The NYT article by Michael B. Eisen outlines "Through the Nat'l Institute of Health, American taxpayers have long supported research directed at understanding & treating human disease. Since 2009, the results have been available free of charge on the Nat'l Library of Medicine website allowing the public to read about the discoveries their tax dollars paid for.
The "Research Works Act" now pending in Congress would forbid the NIH from requiring, as it does now, that its grantees provde copies of the papers...Americans would have to buy access to individual articles at a cost of $15-$30 apiece.
In other words, taxpayers who have paid for research would have to pay again."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for....