• spaceghoti
    +2

    I think you're shortchanging the amount of medical research that happens in Europe and Asia, and very successfully. Cuba, which is not an economic powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination, has had some remarkable innovations in medicine and biotech.

    Yes, the issues you cite are some of the justifications for the high cost of medicine in the US but that's not the whole story by any stretch of the imagination. The one thing the US does differently from every other industrialized nation is that it doesn't allow the government to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies or health care providers. We need someone with clout to negotiate on our behalf, and insurance companies aren't doing it. Rather, they're using that lack of oversight to boost their own profits in collusion with the health care industry. This is a problem that the Affordable Care Act barely begins to address, and what little it does has US conservatives crying foul.