Angus King: “The patent issue is a separate issue from reimportation, but we are all interested in making drugs affordable and…”

“The patent issue is a separate issue from reimportation, but we are all interested in making drugs affordable and accessible to the seniors of America. The Republican Party has made that one of its top issues this year. To just review the patent situation, if you invent a computer chip like Steve Jobs, the proverbial dot.com success story, if you do that tinkering away in the midnight hours at your house, you get a patent. That patent helps you recoup the costs and all your time and pays you off for your ingenuity and genius mind. With a drug company, they are a little different. The research is subsidized by the taxpayers, so why are we giving them such a long, 17-year patent when in fact so much of the research is subsidized?”