[ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA]

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou
> ...
> My point (which no-one has yet addressed) is that *public* 
> health in the US costs more per capita, while providing less, 
> than *public* health in Canada, and other shambolic 
> countries. So, just as there are more and less efficient 
> businesses, there are more and less efficient public enterprises...
Stathis Papaioannou

Stathis you may be right on that, in which case the solution would be to end
US public health care.  Shift it over to the more efficient market driven
health care.  Don't increase what is already inefficient.

As much as the pundits like to say that America is trending towards
socialism, the reality is the US is a capitalist nation filled with people
who have capitalist ideals.  I know, I am one of them.  If the US managed to
get a health care overhaul, the first thing this nation of capitalists would
do is look for ways to make money on it.  I have some of these notions
myself.  There would be *plenty* of ways to make money on it.  

The current president (whose name escapes me at the moment) is still
struggling to get socialized medicine, but most USians now realize it is
over.  It came to an end on Thursday 16 July, with the congressional budget
office assessment.  

Here's something that impressed me.  There was all the rhetoric that our
current medical system would bankrupt the nation.  Then the congressional
budget office issued the 16 July report that the new scheme would actually
drive total costs up.  This contradicts the entire underlying rationale
behind changing the system.  Now there are arguments that the scheme could
be made deficit neutral (hooray!).  I doubt that, but even if it could, what
about the impassioned speeches assuring us that the status quo would
bankrupt the nation?  Are we really striving for a new system that would
merely bankrupt the nation?  As opposed to...what?

We already have a huge problem in our medical system with free riders.  The
proposed system would make that problem much worse.  We recognize that our
system is broken.  But it can be broken far worse than it already is.  I
guess I would reluctantly advise to leave the medical system alone, forget
the environmental reform bill that is also doomed, use the political mandate
to get something else that is far more desperately needed: a universal
balanced budget amendment to the constitution.

spike