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[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Ohio

We cannot have Single Payer and also maintain state of the art care...
Those who cry for Single Payer never took an economics course. Single Payer demands the same lousy health care for all. Except for the well-connected, of course.

If you are referring to Medicare as "single payer" then I would reject the claim that with Medicare you can't maintain state of the art care and BTW I did take an economics course and worked on Wall street for years.

Medicare is the most efficient form of insurance costing a fraction of our current system. Improving efficiency is the underlying reason for the success of both the industrial revolution and technological revolution. It is based on very good economics theory.

Yes, there are some differences between what we do now and what we would do in a socialist system. However, consider several issues with our current model -- cures are not nearly as profitable as treatment. You might think that they would be highly motivated to cure HIV or Ebola, but you would be wrong. ED and Hair products are far more profitable. (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb...ayers-20110210) -- Drugs developed with government money are 2 1/2 times more likely than private funded research to be a high priority cure.

I would think that any reasonable person would want to develop new antibiotics yet they are not profitable either as they very quickly will be replaced by new antibiotics. (http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....s-declaration/)

Generally speaking, in a capitalist model the consumer determines what the manufacturers make. But that is not true of the Pharmacies.

Merck's most profitable drugs --

1. Lipitor -- not a cure, something you take forever.

2. Lyrica -- again, not a cure, something you take forever.

3. Celebrex -- ditto

4. Viagra -- ditto

5. Effexor -- ditto

etc., etc.,

Since sequencing the human genome we have the technology and potential to develop amazing cures, but that is not nearly as profitable as therapies you must pay for continuously forever.