[ExI] Health care in the USA

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/6/28 Max More <max at maxmore.com>:

> The relentless criticism of the US system should not be allowed to obscure
> the real ways in which it leads the world. Parts of the system are world
> class, including its best hospitals. The US has been the leader in medical
> innovation. Waiting times are lower (for the insured and others who can
> pay)--see below. Cutting-edge drugs and treatments are available earlier.
> According to Robert Goldberg of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical
> Progress, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries of the USA has
> developed more cancer drugs than all those in Europe, Canada, and Japan
> combined. Pharmaceutical R&D has increasingly been focused in the United
> States due to price controls elsewhere. Goldberg points out that it is in
> the US that 75 percent of all new drugs are discovered and first used.
> (Examples being coated stents for treating narrowing heart arteries and
> LASIK surgery for correcting vision problems.) I would argue that these
> remarkable results are due to the private aspects of the system.

There is no doubt that the US leads in medical research, and
scientific research in general. But almost all of the basic research
is either government funded or funded by not for profit organisations.
Pharmaceutical companies pick and choose from this "free" research to
decide what drug candidates they are going to pursue.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou