QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 06:11 PM)
Yes, there is. It's a great system so long as there is a massive system out there innovating for it. That's what we do. Most medical innovations, and drug innovations come from here. If we also had a single payer system, things would change right along with it. Of course this is something people won't talk about, or they'll post thin evidence stating that a free market system is no more innovative...when it is.
That and the other unsaid system in place that basically allows these governments to have a single payer system...since the US is 90% of the defense, they can run a skeleton military.
I fully expect you to respond now as to how we haven't innovated the medical/drug system for the entire world...when we have.
We've had this conversation already. I know, the us sucks balls, and everywhere else rules. But here you still are.
I'm certainly interested in the idea of us "innovating for all" so to speak...but I'm not sure if we should all be penalized with an inferior healthcare system for it to happen. It is hard to say whether we come up with medical discoveries and such just because of our free market healthcare system or if it just happens to be true because our country has excellent researchers (perhaps because we have far and away the best higher education system). I'm sure there is a mix of both, but the question is how much of each is responsible. Would an innovative researcher do as much good if he was working at a university and receiving federal research grants rather than in a private lab for a pharmaceutical company? More good? Less good? I suppose that's a loaded question...how much can pharmaceutical companies spend on research, what do they want to research, how available can we make federal grants for medical research, etc.
I like that you mention our massive defense budget because it sticks out like a sore thumb when you look at our federal budget and when you look at the rest of the world's defense spending. Maybe we should put some of the burden for all these things like defense, scientific research, etc back on the rest of the world. We don't have to mortgage our own country because we're insecure about the entire world turning on us or failing to do as good of a job with the same resources.
I'm also now imagining a federal grant leading to the discovery of some kind of cancer cure/remedy...and some of the people involved in that allocation campaigning on the "I cured cancer" premise
