paulsol wrote:
I was refuting your statement that the 'rest of the world' benefits from the US's largesse resulting from the the industries' massive spending on R&D of new drugs and equipment and procedures and as a result gets to reap the benefits while sitting around taking it easy with their socialised healthcare.
Ok. But so far, other than plaintive insistence, you haven't actually "refuted" the statement.
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Sure, US (and European) based pharmaceutical and medical technology corps spend Zillions of $ on researching new drugs. But a majority of that money is spent on developing and then advertising drugs and treatments that are designed to make a profit from things like male pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction and obesity related disorders.
And the profits they make from that stuff helps fund research in the areas which don't make as much profit, but does win them some PR (and keep regulators off their backs) like new drugs for treating a host of ailments. Take away the profits from the rich men who want everlasting erections and you would lose a significant amount of total funding for treatment of aids, cancer, anti-rejection medications, etc.
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I dont dispute that the big companies are spending the money. I dispute your assertation that the rest of the world is sitting around benefitting from it. In fact those self same companies are the ones who are making every effort to stop the (genuinly) sick people in the 'rest of the world' from benefiting from western technologies with their lobbying to stop the use of locally produced generics for the treatment of things like AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other illnesses that actually kill people.
It doesn't matter though. At some point, the drugs they make will be available at lower cost elsewhere in the world. If they don't make them in the first place though, they never will. This is one of the really nutty arguments I see all the time, that somehow by eliminating the patent duration on new drugs (and thus the profits which result) will help everyone. Sure. In the short and simplistic case, everyone will get access to those new drugs faster. But in reality, what will happen is fewer drugs will be developed.
If no one spends the money researching those drugs, where do you suppose they'll come from?
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Just because the companies are spending up large on R&D, doesn't mean that they're doing so out of some sort of efforts towards philanthropy. Its because they are planning on making profits that would make your eyes sting out of treatments that are specifically developed so as to allow the affluent 1st world 'health consumer' to continue consuming and pursuing a lifestyle choice that caused their condition in the first place.
It doesn't matter why they are doing it. As I stated above, eventually those drugs become available relatively cheaply to everyone. If they don't make the drugs in the first place, they *never* will. And if they can't profit on them, they wont make them. Surely you can see how this is a bad thing in the long run?
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Thats what happens when you put the healthcare concerns into the hands of private companies who are beholden to shareholders. Profits come before health.
If the entire world had adopted universal health care in 1950, the entire worlds medical technology would be just a smidge past that present in 1950. There is no incentive in a socialized medical system to actually improve the technology or the drugs used in the system. The profit motive which you so abhor is the only reason why a number of cures and treatments available commonly today exist in the first place.
And yes. Socialized medicine countries (especially western ones) benefit enormously from the US *not* having a socialized medical system. If you live in one of those countries, the last thing you want is for the US to adopt the same sort of system you have. I guess I just don't get when critical thinking skills utterly disappeared from the human race?
