I'm not sure that would actually help given the medication is produced in America, or by American companies at least.
From what I understand, almost all medication is produced in batches of a fixed quantity, and the tested and shipped out. Batches have fixed costs associated them, both by law and by business practices.
I know I've read articles describing how some drugs are being made through continuous manufacturing now and that it has lower costs associated with it, but it was like 2.
Basically, I'm not sure if buying the whole countries worth of a medication would help given the way the FDA has gone about certifying meds and the cost structures that has created. If you all of a sudden had to recertify most medications, many of them would stop being produced all together.
Another to consider is that under FAR, you must amortize the entire cost of an item, including testing and development, when selling to the federal government.
Wouldn't those costs be absolutely insane? Wouldn't that effectively turn big pharma into the new MIC?
I don't want to just dismiss that entirely, especially not in it's approach to the problem, but I'm not really sold.
In this study you have: 150 hand selected people, who are "chronically unhoused" not long term homeless ( at least that's how I'm reading it) A big town in a low population state A small total chronically unhoused population (est 513 in addition to the 150 included in the program) 18 year time difference, with 56% inflation since then A 23% dropout rate (which is probably better than it sounds) A small 15% decrease in substance abuse and increase in seeking employment
This really does not inspire confidence in its efficacy in America, more specifically California or New York where more than 50% of of the countries homeless are located.