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In an ideal world, the amount of money we spend on medical research to prevent or cure a disease would be proportional to its seriousness and the number of people who suffer from it.

The cost of research, development and testing of a new drug is vastly greater than the cost of each dose produced. How should we pay for new medicines? Innovators should be rewarded according to the impact of their medicine, and people should contribute to these rewards according to their ability to pay.

I think the biggest problem in clinical trials is that they are underpowered. And that fundamentally, the studies are just too small.

Hard as it is to imagine, there's a move afoot in Congress to take away the public's free online access to tax-funded medical research findings. That would be bad for medical discovery, bad for patients looking for the latest research results, and another rip-off of the American taxpayer.

The key is to cut out the middleman and empower both doctor and patient with information about what things cost.

Even if we never cure a single disease, the Human Genome Project and other ventures will have been worth it.

And secondly, I would impose a significant state landfill tipping fee and use that tipping fee to fund the billion dollar bond issue that I want to create to produce the funds for all of the environmental challenges that we just went over.

Modern medical advances have helped millions of people live longer, healthier lives. We owe these improvements to decades of investment in medical research.

In 15 years, we've raised $225 million, sequenced the myeloma genome, and opened 45 trials of 23 drugs - six approved by the FDA - which have doubled the life span of multiple myeloma patients. I've taken both Velcade and Revlimid, which we helped develop.

As soon as we find a cure, we will utilize any of the donations to go toward providing medication to those who can't afford it. That is my goal.