I know Rory_20_uk might be interested in this since if I remember correctly he is involved in the pharmaceutical industry (although in the UK obviously).

But anyway Senator Bernie Sander's has introduced a plan to reduce drug costs down to the actual market level. What is the market level? Well I guess according to him the market level price is what you find typically for drugs that have had their patent's run out and are able to be made under generic labels. These drugs usually cost anywhere from $5-$15 where as drugs that still have patents on them by pharmaceutical companies can be upwards of $100 a prescription sometimes.

Here is the biased article I found this out from:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/151176...7_solution%29/

And I guess the plan is to institute a small tax to create what is being called a "prize fund" which would buy drug patents up and release them onto the public domain as free and open knowledge able to be used and manufactured by anyone. The savings that the public would get from these cheaper drugs would supposedly have a much more beneficial impact not just fiscally on many Americans but also health wise by increasing access to drugs that are needed due to lower costs.

I wish I could find a more impartial article about it but it is 2:30AM right now, and I really am too lazy to google for 5 min right now, so maybe when I wake up.

I have heard arguments that drug companies need these patents and need to charge large amounts for the drugs in order to fund the necessary amounts of research, development, testing and other stuff that goes into making a mass market drug. However, I have heard arguments suggesting that it isn't exactly like that, one person on another website I lurk posted a link to this:
http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=218

A chart of the profitability of pharmaceutical companies compared with the average of all Fortune 500 companies. If someone could explain what makes this chart...bull so to speak that would be awesome because from where I am sitting it seems like Pharma companies could do to charge less on their drugs.