It’s Time for Public Pharma

Medicare for All was perhaps the best policy litmus test for progressive politicians in the second half of the 2010s. Today, it has rarely looked less likely to become law. Insurance industry lobbying groups, in tandem with the Chamber of Commerce, have figured out how to beat back the popular policy’s advance, even in one-party blue states like California. And yet the necessity of excising the profit motive from the American health care system, which continues on its ignominious pace to produce bottom-barrel results at maximal prices, has never been clearer.

“Public pharmaceutical manufacturing in the U.S. could be a game-changer because it would break the monopoly that pharma has on our medicine supply, and start to shift the balance of power,” said Dana Brown, director of health and economy at the Democracy Collaborative.

• Publication date: 2022-07-25

• Parent publication: The American Prospect

• Publication URL: https://prospect.org/health/its-time-for-public-pharma/