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matt27:

well Tros- the profession is heavily influenced by prescription drug companies. It’s just the working of the free market though- the drug companies “subsidize” Doctors by providing them with information (read: sales pitches) on their new drugs.

This is true enough, except that it’s not “the working of the free market.”

Pharmaceutical companies are willing and able to pour huge amounts of money and labor into lobbying physicians because (1) they have enormous profit margins on new drugs, and (2) their new products are usually not easily substitutable (if a doctor wants to prescribe something like X, she will probably have to prescribe X itself rather than a near-identical competitor). But (1) is mainly the result of (2) and (2) is not the result of the workings of the free market. It’s the result of government-enforced patent monopolies. (N.B.: whether you or not think patent protectionism is justifiable, characterizing the behavior of government-backed monopolists as “the working of the free market” is just an inaccurate description of the situation.)