> 4) Given that they have responsibility for the health of the child, and that it's a solvable problem, obviously it's a good thing their hand gets forced. That they're forced to cure this child.
Health budgets are finite, whether you fund them privately or publicly, and for the marginal long-tail cases those hard decisions need to be made. Personally a cutoff at some democratically determined level of long tail expense feels fairer to me than the US system where you get better treatment if your capitalism credit score is high enough and none at all if it's too low, but I appreciate that there are differing views here.
But in any case, if we accept that whether this medicine should be paid for out of public funds is a political decision that the public should be making democratically, then obviously a company with a financial stake in that decision organising a campaign to secretly manipulate the decision-making process is evil. Advertising honestly that your company can save x lives at y cost is one thing, posing as a concerned citizen is another.
Health budgets are finite, whether you fund them privately or publicly, and for the marginal long-tail cases those hard decisions need to be made. Personally a cutoff at some democratically determined level of long tail expense feels fairer to me than the US system where you get better treatment if your capitalism credit score is high enough and none at all if it's too low, but I appreciate that there are differing views here.
But in any case, if we accept that whether this medicine should be paid for out of public funds is a political decision that the public should be making democratically, then obviously a company with a financial stake in that decision organising a campaign to secretly manipulate the decision-making process is evil. Advertising honestly that your company can save x lives at y cost is one thing, posing as a concerned citizen is another.