US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1850

On April 15 2015 09:50 wei2coolman wrote:

Unless you're a 2% or 1%, that's pretty much out of the question, at least financially.

On April 15 2015 09:52 Gorsameth wrote:

Still no different from the US

On April 15 2015 09:51 Chewbacca. wrote:


In which case, see my point 2. If you expand that list past 10 to show top 50 or top 100 it will shift the $/capita much more in favor of the US.

Hell just looking at the "List of Pharmaceutical Companies" page on Wikipedia has the US at 14 of the top 41 companies and Switzerland only has those two in your list.

On April 15 2015 09:51 Chewbacca. wrote:


In which case, see my point 2. If you expand that list past 10 to show top 50 or top 100 it will shift the $/capita much more in favor of the US.

Hell just looking at the "List of Pharmaceutical Companies" page on Wikipedia has the US at 14 of the top 41 companies and Switzerland only has those two in your list.

It is widely believed that the United States has eclipsed Europe in pharmaceutical research productivity. Some leading analysts claim that although fewer drugs have been discovered worldwide over the past decade, most are therapeutically important. Yet a comprehensive data set of all new chemical entities approved between 1982 and 2003 shows that the United States never overtook Europe in research productivity, and that Europe in fact is pulling ahead of U.S. productivity.
[...]
As shown in Exhibit 2⇓, pharmaceutical companies increased their R&D investments in the United States from about a third of the three-country total in 1990 to half in 2000. R&D investment in Europe dropped twelve percentage points during the decade, and investment in Japan declined around two percentage points. Absolute numbers increased everywhere because companies reported a rapid increase in total R&D investments, from 15.9 billion euro (US$22.4 billion) in 1990 to 48.3 billion euro (US$68.0 billion) in 2000.
Overall research productivity can be measured by the proportion of new chemical entities to the proportion of R&D investment in the three countries. For example, if U.S. research teams received 33 percent of the budget, they should discover about 33 percent of all NCEs—a ratio of 1.0. By dividing the percentage of all NCEs in Exhibit 1⇑ by the percentage invested, one can see that the United States discovered far fewer NCEs than its proportional share of funding: 0.76 (25.3/33.3) in the first period and 0.75 in the second. Europe’s ratio of all NCEs to investment went from 0.99 in the first period to 1.17 (43.3/36.9) in the second. Japan’s proportionate ratio was the highest: 1.49 in the first period and 1.36 in the second.

On April 15 2015 09:54 wei2coolman wrote:

And this is why US's healthcare system is fucking dumb. lol.

though I suspect it would be less dumb if average income in the US was a lot higher, along with changes in spending culture, but that's somewhat low on the list of reasons why US healthcare system isn't working.

I mean, ideally millitron's ideal healthcare system would be mirror the free market plastic surgery, and surgical cosmetic industry of South Korea, where procedures are extremely cheap due to strong free market competition, the problem is, even with such competitive market, it's still limited to lower middle class and up to afford these procedures.

On April 15 2015 10:03 Millitron wrote:

Exactly.

Like I've said a few times now though, I just don't like this half-and-half system that the ACA is. It's the worst of both worlds. You've got the rationing and taxation of a single payer system with none of the bargaining power.

Single-payer or a strong free market a la SK would both be acceptable.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho officials face a looming deadline to maintain tens of millions of dollars in funding after a bill that would have brought the state into compliance with federal rules was killed when conservative legislators said it would have subjected the state to fundamentalist Islamic law.

The state Health Department said Monday that without a revision in the next two months they stand to lose access to programs that process child support payments and track down scofflaws in addition to $46 million in federal payouts.

The conflict started last week after a House committee narrowly rejected a bill that had sailed through the Senate after some lawmakers said it would have required Idaho to uphold Sharia law — a contention others said was baseless.

State Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, a Republican from the small northern community of Cottonwood, raised the objection during the House Judiciary and Rules Committee hearing. She testified that the federal law Idaho was adjusting to incorporated provisions of an international agreement regarding cross-border recovery of child-support payments, the Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Family Maintenance.

None of the nearly 80 countries involved in the treaty — which the U.S. entered in 2007 — are under Sharia law. But Nuxoll and other skeptics said their concerns were valid because some nations in treaty informally recognize such courts. They added that the provisions of the deal wouldn't leave Idaho with the authority to challenge another nation's judgment, particularly if it were under hard-line Islamic law.

The criticisms tapped into the conservative, and often isolationist, sentiment that can pop up in Idaho's Republican-controlled Statehouse, where lawmakers frequently balk at federal mandates.

