Comment by dbspin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbspin | Hacker News Reader

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> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.

Health Disadvantage in US Adults Aged 50 to 74 Years: A Comparison of the Health of Rich and Poor Americans With That of Europeans - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661456/#:~:tex....

Differences in Health between Americans and Western Europeans: Effects on Longevity and Public Finance https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3383030/

US spends more than twice as much on health as similar countries for worse outcomes, finds report https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2340

I don't think any of your links substantiate the claim that US healthcare expenditure subsidises global R&D on healthcare, only that healthcare is more expensive in the US (which I personally think is more due to an extremely ineffective system with an unhealthy amount of middlemen that inflate prices).

You know what disproves this, again right wing US BS to oppose universal healthcare? The financial filings of each and every international pharma company.

Regarding defence spending, it is good this point comes up. It replaced masks during Covid as a clear indicator of where a person gets its information from, or how good they are at critical thinking.

> You know what disproves this, again right wing US BS to oppose universal healthcare?

Originally, universal health care was proposed by the Nixon administration, and was a right wing issue. The issue was viewed as an industrial competitiveness issue, and the solution advocated was a single payer system that would move the cost of health off of the balance sheet. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had this idea taken root.

It is quite telling that we reached a point where look back and unironically say: that Nixon policy wasn't bad.

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