An outsider watching the US health care debate

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

The world has long relied on American and British innovation in the field of medicine. Once the UK went to NHS, British innovation slacked off.

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Interestingly, about 28% of biomedical research funding in the United States comes from the NIH, that is, the government:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/294/11/1333

Even that number is a bit deceptive, since industry funding is overwhelmingly concentrated in clinical trials, or the final stage of bringing a drug to market. Some estimates are that 75% of the papers cited in pharma patent applications are from publicly funded research. NIH funding is focused on basic research, which is where real innovation happens. That's a big part of why NIH-funded research has racked up over 90 Nobel prizes, compared to 4 from industry scientists.

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by trish

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Originally Posted by JerseyMike

If you really look at it the Democrats don't need any Republicans to pass health care. They could do it today if they wanted to. Only problem is that it would be just like 1994 in 2010 and the Dems wouldn't be in power in Congress. It is other Democrats that are keeping health care down not Republicans. It is just fear of a Republican rise that is keeping Democrats from passing health care. In other words, Democrats are still wimps. If we want to pass it they shouldn't worry about future elections and pass it.

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A few remarks:
1) Obama is not a progressive. He’s willing to sacrifice a lot that progressives are not willing to sacrifice, in order to optimize political support for healthcare reform.
2) Obama was never about ramming things through unilaterally, as much a progressive democrats (like me) wish it would be the case. His strategy to almost every sort of problem is to sit down with all the interested parties, hear each other out and find a mutual course of action.
3) The bill cannot be passed by democrats alone without the support of the blue dogs, which are not yet on board.

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Obama is the most progressive national stature politician ever seen since I've been alive.

Do you mean to tell me that if Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed through a bill that he liked he wouldn't sign it because there was no Republican support?

Last time I looked, the Blue Dogs were Democrats.

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He is not PROGRESSIVE, not by a LONG SHOT. If you think he's progressive then you must think he's a socialist too?

I suppose you call Michelle Bachmann a MODERATE?

Kay Hutchinson a Moderate?

The only moderates left in Congress are Snowe and Collins both from Maine...

Everybody else is a nutcase protected by their nutcase constituency

The Blue Dogs were a response to Moderate Republicans in largely Republican districts that fired Republicans from office in '06 and '08.

They are Republican Light, how you explain them getting into office?

True Progressives like myself have been calling for SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE.

They sold us down the river for "The Public Option" which is a compromise to start with, there's no need to give up that position for something else.

What we'll end up with is something less than great and better than nothing and we'll be re-visiting it again in the future...

The only way to keep Health Care affordable for BOTTOM 80% of Americans is to go Single Payer. Funny how some countries could have copied our model and choose NOT TOO, that's how "Great" it is.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...reinhardt.html

The US tried to push India to deregulate its Banking system (via the IMF) like we have done with ours, good thing they didn't....

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Why do Americans tolerate 22,000 people dying every year [who] could be cured?

Reinhardt: Well, in part, most other nations were nations that shared a common culture and are more middle-class; the income distribution is much less wide. We have a whole new corporate aristocracy here, ... and [recently] we have increasingly legitimized the idea that this aristocracy has certain rights. For example, what always stuns me on Princeton campus is that you have young men who favor the surge [in Iraq], who say we must fight terrorists and talk about the grave danger of the terrorists, [yet] feel under no obligation to put on a uniform and lead that fight. ...

So we have a nation where the elite thinks it's OK to advocate a war and send the lower-income people to do the fighting. It's natural for such a people to think that the lower-income people should also have a worse health care experience. ... And the other countries are not there -- I always say, not there yet. I tell the Germans and the Swiss, "You're not there yet, but if you're not very, very careful, if we Americans come over there and rearrange ... your health care system, you will be just like us."

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by Jericho

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by Jericho

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by Jericho

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

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Originally Posted by Jericho

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

I'm just not in favor of trotting out false or misleading data to get there.

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Ya mean like:

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Those countries rely on the US to do their research in pharmaceuticals.

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? :?

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That is neither false nor misleading.

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No, of course it isn't.
Nowhere else in the world is doing cutting edge medical research. :roll:

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Compare the percentage of research.

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The stage is your...Please...Enlighten us.

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http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi...tract/25/2/452

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Hmmm, bit different to your original statement, init!

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Only to the anal-retentive nit pickers of the world, Ersatz Einstein.

The world has long relied on American and British innovation in the field of medicine. Once the UK went to NHS, British innovation slacked off.

Do other countries DO research? Why, yes they do. But when new and expensive drugs cannot even be prescribed in many socialized medicine countries (like Sutent in the UK was, for example), there is no incentive to research those drugs in those countries.

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Only to the anal-retentive nit pickers of the world, Ersatz Einstein.

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My my, arent you clever, almost qualify as a Europen...Almost! :shrug


Right, we've both taken shots, now we've got that out of the way....

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The world has long relied on American and British innovation in the field

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Right, so the world doesn't just rely on American, but, American and BRITISH inovations...Which is a bit of a backtrack on your original statement, but, not back enough. Dosn't matter anyting that's coming out of china and russia (remember those 3rd world countries?)

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Do other countries DO research? Why, yes they do. But when new and expensive drugs cannot even be prescribed in many socialized medicine countries (like Sutent in the UK was, for example), there is no incentive to research those drugs in those countries

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Remember Bhopal?
Little bit of a disaster they had in India :?

The drugs they were producing there, weren't for the Indian market.
Go on, guess

Really, i envy you your innocence.

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Originally Posted by Jericho

Remember Bhopal?
Little bit of a disaster they had in India :?

The drugs they were producing there, weren't for the Indian market.
Go on, guess.

