This bashing of corporations is not even funny any more. Socialists have painted the world in the colors of their choice and you have swallowed it lock-stock-and-barrel.
Firstly, drug companies are not particularly profitable. They are made scapegoats, just as oil companies, by the Left, because it is easier to entice your hatred. You can go to Yahoo and check the profitability of drug companies --- and oil companies, while you are at that.
Secondly, what coffers are you talking about? You are still thinking of corporations as if this were 19th century of robber barons. It is not. Drug companies are owned by tens, if not hundreds, millions of Americans, especially retirees, widows and orphans. That is who holds the "coffers" of drug companies. If you have a 401K, IRA or a share of a mutual fund, chances are you own drug companies, Citi, BP, and insurance companies such as AIG.
Does it make you suspicious that you are angry at precisely what the leftist scum wants you to be angry at --- American corporations that have made us prosperous and doubled our lifespan in the 20th century? Does it borher you at all that you repeat, however accidentally, the same mantra that they peddle?
Before going off the deep end, I strongly encourage you to reread my comments, very, very carefully.
I was blasting the federal government for this program. The drug companies are merely the beneficiaries, but not the perpetrators.
No need to going nuclear on me, TopQuark.
“drug companies are not particularly profitable”
Unfortunately, in absolute terms, they are. Of the top 12 publicly owned pharma firms, profits in 2010 were at double-digit levels with very few exceptions, regardless of whether profits were measured as a percent of revenues, assets or stockholder’s equity.
2010 figures here:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/industries/20/index.html
What IS true, but rarely successfully conveyed to the general public, is that pharma is much riskier than other industries. Therefore, the cost of capital is higher (pharma has to pay higher dividends to stockholders or interest on debt in order to persuade investors to put their money into the industry). CBO and others have done careful studies showing that once you account for this higher cost of capital—reflecting the higher volatility of returns—pharma’s profits are only a teensie bit higher than what would be expected compared to less risky industries.