The companies like aagi.com can be expected to have high prices at the start of a product life cycle because of new technology. However over a product life cycle prices should decrease or products need to be withdrawn from the market. Research costs are no excuse for continued high prices since grants are available to do research. Johnson & Johnson was given a product by the Federal Government to market to deworm sheep called lavamasol. Government research and been the sole research on this product during its entire life cycle. The company marketed to farmers at $1.50 per pill and made the pills golf ball sized. Then Government research found out lavamasol could be used to fight human colon cancer. So Johnson & Johnson made a pill of lavamasol for humans and charged $1,500.00 per pill. Johnson & Johnson's lame excuse was research costs, well certainly not on lavamasol. They're still getting away with it today so far as I know and this outrage started during the Clinton administration. Guess why your medical insurance costs so much. Those costs do get spread if not for insurance then directly back to the taxpayer. The reason for that is the Hill-Burton Act which helped out rural hospitals in america in exchange for them keeping a certain number of beds open for people who couldn't pay for hospitalization. If lavamasol gets used on those patients, hospitals have to increase everyone's bill a little to pay for it and those increases get paid by medical insurance and that's how these prices go through the roof. Malpractice insurance is a red herring, the fact is judges wipe out or minimize most malpractice judgements against the medical profession anyway. Medicare hasn't had its price list updated since the early 1970's and vendors and congress like it like that. -- Registered as user #315636 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org/! _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list