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They weren't producing drugs at Bhopal. Union Carbide wasn't a drug company. They were producing pesticides (Sevin).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

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Originally Posted by duplicatt

Do other countries DO research? Why, yes they do. But when new and expensive drugs cannot even be prescribed in many socialized medicine countries (like Sutent in the UK was, for example), there is no incentive to research those drugs in those countries.

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The problem with that line of argument is that it ALSO leads to corruption in science and medicine, just as it has done with the I.D.S.A.. There are many examples of drug companies biasing their research with the sole aim of helping their profit margins. Many of these new and expensive drugs have the same or even worse efficacy than the ones we've already got, nevermind nasty side-effects, which is part of the reason public health services are slow to start using them. It is however to be expected that patients looking for hope will want to try them immediately though. But as thombergeron has already pointed out, most of the breakthrough research is done by public institues where profit isn't king. :king

Glaxo Executive’s Memo Suggested Burying Drug Studies (Update4)
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=ah9mMl9sDitg

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Originally Posted by trish

I love my country, and unlike radical right wing cowards, I not deathly afraid of its government or whole classes of its people.

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A lot of people on the far right would say that people on the far left don't love THIS country, but the idea of what this country could be. If you consider that many on the far left disdain the nation state, find nationalism or patriotism as crass, primitive and an evil in itself, than there is a strong inclination to believe the right wing when they say that at it's core, the far left HATES America.

It's the truth, obviously not for every card carrying liberal, but for a large share of the intelligentsia, absolutely. It's very dangerous to say so, but it's the truth.

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Originally Posted by trish

That's been the right's stategy for some time now: ignore the truth, shout down other discussants, divert the conversation to inanities like birth certificates & death panels. Afraid of the truth (you obviosly are) just bring a gun to the conversation. If you're afraid of what's being posted, shoot the keyboard. Ignore button ... what a coward!

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Honestly, the rightwing says the same thing about lefties. And there are plenty of right wingers who say the birther/death panel thing is a favorite of the MSM because it distracts from more credible, more serious debate about the President and his intentions.

The left seems to do VERY well at taking "dangerous" individuals like Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin and holding them up for ridicule, so they can't be effective beyond their base. Could this be a trick that David Axelrod learned from reading Saul Alinksky's Rules for Radicals?


Why does Chris Matthews bring up birthers, deathers etc. 14, 17, and 9 times the last 3 weekends? Because he likes setting up fools so he can knock them down and say, 'see what kind of folks criticise the POTUS? Pay no attention to them, avert your gaze.'

I know no one who thinks patriotism is crass, though there are people who think jingoism is. Patriotism is taking an interest in your country's interests and involving yourself in the solution of the problems it faces. If we both have the same understanding of "nation-state" I know very very few liberals who harbor a disdain for our nation-state, but I do know republicans and libertarians who do and who would prefer living within a nation-state of much diminished influence. The U.S. is a melting pot of nationalities, so it's not so clear what one even means by American nationalism. Liberals pledge the flag, read history, celebrate the national holidays just a fervently as any conservative. The right just has a penchant for wanting to define the language. They want to have the franchise on patriotism. That's not very patriotic of them.

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Originally Posted by jaycanuck

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Originally Posted by rocko

so if you did not pay for the care, who did?

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Oh you. I see what you did there. Yes I did pay for a portion with my taxes. But I'd rather pay a portion in taxes than paying $800+. And then everyone gets to take advantage of it. Good idea no?

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So let me get this straight. It's alright for someone who has to bust their ass every day at work to pay for health care for people who don't work, collect welfare (<-- already an awesome example) and let corrupt government agencies decide that I'm just not working hard enough and crack the whip to take more taxes out of me? No thank you!

I'll gladly pay for my poison ivy treatments myself, choose my doctor and hell... probably pay less then the taxes they are going to take from me anyways.

Basically, under Obama's regime... the more you work, the more your punished. Fuck, maybe that's the idea... let me get fat, clog my arteries, pop out 2 and 1/2 kids and never work again. I'll be taken care of by my savior Mr. Obama... Awesome!

Fuck that fascist pig in the face.

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Originally Posted by trish

I know no one who thinks patriotism is crass, though there are people who think jingoism is. Patriotism is taking an interest in your country's interests and involving yourself in the solution of the problems it faces. If we both have the same understanding of "nation-state" I know very very few liberals who harbor a disdain for our nation-state, but I do know republicans and libertarians who do and who would prefer living within a nation-state of much diminished influence. The U.S. is a melting pot of nationalities, so it's not so clear what one even means by American nationalism. Liberals pledge the flag, read history, celebrate the national holidays just a fervently as any conservative. The right just has a penchant for wanting to define the language. They want to have the franchise on patriotism. That's not very patriotic of them.

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Patriotism=Jingoism to many liberals. To many liberals, Patriotism means allegiance to the goals and principals of the American left, which often run counter to, and plot the demise of America as a sovereign nation. It's not even really that well hidden.

Obviously, this is all coming from a right winger (or to be more honest, someone who distrusts the left more than he loves the right) but this is the way I see it.

I would also put qualifiers on them reading history-it doesn't need to be stated that liberal apologists and conservative apologists often have a vastly different view of history. Defining language and controlling semantics has been a halmark of the left since Marx. This is absolutely irrefutable. It was immediately recognized to be a main tool of the left.

Political Correctness, that started with the modern left. Liberals got a taste of it after 9/11, till about 2004, but think of what conservatives or libertarians have gone through all these years.

When liberals rant about Fox, they should really just pity non-liberals. Fox is the only real tool they have on network television. Look at talk radio. How did they take a dead format and make it into a powerhouse? Because non-liberals had nowhere else to go.