A natural group to pay R&D for patent-free drugs is health insurance companies, who would benefit from the lower costs, and perhaps even come out ahead. But its hard for those companies to organize such an effort, because they can get the same benefit even if they don't contribute. It's a classic public goods problem.
Usually we solve public goods problems with taxes, and we could do that here, taxing the insurers and spending the money on R&D for patent-free drugs. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to this effect several years ago. Iirc it involved "xprizes" for successful treatments, so bureaucrats wouldn't be steering all the research.
The plan simply provides another funding mechanism. There's nothing in the plan to prevent companies from developing patented drugs. So if you're right, it would just mean that birth control drugs would not be free of patents when introduced, just as under the current system.
A natural group to pay R&D for patent-free drugs is health insurance companies, who would benefit from the lower costs, and perhaps even come out ahead. But its hard for those companies to organize such an effort, because they can get the same benefit even if they don't contribute. It's a classic public goods problem.
Usually we solve public goods problems with taxes, and we could do that here, taxing the insurers and spending the money on R&D for patent-free drugs. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to this effect several years ago. Iirc it involved "xprizes" for successful treatments, so bureaucrats wouldn't be steering all the research.