'Give Me What I Want, Or I Will Kill Your Baby'

That's what Big PHrMA has said, in effect, to Obama: don't cut the period of patent protection of biologics from 12 to 10 years, or we will withdraw our support from your healthcare bill.

But remember, kids, medications are your friends...

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Afterthought: Consider me as an example. There are five prescription medications I take every day, month in, month out, for my chronic conditions. All are carefully chosen to be available in generics, and in particular, to be available at $4 for a month's supply or $10 for a three months' supply. There is at least one exception for which a month's supply, even for the generic, is $24; don't ask me for an explanation. All these meds are years, in most cases, decades, out of the development phase. Profits have been made and paid, high-priced parties thrown, and laughs laughed about the expense to the poor schmoes who pay for it all. In a society truly interested in motivating the invention and development of more effective medicines, that ought to be enough.

But suppose the price of each med was $24/month. Hell, suppose it was $89 or $129/month; I've been quoted those figures for some non-generics. Suppose... this is not just a supposition; I've had it happen... suppose the prices were $500, $600, $700 a month. Guess who doesn't get his or her medication? Hint: it isn't Barack Obama, and it isn't any executive in the employ of Big PHrMA. You can read the handwriting as clearly as I can.