Hey, if you're going to make an accusation like that, at least show where I did that. My point was actually quite similar to yours, any solution proposed seems to introduce as many problems as it solves.
I was referring to the whole "America subsidizing pharmaceutical research" argument. It's weaksauce. Yes, the U.S. is the only major country where individuals make the purchases and usually pay retail prices, while the rest of the world buys in bulk at a heavy discount. The argument implies that, were the U.S. to switch to the bulk-buying model, the pharma companies would cease or reduce their research, which is ludicrous-- research is their core moneymaking function. Their whole business model is to keep coming up with new treatments and make money on them before the patents expire and they have to compete with generics. What would really happen is that the bulk buying discount would decline for everyone around the world to make up for the loss of all the retail-price sales in America.
I'm not sure what bulk-buying means in the context of national drug purchases. Do they guaranty a certain amount ahead of time in the way US can't? I believe it's more accurate to say that drug prices are government controlled, and I doubt the rest of the world would be willing to pay more if US suddenly starts paying less. Thus I would expect a decrease in expensive research.
I think what you're misunderstanding is that America as a whole is paying MUCH more than other countries because the countries buy bulk from the companies while we make microtransactions with the company. The fastest way to reduce costs would be for somebody to buy bulk amounts of meds from a country and then sell them at a similarly reduced cost to the consumer. Amazingly a go between actually CUTS costs rather than skyrockets them in this case.