wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:21:52 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

The only way to cut the cost of medical care is to cut jobs and
downgrade the salaries of the people they keep. Nobody says that.



Not true. There is a tremendous amount of waste in the current health
care system. From records keeping, to nutrition and everything in
between. A third of it's revenue!!!

http://tinyurl.com/6lwxnr

Which states in part:

Home /Globe /Opinion /Op-ed James Roosevelt Jr.

Breaking the cycle of waste in healthcare


By James Roosevelt Jr.
October 22, 2008
Email|Print|Single Page|Yahoo! Buzz|ShareThisText size – + IMAGINE what
would happen if we learned that a major business was wasting a third of
its revenue by grossly overspending while rewarding poor quality and
mistakes. Everyone from the company's board members to its shareholders
would be outraged. They would demand answers. And they would demand change.

There is, in fact, such a business: healthcare. It is an industry in
which everyone has a stake - as a patient, a payer, or a provider. And
yet the stakeholders have been alarmingly quiet on the issue of waste
and inefficiency.

This is surprising because a staggering $760 billion -- more than the
$700 billion bailout of the US banking system and a full third of the
$2.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending - is wasted on things like
medical mistakes, hospital-acquired infections, medication errors,
overuse of emergency departments, and unnecessary lab tests and medical
imaging.