On April 15 2015 10:05 wei2coolman wrote:

the problem with strong free market regarding serious medical costs would be the leverage that healthcare place get.

"oh, i get to leverage your life for payment", is an unfair and unrealistic place to start negotiations from regarding procedures.

On April 15 2015 10:34 Millitron wrote:

Except in a true free market, there are other providers out there willing to do the treatment for less. I wouldn't consider a monopoly a free market.

On April 15 2015 10:34 Millitron wrote:

Except in a true free market, there are other providers out there willing to do the treatment for less. I wouldn't consider a monopoly a free market.

On April 15 2015 10:42 Jormundr wrote:

Healthcare is intrinsically not a true free market. How the hell is someone with a serious problem going to have a reasonable degree of choice, which is the basis for a true free market?

On April 15 2015 10:36 wei2coolman wrote:

Just because the option of "sucks less" vs "sucks more", is not exactly moral high ground when it comes to dealing with the finances of medical care.

also considering the # of hospitals per locale, it's like the stupid as fuck argument regarding internet price gouging from ISP's "oh you have the right to choose!", when in reality you're lucky to have 2 different companies providing internet at your location.

On April 15 2015 10:51 Millitron wrote:

There can be more than one provider. Sure, you don't exactly have much of a choice of whether to pay for services at all or not, but you can decide which provider gets your patronage. As long as there is true competition between providers, no collusion or price-fixing bullshit, it can still be a free market.

On April 15 2015 10:42 Jormundr wrote:

Healthcare is intrinsically not a true free market. How the hell is someone with a serious problem going to have a reasonable degree of choice, which is the basis for a true free market?

On April 15 2015 11:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Usually laws and norms are set up to get you around those issues. Once you're on an airplane you're a hostage, but they don't shake you down for a safe landing.

On April 15 2015 09:26 Toadesstern wrote:

they wouldn't sell in Europe if they didn't make some kind of profit in Europe, they just make a lot more in the US, I give you that.

And as already stated, your idea that the US does a lot more than European countries in R&D seems to be wrong from what google tells me:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/383301-us-politics-megathread?page=1846#36905

If anything, the US amount of papers published is pretty average in comparison to the other 8-9 countries in that list if we take the non-1st-word-nations out while articles like http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/28/5/w969.full seem to say that the money invested into R&D isn't what you're implying it's like either.

Top 10 pharma companies seem to be:

which doesn't seem to support that standpoint either if my google skills are to be trusted (google always linked be to the german pages of those... but I think I got it correctly?)

I mean you can always argue that giving them as much money as possible would be best because that means more profit and thus more R&D but I don't think that's how it goes. So the approach to cut spending in half (if forbes is correct) while keeping the quality you have right now and move on from there seems to be reasonable.
If they don't get enough money anymore they'll raise prices all over the world, including Europe

In 2013, President Obama promised that before any U.S. drone strike, “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured.” Death by Drone questions whether he has kept that promise.

The report casts serious doubt on whether the United States’ “near-certainty” standard is being met on the ground, and whether the U.S. is complying with international law. The nine case studies documented in this report provide credible evidence that U.S. airstrikes have killed and injured Yemeni civilians.

On April 15 2015 11:26 cLutZ wrote:


The country where the ownership of a company resides has, literally, nothing to do with my argument. Nor does it matter where the Research and Development happens. The only thing I am talking about is the potential profits that incentivize the companies to take on that risk. IMO the US bears a disproportionate amount of that cost because countries like Germany (they are the worst offender I know of) basically say "this is the price, take it or leave it" and since they already invested the money years ahead of time, and that price is greater than the marginal cost of manufacturing and distributing the drug, they would be fools not to take it.

Plus, if all the drug companies banded together to prevent the country from doing this (which is actually rational, and necessary to counteract the monopoly of the state) they would obviously lose in court because its an illegal cartel. They'd probably lose patent rights in the case, so it would all be for naught regardless.

On April 15 2015 10:34 Millitron wrote:

Except in a true free market, there are other providers out there willing to do the treatment for less. I wouldn't consider a monopoly a free market.

On April 15 2015 12:37 Toadesstern wrote:

you could make that argument for any market. Why don't we tripple the prices of cars to make sure we get better cars in the future with the added money the car companies will put into R&D that way? I'm not sure it works that way

except that there isn't really a choice if you're in the ER and it's a matter of minutes. You can't pick another provider because you'd be dead before you get there...

On April 15 2015 12:28 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Monopolies are often the direct result of a free market.