The Problems

Haiku of the Day:
decaffeinated
society might relax
enjoying morning

[continued from 2/15/11]
The next two problems are somewhat intertwined: the cost of medicine and medical devices contribute to an ever-expanding budget for human health, while the mechanism of intellectual property, at least in terms of patents, is dominated by the patent medicine industry. Other issues, like hospitalization as a part of health care and counterfeiting as a drain on intellectual property owners, require local action focused on the logistics of each. Keep in mind that the best market solutions are those that create more efficient markets, and the giants of the information age have all built their wealth by building the wealth of those who participate in the market; these are solutions one can profit from without direct investment, but which profit most - in return on investment, not absolute net gains - those who own the market.

3. Restoring Affordable Health Care? The recipient of health care, the individual who is maintaining his or her health, must become to the medical industries what the voter is to democratic government, the by, of, and for behind it, not just the vicarious customers through an employer or government proxy. Medical records must be owned and operated by the person, not an institution, and health care should once again begin and most nearly end in the home. Then we must do a better job of bringing innovation to patients more efficiently, a large part of which is the mechanism for patent approval, drug and device approval, and the licensing and expiration of vetted patents.

4. Respecting Intellectual Property? Current intellectual property laws are broadly disregarded and the underlying rights infringed because it creates in practice what does not exist in nature, the monopoly of an idea. While it is just and fair to demand the market provide compensation for those who develop intellectual property, be it patent or copyright, ideas pass freely between people, across borders, and with virtuous sharing; laws should not attempt to prohibit this flow, the bread and butter of the information age in which we live, but instead encourage it, as it does with other commodities, by regulating a free market for buying and selling these ideas. Either by royalty or blanket license, all intellectual property should be brought to the market, that everyone who would profit by it may, that the creators might continue their creation, income secure, uninhibited by the business of turning ideas into consumed goods and services.