Rich pays for the poor. Healthy pays for the sick. Responsible people pays for irresponsible

LOL. And if you get sick you start see all in reverse.

Don't you remember "Greed is good." It seems to be the only Hollywood movie line the radical right remembers.

The first one to be that advanced…

Most of the sickness in the US are preventable. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke rates have increase and have been largely attributed to poor diet, obesity, smoking, drinking.

Cool, in this case you must like the news. As less available money clearly will improve people health as they couldn't eat sand drink o much :-).

We have the best healthcare system in the world, yet our statistics don't pan out.

Where did you get it? I mean "best healthcare system in the world". :-)

Sure? The first heart transplant for example was not done in the US. Neither a few other firsts…

But bad nutrition or lack of sports is closely linked to education and money too. Whenever I come to the US, I notice the poor people's obesity and the wealthy crowd being lean. If fast food and vitamin-free industrialized veggies or fruits are cheaper than the healthy stuff, things get turned around from the old times, when the poor were lean and the rich obese!

If we take the UN assessment on healthcare, the US is ranked no where near the best, we (US) are not even in the top 20 or 30. What good is research and state of the art if 50% of consumers have no access to them?

This guy got the point. Besides, how would an US citizen call his neighbour who drives a car without any insurance, "a smart guy"? Or owning a house without any insurance? If you just don't desire to crash your car, it still doesn't mean you never will.

And where is the difference between a car insurance and health insurance?

Without a doubt, the US drives medical innovation in the medical field. I'm not saying that it did everything first or that it owns every patent out there. What I'm saying is that it's wide open market and relative lack of restrictions allow for companies to flourish. So many new drugs today are available to the rest of the world because of this open market. Even if the drug is not invented in the US, the potential of a massive market that does not regulate pricing like that in the US drives development from other countries. A drug that sells for $100 in Canada can sell for $500 in the US. And due to this open market policy, the US supplements the cost of the drug for other countries. This is a fact that is lost in all the 'research' crap. Profit drives the industries and and all the innovation that comes with it. Good or bad. Without this open market, innovation will slow down, and we will all suffer.

I'd be very careful of any 'research' done by the UN. The UN has its own agenda. Most of which promotes socialism in medicine. I do want everyone to have access to healthcare just like all reasonable human being. But if you honestly think the US in not in the top 20-30 in the world, you have to ask why the ultra-rich flies here for their procedures? You can say that the US healthcare accessibility is not in the top 20%, and I'll believe it. But the problem is more complex than you may think. No hospital in the US can deny healthcare to anyone with an acute problem. People know this, look at the ERs in any city. If you have a broken leg, they have to fix it. Even without insurance.

Another major issue is perception and expectations. Perceptions and expectation are plain silly in this country. I'm a first generation immigrant and I have to say, our generation would be insulted if given a hand out. We are poor, but had dignity and are far from stupid. To say that because we are poor, we are fat and unhealthy. That because we are poor, we are too stupid to realize what is healthy food and what is not. We are poor but we know that we don't have to have cable TV and cell phones and cars to be successful. We got along fine without these 'necessities' that are given out in charity now a days. We are poor, but never demanded that the more wealthy family down the street to have to pay for our 'needs'. We are poor and never demanded that we have access to the same quality of care that the wealthy had. We worked hard and kept our families healthy. Today the poor in the US would be considered rich in much of these countries that ranked higher in the UN 'research'.

Sad for me to say, but we have become a fat and lazy country. One where fewer and fewer want to work for what they want. There's a sense of entitlement that is palpable. It's someone else's fault that I'm fat and lazy. I deserve the same this and that as my neighbor. That's like me saying I deserve to have access to all the latest movie making equipment that the studios have, just because I'm me. It's just silly. No one is entitled to anything on this earth.

I'm saying is that it's wide open market and relative lack of restrictions allow for companies to flourish. So many new drugs today are available to the rest of the world because of this open market. Even if the drug is not invented in the US, the potential of a massive market that does not regulate pricing like that in the US drives development from other countries. A drug that sells for $100 in Canada can sell for $500 in the US. And due to this open market policy, the US supplements the cost of the drug for other countries.

It is slightly different. If you look at the real numbers US and EU drug producing corporations have nothing to prove that prices are based on research costs. This is just greedy corporate monsters with huge hordes of lawyers and big margins, who are cause of death of many many thousands people a month.

Btw, one who "stops innovation" is India who have certain laws and rules preventing corporations to use any patents if it goes against health of people. You'll be surprised by the generics prices in India. This guys saved millions of people.

One man being rich does not mean another must be poor. That's the zero-sum fallacy. Most people I talk to about economics can seem to get past it.

You mean that resources and equipment available are infinite? As only in such case your assumption can be valid.

In real world if someone become richer, many become poorer.

During exponential phase some guys got it wrong as with elite that become extremely rich other people just stayed same. In fact elites just robbed all else, and people will realize it very soon.

@PierreB... not me Pierre. I understand fully that corporations own our politicians. The innate tendency to hoard is a characteristic of just about all human, at all levels. Think about it, if you get a raise from $30k a year to $60k a year, do you give away the $29k/year to your neighbors so that everyone in your neighborhood makes a median of $31k/year? I don't think so. Most people would use that extra money to improve their lives. Is this greed or selfishness? Corporations are just a larger scale of the same process.

I've been thinking and debating this for a while. What it boils down to is that every organism will do everything to ensure it's DNA is passed to the next generation. Greed is just means to an end. Don't fault it. It's in our DNA.

It's actually stupidity I fault and I'm not in agreement that greed is in our DNA. The top earners in this world and especially the US seems to live by a philosophy that "only everything" is enough while we, the people, are actually calmly tolerating a system in which our healthcare WHETHER WE LIVE OR DIE) is a business that cheats us out of service we pay dearly for at every opportunity they get, while our leaders tell us how truly exceptional we are (apologies to VK if I'm going off topic):)

No, because wealth is not based on resources alone. Ideas, innovations, creativity are where real "wealth" comes from. Were early human-monkeys in evolution "wealthy" simply because nobody owned the resources of the planet at that time? Not really.

I do not agree with this view. But it is mainstream view that is beamed to us 24 hours each day. So it is absolutely common to think so :-)

Reality absolutely do not match your claims. As strange as it is, life level is directly related with consumed energy (also can check post with map and numbers I posted). And it is for energy and resources that elites and corporations fight. Are ideas and innovations important? In some areas they are, sometimes very important even. But such areas are fewer each day. Monkeys are good in repeating and making copies. So ideas spread pretty fast.

Intellect level and geniuses density is really almost the same across nations (due to very high variability that is bigger than racial difference). Yet life level and available goods differ very much.

I suggest to check few videos I posted not long time ago.