US Number #1 ....

[slackjawed]

Interestingly, the U.S. does well in this comparison, as well, but seems a particular country was left out of the Global Innovation Index...

Israeli Technology Transfer Innovation

And yes, I know it's 2006-2007, but I can't imagine it changing so radically that Israel isn't on the list at all.

Good question...........

 

[jillian]

As if on cue... the winger brings out the WHO rankings that have been debunked...

who debunked them? someone who essentially claims that if we don't hold the U.S. to the same standard as every other nation in the world, then we're doing just fine?

come on..

 

[DiamondDave]

As if on cue... the winger brings out the WHO rankings that have been debunked...

who debunked them? someone who essentially claims that if we don't hold the U.S. to the same standard as every other nation in the world, then we're doing just fine?

come on..

Jill.. this has been gone over time and time and time again.... these WHO rankings were based on a prejudice towards socialized medicine... life expectancy was not a good base to use either.. did not include things such as fatal injury... no acknowledgment that we count childbirth deaths differently... health insurance numbers (again, with other countries having influenced numbers because of socialist systems) being used, even with the numbers skewed with the inclusion of illegals...

It simply has been debunked over and over and over again, Jill

 

[uscitizen]

debunked by whom? Fox? rush? PBS?

 

[jillian]

The following is a list of the twelve largest pharmaceutical companies ranked by revenue as of July 2009[update] in the Fortune Global 500.[1]


Rank[1] Company Country Total Revenues (USD millions) Net income/ (loss) (USD millions) Employees
1 Johnson & Johnson United States 63,747.0[2] 12,949.0 118,700
2 Pfizer United States 48,296.0[3] 8,104.0 81,800
3 GlaxoSmithKline United Kingdom 44,654.0[4] 8,438.6 99,003
4 Roche Switzerland 44,267.5[5] 8,288.1 80,080
5 Sanofi-Aventis France 42,179.0[6] 5,636.7 98,213
6 Novartis Switzerland 41,459.0[7] 8,195.0 96,717
7 AstraZeneca United Kingdom 31,601.0[8] 6,101.0 65,000
8 Abbott Laboratories United States 29,527.6[9] 4,880.7 68,838
9 Merck United States 23,850.3[10] 7,808.4 55,200
10 Wyeth United States 22,833.9[11] 4,417.8 47,426
11 Bristol-Myers Squibb United States 21,366.0[12] 5,247.0 35,000
12 Eli Lilly United States 20,378.0[13] (2,071.9) 40,500
List of pharmaceutical companies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

isn't it amazing...7 out of the top 12 pharmaceutical companies are in this country, and we sell our drugs to every other country for less than our own people pay for them.

 

[jillian]

As if on cue... the winger brings out the WHO rankings that have been debunked...

who debunked them? someone who essentially claims that if we don't hold the U.S. to the same standard as every other nation in the world, then we're doing just fine?

come on..

Jill.. this has been gone over time and time and time again.... these WHO rankings were based on a prejudice towards socialized medicine... life expectancy was not a good base to use either.. did not include things such as fatal injury... no acknowledgment that we count childbirth deaths differently... health insurance numbers (again, with other countries having influenced numbers because of socialist systems) being used, even with the numbers skewed with the inclusion of illegals...

It simply has been debunked over and over and over again, Jill

they were ranked with an eye toward DELIVERY of medical services. If medical services aren't being delivered then we fail.

you can like that... or not like that...

but it's reality

and if our infant mortality rates are highers than other countries...and if our lifespans are shorter than other countries...

then it's OUR fail...

go ahead...call that socialist...

 

[DiamondDave]

debunked by whom? Fox? rush? PBS?

Jesus Christ, winger.... here... just go with a basic overview from Stossel

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study

And no... RCP is just copying his article.. it is not an RCP written piece... we've linked this numerous times before.. as well as others that show the bull-shittedness of the WHO rankings

 

[uscitizen]

The following is a list of the twelve largest pharmaceutical companies ranked by revenue as of July 2009[update] in the Fortune Global 500.[1]


Rank[1] Company Country Total Revenues (USD millions) Net income/ (loss) (USD millions) Employees
1 Johnson & Johnson United States 63,747.0[2] 12,949.0 118,700
2 Pfizer United States 48,296.0[3] 8,104.0 81,800
3 GlaxoSmithKline United Kingdom 44,654.0[4] 8,438.6 99,003
4 Roche Switzerland 44,267.5[5] 8,288.1 80,080
5 Sanofi-Aventis France 42,179.0[6] 5,636.7 98,213
6 Novartis Switzerland 41,459.0[7] 8,195.0 96,717
7 AstraZeneca United Kingdom 31,601.0[8] 6,101.0 65,000
8 Abbott Laboratories United States 29,527.6[9] 4,880.7 68,838
9 Merck United States 23,850.3[10] 7,808.4 55,200
10 Wyeth United States 22,833.9[11] 4,417.8 47,426
11 Bristol-Myers Squibb United States 21,366.0[12] 5,247.0 35,000
12 Eli Lilly United States 20,378.0[13] (2,071.9) 40,500
List of pharmaceutical companies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

isn't it amazing...7 out of the top 12 pharmaceutical companies are in this country, and we sell our drugs to every other country for less than our own people pay for them.

