[Stu Cohen]

If pills were sold the same price across the board, then the cost of R&D for new medical products would be spread across the board too.

It's actually already spread to you. They call them "Federal Grants" ... but basically they just get a cut of your paycheck to develop the drugs the turn around and sell to you at 10,000% markup.

When you are forced to fund the private companies, it ain't capitalism anymore.

[sauropod]

Then perhaps I don't understand how drugs are developed.

Think about this. Suppose that there is an illness that affects 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 people. At what point does a company decide that it is not in its economic self-interest to develop a drug that combats a disease that only affects x number of people?

Wouldn't that be where "Federal Grants" are necessary?

More generally, (pick your discipline), government has to step in and fund or help fund R&D precisely because it is not focused on the profit motive.