# Problem with healthcare and why Obamacare in principle was a good idea. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2017, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-healthcare-and-why-obamacare-in-principle-was-a-good-idea/804087 "2017-12-10T06:56:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-healthcare-and-why-obamacare-in-principle-was-a-good-idea/804087/21 "2017-12-11T12:37:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > This is why the patent system needs to be revised. It can take 20 years to run all of the tests to bring a molecule to market, by which time the patent will have expired. I don’t understand. Pharma makes huge profits on its new drugs, and spends huge sums marketing them. Marketing plus Profits are _three times_ R & D. If patent conditions were so onerous for them, wouldn’t profits dip? Do you think inadequate R&D spending on new drugs is one of the big problems facing U.S. health care? ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-healthcare-and-why-obamacare-in-principle-was-a-good-idea/804087/22 "2017-12-11T12:40:37Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Health care is expensive in the US because employers hand it out like candy to employees, without doing a cost-benefit analysis. Healthcare in the US is expensive because of : a) the vast amounts of bureaucracy involved in US healthcare. Where a the large number of entities in US healthcare, and lack of standardization combines with a financing model that generates a lot of employment in billing and negotiating, to employ a vast number of people that do work that don’t exist much in other systems. b) Inefficiency and overprovision and c) Everything else. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If health care was migrated from being a perk of employment to being something that one purchases individually, the cost of health care, across the nation, would likely half over the course of the next decade (ignoring inflation). This does not seem to be a prediction in line with orthodox thinking in studies of health care economy. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > On the other hand, this would probably negatively affect medical research, since most of the excess money that Americans spend on health care goes into the purchase of drugs (which cost double in the US what they cost elsewhere) and modern machinery (CAT scans, etc.) These provide medical supplies and pharmaceuticals companies with the money they need to work on next generation technologies. The excess money spent on healthcare in the US is about 1,5 trillion dollars. This is roughly 5 times the entire planets biomedical research budget. So no, not even close. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > At the moment, the better equipment (CAT scans, etc.) don’t provide a sufficient advantage to offset the impact of American obesity, and so the US still has a reduced average lifespan compared to Europe. If that is due to obesity, why are some of the other high obesity developed countries high on average lifespan? I mean, there isn’t any kind of correlation that I can see between lifespan and obesity on a national level. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > But eventually we will discover technologies that do earn their keep. But if the US stops paying for these useless, future tech solutions, then the market for them will collapse since no other country in the world is paying for them on the basis that the cost isn’t offset by return on years of life saved, and progress in medicine will slow down. It will take longer to discover technologies that would put a significant number of years of life back into the system. Actually the country getting the most medical research per person is the UK, with its underfunded NHS system. The US spends more money per person than other large developed countries, but as in the rest of US healthcare, this does not seem to yield more in the way of results. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Allowing pharmaceutical companies to extend their patent on a drug equivalent to the time elapsed while going through mandatory safety testing would be one thing that could be done. But more than that will be necessary. Funnelling more money to the pharmaceutical somehow does not strike me as a viable solution. One of the 800-pound gorillas in US healthcare is that medically necessary healthcare has zero price elasticity. Extending the period the pharmas can take advantage of this strikes me as counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-healthcare-and-why-obamacare-in-principle-was-a-good-idea/804087/23 "2017-12-11T19:20:33Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Or me! > > \ > > It isn’t “healthy” people paying for the “sick”, it’s pre-paying for services that you really, really, don’t ever want to actually _need_ . . . but probably will. Glad to hear of your recovery 🙂 Indeed. How a reasonably intelligent adult can classify people as ‘well’ and ‘sick’ defeats my sensibilities. In fact, to see healthcare as one individual actor feels even more preposterous. Like you don’t have relatives, you don’t have other loved ones or even people you just care about. Like there won’t be future generations in your immediate family who will be ‘sick’. No, it’s all about me, me in the right here right now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problem-with-healthcare-and-why-obamacare-in-principle-was-a-good-idea/804087.md?page=1)