Many of our drugs are no actually made in this country.

Lipitor and ?Viagra are made in Ireland I believe.
Costa Rica makes a lot.

big pharma is mostly European owned as well.

 

[jillian]

debunked by whom? Fox? rush? PBS?

Jesus Christ, winger.... here... just go with a basic overview from Stossel

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study

And no... RCP is just copying his article.. it is not an RCP written piece... we've linked this numerous times before.. as well as others that show the bull-shittedness of the WHO rankings

well, if it's john stossel's OPINION, it must be true, donchaknow

 

[DiamondDave]

debunked by whom? Fox? rush? PBS?

Jesus Christ, winger.... here... just go with a basic overview from Stossel

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why the U.S. Ranks Low on WHO's Health-Care Study

And no... RCP is just copying his article.. it is not an RCP written piece... we've linked this numerous times before.. as well as others that show the bull-shittedness of the WHO rankings

well, if it's john stossel's OPINION, it must be true, donchaknow

No Jill.. he is summing it up... if you actually look into the report, what was reported on, what the specific criteria was, etc.. you can see where the bias of the ranking was... it's not rocket science..

Jeez.. and you guys jump all over Rassmussen polls, but will cling to the WHO opinion like grim death

 

[uscitizen]

It is sad when you trust WHO over your own govt, but thems the times we live in.

 

[obama2ndterm]

Paul V. Dutton
France's model healthcare system

By Paul V. Dutton | August 11, 2007

MANY advocates of a universal healthcare system in the United States look to Canada for their model. While the Canadian healthcare system has much to recommend it, there's another model that has been too long neglected. That is the healthcare system in France.

Although the French system faces many challenges, the World Health Organization rated it the best in the world in 2001 because of its universal coverage, responsive healthcare providers, patient and provider freedoms, and the health and longevity of the country's population. The United States ranked 37.

The French system is also not inexpensive. At $3,500 per capita it is one of the most costly in Europe, yet that is still far less than the $6,100 per person in the United States.

An understanding of how France came to its healthcare system would be instructive in any renewed debate in the United States.

That's because the French share Americans' distaste for restrictions on patient choice and they insist on autonomous private practitioners rather than a British-style national health service, which the French dismiss as "socialized medicine." Virtually all physicians in France participate in the nation's public health insurance, Sécurité Sociale.

Their freedoms of diagnosis and therapy are protected in ways that would make their managed-care-controlled US counterparts envious. However, the average American physician earns more than five times the average US wage while the average French physician makes only about two times the average earnings of his or her compatriots. But the lower income of French physicians is allayed by two factors. Practice liability is greatly diminished by a tort-averse legal system, and medical schools, although extremely competitive to enter, are tuition-free. Thus, French physicians enter their careers with little if any debt and pay much lower malpractice insurance premiums.

Nor do France's doctors face the high nonmedical personnel payroll expenses that burden American physicians. Sécurité Sociale has created a standardized and speedy system for physician billing and patient reimbursement using electronic funds.

It's not uncommon to visit a French medical office and see no nonmedical personnel. What a concept. No back office army of billing specialists who do daily battle with insurers' arcane and constantly changing rules of payment.

Moreover, in contrast to Canada and Britain, there are no waiting lists for elective procedures and patients need not seek pre-authorizations. In other words, like in the United States, "rationing" is not a word that leaves the lips of hopeful politicians. How might the French case inform the US debate over healthcare reform?

National health insurance in France stands upon two grand historical bargains -- the first with doctors and a second with insurers.

Doctors only agreed to participate in compulsory health insurance if the law protected a patient's choice of practitioner and guaranteed physicians' control over medical decision-making. Given their current frustrations, America's doctors might finally be convinced to throw their support behind universal health insurance if it protected their professional judgment and created a sane system of billing and reimbursement.

French legislators also overcame insurance industry resistance by permitting the nation's already existing insurers to administer its new healthcare funds. Private health insurers are also central to the system as supplemental insurers who cover patient expenses that are not paid for by Sécurité Sociale. Indeed, nearly 90 percent of the French population possesses such coverage, making France home to a booming private health insurance market.

