Originally posted by Derk2000: I'm going into health care, so I'm biasedly concerned with the 25% of our population that has no or inadequate (me) health care. I'm also concerned about spending 1.8 TRILLION dollars on health care and getting a world-wide ranking of (drum roll please) 37th.
Derek, Couple of points (as prelude to debates #2 & #3).. Health care is the US regardless of ranking is #1...as evidenced by the fact than anyone who is anyone comes to the US for care.
About costs...concider that malpractice insurance costs are higher in the US than any other country on the planet. Estimates range between about 25% and 35% of ALL healthcare costs are malpractice driven...cost of insurance and costs of defensive medicine. Should I remind you that the 2 democracts looking for Bush's job are TRIAL lawyers (with edwards being a malpractice specialist) who are backed by the trial lawyers association.
About getting cheaper drugs from Canada. Drugs are cheap in Canada because they are generic drugs that incur no research & development costs. US pharmacuetical companies lead the world by far in new drug patents and the R&D costs (which can amount to a billion per drug) are born by us. Further, FDA approval is typically manditory for a lawsuit against the drug...as an example, the new lawsuits over Vioxx over increased heart attack risk are going to cost Merck billions. We start buying drugs from canada as Kerry has proposed, we will 1) gut US pharm company profits (and jobs), 2) kill the ability to do research, 3) lose the FDA protection..(no lawsuits..I am wondering if Kerry cleared this with triallawyers ass).
Finally, consider that Hillary Clinton proposed nearly the same plan 10 years ago with a dem house & senate. Socilaized mecicine failed then and would be likely to do so again under Kerry with republicans in congress....Wheras Bush actually did revise Medicare for the first time in 20+ years to include a precription drug program.
MAKE NO MISTAKE, KERRY SAYS ABOUT ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED..and thats it. His lackluster 20 years in Senate accomplished nothing. How many bills dd he introduce or that carry his name on healthcare? On intell spending? Only remnents of Kerrys record are failed bills to gut intel.
A few points Bush COULD make on Oct 13..I wish he would speak up!
