely makes these schemes more profitable. You need a special DEA license to make them and the DEA sets quotas so even if you have a facility certified to make Schedule II drugs you need DEA permission to increase the supply. When Shire pulled the rug out from under everyone it took time for competitors like Teva to start production, get DEA approval, then get approval to manufacture in enough quantity to replace what Shire stopped making.
This was well known at the time. To my knowledge no investigation was done whatsoever. The government simply allows companies to manipulate the market as they please. No wonder they have gotten bolder and bolder.
I was not shocked in the least when Hedge Fund parasites like Martin Shkreli started looking for drug companies to buy to snap up the rights to single-source or low-volume generics to jack up the price. If a huge manufacturer can commit open market manipulation to the point that millions of people can't get an RX filled _anywhere_ to push them onto a newer expensive drug and the government doesn't even bother pretending to investigate... well there's lots of rent to be extracted!
You have to both REALLY care, and be willing to wade through immense BS to make a profit comparable to selling smartphone apps.
I'd posit that it's almost impossible to get to the point where you can fund something like that without being singularly focused on getting the most money possible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
also:
To summarise, it seems that by declaring as Public Benefit Corp they can not be so beholden to the shareholders and the Corporation can declare "some other societal mission". No real details on what limits or benefits though.
I mean, what is stopping a Public Benefit Corporation declaring a mission for "yacht transport assistance" to be delivered to the selected "needy" and delivered by profits on business as usual? Obvious blatant point I am trying to make but I assume there are further laws and bylaws that usefully try to limit a corporation in that sense.
It seems a bit wishyWashy just going from wikipedia but for a HN discussion is well worth pointing out they exist! Thank you!
They have a whole write up about their getting certified:
https://info.teachstone.com/blog/pioneering-developer-of-ear...
There aren't many of them, but they are great.
corporations have shareholders and can't make risky moves like that