The Patent System Doesn't Work Out That Way

34 million americans have lost a family member or a friend in the last five years, not because the treatment didn't exist, but because they couldn't afford it. Rising drug costs are pushing families into homelessness, seniors into bankruptcy and parents to crowd funding treatment for their critically ill children. There are reasons for this crisis, but one is the outdated patent system that America tries to export to the rest of the world. The monopoly period on a given medicine is going from 20 years, almost doubling to nearing forty years.