The States Are The Laboratories of Democracy!

[Minimalist]

You can bet your sweet ass that the republicunts don't want this experiment!

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37260...big-pharma

Disgusted With Sky-High Drug Prices, California Voters Take On Big Pharma

Enormous public frustration with the skyrocketing prices of essential medicines in the US has not yet led to any meaningful reform. But a historic initiative on the November ballot in California, championed by health care and consumer advocates and fiercely opposed by multinational drug corporations, may finally rein in Big Pharma.

It is hard to overstate the level of dysfunction in the US medicines system. The headline-producing greed of "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli was just the most dramatic example of a pharmaceutical industry whose patent monopolies grant it immunity from market forces while its political clout shields it from government regulation. Taking full advantage of taxpayer-funded research, drug corporations make record profits, even by Fortune 500 standards, and pay their CEOs as much as $180 million a year. Those corporations spend far more on incessant marketing to consumers and physicians than they do on research -- part of the reason they have largely failed to develop new medicines that address the most deadly illnesses and diseases.