The French system strongly discourages the kind of experience rating that occurs in the United States, making it more difficult for insurers to deny coverage for preexisting conditions or to those who are not in good health. In fact, in France, the sicker you are, the more coverage, care, and treatment you get. Would American insurance companies cut a comparable deal?

Like all healthcare systems, the French confront ongoing problems. Today French reformers' number one priority is to move health insurance financing away from payroll and wage levies because they hamper employers' willingness to hire. Instead, France is turning toward broad taxes on earned and unearned income alike to pay for healthcare.

American advocates of mandates on employers to provide health insurance should take note. The link between employment and health security is a historical artifact whose disadvantages now far outweigh its advantages. Economists estimate that between 25 and 45 percent of the US labor force is now job-locked. That is, employees make career decisions based on their need to maintain affordable health coverage or avoid exclusion based on a preexisting condition.

Perhaps it's time for us to take a closer look at French ideas about healthcare reform. They could become an import far less "foreign" and "unfriendly" than many here might initially imagine.

Paul V. Dutton is associate professor of history at Northern Arizona University and author of "Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France," which will be published in September.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company

 

[Navy1960]

One of the reasons I started this post was simply to show that this nation still has much to offer to world in many areas and we lead the world in many areas as well. What I have been seeing lately as the willingness to point out how badly this nation does in some areas and while true perhaps, it's also worth mentioniing that this nation also does well in other areas.

LAS VEGAS--A groundbreaking took place Monday at Nellis Air Force Base, just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the desolate, arid, windswept Mojave Desert. The ceremony will initiate construction on what will be the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) array in the United States, capable of producing 15-18 megawatts of power.
At least for a year or so, say Air Force officials, the plant will also constitute the largest such facility in the world, encompassing an investment of $100 million on 140 acres. The land will largely be covered by silicon wafers that will rotate each day to doggedly follow the sun across the sky.
The facility represents one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) largest forward leaps in developing renewable energy. It is symbolic of the DOD’s efforts to reduce the high cost of fossil-fuel generated electricity that will increasingly, in the years ahead, characterize life in Southern Nevada.
Construction starts on world's largest solar array | Energy Bulletin

Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
Hoover Institution - Hoover Digest - Here’s a Second Opinion

 

[Navy1960]

Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing provided 289,800 wage and salary jobs in 2008. Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing establishments usually employ many workers. About 87 percent of this industry's jobs in 2008 were in establishments that employed more than 100 workers. Over half of all jobs are in California, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing

 

[uscitizen]

Yep we will develop the efficient photovaltaic arrays and then move the manufacturing offshore.

that is my point, innovativeness is useless to America unless America as a whole benefits.

 

[rdean]

I admit, I become confused when Republicans talk about the US being #1 in science. About how "advanced" we are. How great we are. How we know so much. And yet, so few are scientists. And much of the "science" that's presented, Republicans say is a lie. I personally know of one engineer that calls himself a Republican. He said he does because it makes his parents happy, but he thinks they're pretty lame with their attitudes towards science. The rhetoric about, "It's just a piece of paper", and "they sit on their butts collecting government money", or, "They have no common sense" are actually just attempts to pull them down.

I thought many of the comments from Fox were very revealing in how Republicans view science.

Only 6% of Scientists Are Republicans, 55% Are Dems | The FOX Nation

Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media: Overview - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

 

[Ringel05]

One of the reasons I started this post was simply to show that this nation still has much to offer to world in many areas and we lead the world in many areas as well. What I have been seeing lately as the willingness to point out how badly this nation does in some areas and while true perhaps, it's also worth mentioning that this nation also does well in other areas.

Navy, by introducing positive facts such as these you remove the fear mongering factors that the partisan posters on both sides use in their incessant game of juvenile one-ups-man-ship.

 

[uscitizen]

Yes we pay tax dollars to develop medicine and such then give the drug to big pharma who manufactures it somewhere else then sells it to us for 10X what they sell it for in another country.
And as I have said before most of big pharma is foreign owned.

 

[Yurt]

its clear from his posts....uscitizen hates america

 

[Navy1960]

I've always thought that to fix a problem, regardless of what that problem may be is to focus on what works, i.e. the positives, and then indeitfy the issues, and then fix them. If we as a nation spend too much time an focus on whats wrong, and are unwilling to admit that we can and do have the ability to do things right as well, and take pride in that, then the issues we face now will never go away, but will continue into the next generation and most likely become larger ones. Of course our nation has problems and there are many of them, but I will say this, once we all begin to take a bit more pride in the things we do right and focus the energy that we all expend in what we do wrong towards workable solutions , then our nation and all of us will be much better off.