You need to learn to argue civilly. Then you might not get down-voted.

No, the province of Quebec did...

Fine, that doesn't affect my argument.

You just gave examples in both Canada and the UK that showed that you most certainly can.

No. There's a difference. The UK system says "we'll give you $X for treatment A; if you want the more-expensive ($Y) B you get 0". What I'm arguing is "we're willing to invest $X; if you want B, you'll have to kick in Y-X".

In concrete terms, suppose that my hypothetical colon cancer can be treated for $50,000 but there's also a $60,000 treatment that's better but the government doesn't cover. The UK says that I have to "take it or leave it"; they won't let me get the alternative by kicking in the extra $10,000. I'd have to pay the full $60,000. For practical purposes, that's all but a prohibition.

You're fighting each other for a dwindling and ever more expensive piece of the pie

This is wrong. The pie is enlarging; everyone has access to better healthcare than anyone could get 60-70 years ago. The increasing expense is due to the availability of additional treatments. As Mr. Kamen said, there are treatments (e.g., polio) that were in effect infinitely expensive two generations ago that are now within the reach of literally everyone. The stuff that's outrageously expensive will be available for our kids.

But not if nobody develops them. If those researching new treatments can't sell those treatments because the gov't puts a wet blanket on the industry, then the treatments will never be sought.

Another thread in this page claimed that government funding would prevent this. There's a little truth in that, but it all revolves around the politicization of disease. We can already see the effects of that: government subsidizes AIDS/HIV research at something like 10x the rate of breast cancer, normalized to the number of people suffering from each. It winds that we help those with the best lobbyists, not those with the most need. And that's certainly no better than the Adam Smith's invisible hand could do.

It does, actually. It shows that the specifics of one particular system aren't even true across the same country.

For practical purposes, that's all but a prohibition.

No, it's a feature of that particular system. You're discounting the entire idea of single payer health care because one particular version has a component that you don't agree with. You're being intentionally deceptive in your argument.

everyone has access to better healthcare than anyone could get 60-70 years ago

...including those of us in government run systems, moot point.

If those researching new treatments can't sell those treatments because the gov't puts a wet blanket on the industry, then the treatments will never be sought.

By this logic, there should be effectively no medical research occurring anywhere else in the world save the US. This isn't the case.

And that's certainly no better than the Adam Smith's invisible hand could do.

Except of course for the however many millions that can't actually access any of this medical treatment. That's the whole crux of things: For those able, the trade-offs between a government run system and the US system are trivial overall. The major downsides in the US system have no equivalent in other systems.

You're misunderstanding. I'm not saying that all are bad because (at least) a few have a particular feature. I'm citing two examples to show that the "progressive" movement in healthcare shows a trend toward that bad feature. This should be a warning to us about a) the motivations of those pushing this; and b) should we really decide that "reform" is necessary, we ought to guard against this.

Except of course for the however many millions that can't actually access any of this medical treatment. That's the whole crux of things

If that's the crux of this, then you've lost the argument. The premise that you're working from is simply erroneous. It is untrue that many millions cannot access any of these treatments. In the USA, anyone can walk into the emergency room and get treated. While it's true that esoteric treatments having sky-high prices (say, heart transplant) won't be provided, all of the basic services will be provided even to those unable to pay on their own.

FWIW, my wife is the Manager of Budget and Reimbursement at a largish urban hospital. She spends a fair amount of her time coordinating with Medicaid to get the hospital reimbursed for the cost of treating charity and bad debt cases. You seem to be saying that this is all a figment of her imagination, that the hospital is actually turning away all of these people. That ain't so: even the homeless get treatment in America, with the system we have today.

On cancer: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596 and http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080716...

On heart attacks: http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/01.CIR....

On access to medical technologies: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/13/4/113.pdf

Who do you think pays for medical research and why?

This is nothing more than conjecture and PR taken to laughing stock levels (outside of the US at least).

Even in the US, the largest research funder is in fact the US government, just like every other country.

I don't know of a way to prove other than telling you to go to a medical research laboratory and ask some of the people that work there.

Most of them are going to chuckle a bit at your suggestion that I'm wrong.

I would also suggest looking at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins, which are the premier medical research institutions in the world. (I'm sorry, this is also common knowledge...I can't offer you any 'proof' of it other than...look).

Then it should be easy to support. Let's talk fact here, common knowledge is often wrong.

For reference, the largest medical research funder in the world is actually NIH; an arm of the US government.

Sure! In 2003 the United States spent about $94 Billion Dollars on medical reseearch. About 28% of this came from the National Institute of health. Yes, you are technically correct, this makes them the largest "single" contributor. (http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/...)

In 2002/2003 the UK (the largest EU contributor to health research) spent about $480 Million (400 Million Euro) on cancer research. (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=15...)

In this same period, the United States spent about $1.9 Billion. (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-fu...)

I understand that these sorts of things are inconvenient, and I apologize for not citing sources earlier. Like I said, this is pretty much common knowledge to anybody even remotely familiar with medical research.

In the future, I suggest using this website: http://www.google.com .. it is really great for helping you find things that support "common" knowledge.

With your own quoted figures:

$480 million / 60 million population = $8 per person in the UK

$1.9 billion / 300 million population = $6.33 per person in the US

Nice try!

The United States is responsible for 4x as much medical research as the United Kingdom is. How can you in any way misunderstand this to mean something other than "The United States does more Research than anybody else. This is common knowledge".

Are you illiterate?

You asked: "Who do you think pays for medical research and why?"

It appears everyone, including the US, pays for medical research via taxation and government directed research and this dwarfs private investment on a global scale (absolute or per capita), even in the only first world nation to avoid socialized medicine (i.e. the US).

You didn't challenge this interpretation when the other poster said:

"Even in the US, the largest research funder is in fact the US government, just like every other country."

Yet, you suddenly suggest that you meant:

"The US pays for a lot of medical research because it is a populous first world country" which is true but utterly facile.

Why don't you answer your own question? Who pays and why? Maybe then we'll be able to figure what you're actually trying to say and how it relates to the topic being discussed.

You might say that other, smaller governments spend at a comparable per-capita rate. But that doesn't change the fact that the USA is still spending much more and accomplishing more research.

Hardly a great argument, but at least the latter actually is "common knowledge".

When some evidence was provided, you stated that per capita they're only doing 1/3 more than the UK.

The thing is, that original claim that others were arguing with had nothing to do with per capita. The proposition is based on absolute numbers.

And for the larger argument about what current proposals would do to innovation in medical treatments, what we're really talking about is the total amount of research, not per capita -- the latter is a red herring.

The fear is that, if the USA clamps down on healthcare spending, then much of the research that's done in the USA won't continue. And if that's the case, then the pace of improvements in healthcare will slow, and in the long run that's a very bad thing.

That proposition is certainly open to debate. But decomposing the facts into per capita data is a red herring that does nothing to resolve the question one way or another.

Showing that other nations with socialised medicine have higher per capita investment is entirely germane since the point is at what level the US could be investing if it chose another approach. It's evidence that directly contradicts assumptions in this thread.