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If we want lower-cost health care, we should enact stricter intellectual property laws, and require other countries license and pay full fair for medical advanc
by jcnnghm 17y ago
If we want lower-cost health care, we should enact stricter intellectual property laws, and require other countries license and pay full fair for medical advancements made in the United States. 82% of global R&D spending in medicine comes from the United States.
The author of the article was frivolously using medical resources, which is why he couldn't get insurance. If he has been so healthy that he hasn't missed more than three days of work due to illness since 1986, why does he need "routine checkups" every four months. If I was looking at that from the perspective of an insurer, the conclusion that I would draw is that, should this guy ever actually come down with something, he'd be in the hospital for months.
- DennisP 17y agoThree times a year is frivolous? In Japan people go to the doctor an average of 14 times a year. They spend six percent of their GDP on healthcare and have virtually no waits even for elective surgery. The U.S. spends 17 percent. As for IP, what we should really do is get rid of pharmaceutical patents entirely. There are plenty of other ways to fund the research. Half is funded by the government anyway, and a lot of what the big pharms fund is "me-too" drugs and ways to extend existing patents, which makes the spending numbers kind of misleading.