Obamacareless begins...

[Wiglaf]

Ummm try doubling that. Median US income for all is just shy of 50k, and just shy 55k if your Caucasian

The numbers you're throwing at me are for HOUSEHOLD. I'm not far off.

It costs a lot of money to develop a new pharmaceutic...

That would be a valid point for most businesses, but the price inflation of these medical products cannot be tied back to reality in that way. This is a system that's been able to spin things around enough to put down monopoly pricing. Funny that most of the work that's been done to help them was from the RIAA and Disney, trying to maximize the gravy train (despite dismal artist compensation).
I'll go as far as to say drugs and medical techniques should not be patentable.

[Farbin Kaiber]

In a liberal Utopian society where food, housing, and education are not commodities, I'd agree. But then we would all live the exact same life. Not interested.

[rwh11385]

In a liberal Utopian society where food, housing, and education are not commodities, I'd agree. But then we would all live the exact same life. Not interested.

Are commodities or are not commodities?

Oh well, temporary monopolies from patents on drugs allow all the risk and investment to be worthwhile. It encourages R&D that would not exist without patents. And then its open for generics and we benefit from what we would likely not have otherwise.

A point that KenC made that is in line with Wiglafs post is that med tech may have a great increase in price with a small marginal benefit, and hospitals must use them to testing to break even on the investment while many unnecessary tests are performed due to lack of best practices set. The high cost of equipment encourages this without an improvement in quality of care but an increase in expense for the patient.

Fortunately, some companies are making products for the developing world and increasing healthcare delivered at affordable prices and focusing on the large demand quantity of basic care instead of driving up prices for a minority that can afford super high tech tests that may or may not be necessary.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mobile/science/health/med-tech/7-medical-upgrades-for-developing-countries

http://ewh.slc.engr.wisc.edu/publications/conferences/2009/IEEE_EMBC/Medecal_LowCostDevicesIEEEMBS2009_v14.pdf

It is not in companies' best interest to cure vs treat, nor efficiently serve need with just enough care instead of running a gamut.

[mrsleeve]

Are commodities or are not commodities?

Oh well, temporary monopolies from patents on drugs allow all the risk and investment to be worthwhile. It encourages R&D that would not exist without patents. And then its open for generics and we benefit from what we would likely not have otherwise.

A point that KenC made that is in line with Wiglafs post is that med tech may have a great increase in price with a small marginal benefit, and hospitals must use them to testing to break even on the investment while many unnecessary tests are performed due to lack of best practices set. The high cost of equipment encourages this without an improvement in quality of care but an increase in expense for the patient.

.

Oh wait now your agreeing with me that because of the way our health care system works we do drive the bulk of medical advancement for the world ???? Huh ;)


I agree with Ken and your self on this, and the over testing is something that needs to be addressed. But it as you both know it stems from more than just the evil equipment manufacturers selling new gear. There is the fact we have battalions of "bamblance" chasing attorneys in every city and town in the country. Wanting you to come to them to sue the doc that did not do the eleventybillion unnecessary tests to find that you had some rare disorder, you know the walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but the answer is not a duck but rather a zebra kinda thing. Or your doc might have messed up during child birth and now your kid has to ride the short bus while licking the windows. Or the fact that docs have to carry so much malpractice insurance for just this situation of the being sued for doing their job, is driving the costs up for everyone just for walking in the door.


Our over litigious looking to get rich quick society is just as much if not more the cause for this trend as anything....... But I suspect you know this already.

[rwh11385]

Oh wait now your agreeing with me that because of the way our health care system works we do drive the bulk of medical advancement for the world ???? Huh ;)


I agree with Ken and your self on this, and the over testing is something that needs to be addressed. But it as you both know it stems from more than just the evil equipment manufacturers selling new gear. There is the fact we have battalions of "bamblance" chasing attorneys in every city and town in the country. Wanting you to come to them to sue the doc that did not do the eleventybillion unnecessary tests to find that you had some rare disorder, you know the walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but the answer is not a duck but rather a zebra kinda thing. Or your doc might have messed up during child birth and now your kid has to ride the short bus while licking the windows.


Our over litigious looking to get rich quick society is just as much if not more the cause for this trend as anything....... But I suspect you know this already.

I believe I said your argument that ACA will destroy all medical innovation was false and companies make money in other countries as well. Half of healthcare expenses for the US already comes from the government. I also did not say that the government should not fairly compensate for innovation but it is in the countrys best interest, especially for its deficit problem, that it is not being raped by healthcare companies with big lobbying budgets. Other nations pay for drugs and tech, and the focus is unfortunately is a slightly better mouse trap for facilities who already have one, instead of supplementing new research by providing cost effective tech for those who cannot afford the expensive new equipment anyway. There are much more people in the world who are in developing countries than in the US and although they may have less money, they still need and want care.

Indeed. Hopefully best practices would help have the right amount of care be defensible rather than protecting oneself by overkill.

My thought is that more of a 'long-tail' approach would help deliver affordable health care to more people in the world while making profits without constantly trying to juice an already served market more. Obviously unsolved problems should be researched and will be rewarded with customers but pushing marginally beneficial equipment instead of attacking the large market of underserved potential customers is wasteful. I know other industries are offseting the expense for high end American market by leverging demand in the developing world. It would also help serve those with a lower ability to pay in our countries as well - with only marginal cannibalization.

Its my opinion that the industry seems to be operating like an airline that only has first class seating and instead of having economy, they just expect people in need to pay premium fares.

[BraveUlysses]

It's a problem but it's not a primary source of our healthcare woes.

[smooth]

My mother in law had a brain anurism(spelling terrible) She was in the states and was taken to a hospital in windsor, because we were willing to pay out of pocket she jumped all the canadians waiting ahead of her. The care was excellent as was the surgeon, which is why she went their. However, fair it was not. A us citizen pulled rank because we had $$$ over native canadians who pay for the same service through taxes. If I were in line waiting and knew about it I would go apeshit.

You honestly think there was a line of Canadians sitting in the ER waiting to be treated for an aneurysm? Your mother in law was moved to the front of the line because her life depended on how soon she was admitted into surgery. Just like any other hospital in any other developed country in the world patients in Canadian hospitals are admitted based on triage not how or when they'll pay.

^
It costs a lot of money to develop a new pharmaceutic, and many things dont work in the process. I read something a long while back in the WSJ (IIRC) that it was on the order of 40 failures to 1 successful pharma product, Not to mention the fact that XXXX phama company has invested $$$$$$$$$$ dollars into a product, why should they not be able to patent it and hold the rights to it for XX years, would it be fair that YYYY, GGGG, and MMMM phama companies make the same thing XXX has developed and sell it for less since they dont have to make the development costs back???

From this post and from your earlier comments regarding how the US leads the world in medical advancements coupled with you attributing it to our private medical sector I get the impression that you think private corporations fund the bulk of medical research.

The fact is that the government funds the bulk of medical research and our universities research and develop the medical advancements that you are extolling. Patent law allows private pharmaceutical companies to profiteer from medical advancements and who owns and benefits from those patents has little relationship to the initial funding of the R&D that led to them. If anyone has a "right" to the benefits of the R&D it should be the public who routinely foots the cost of it.

I seem to recall you making some fairly scathing remarks about the cost and funding sources for public education in regards the US university system making your opinion on this subject all the more perplexing.

[mrsleeve]

^
Article is a little old, ( I trust Reuters is a sufficient information source for you)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/12/us-research-usa-idUSTRE60B5FL20100112

Industry was the largest contributor to biomedical research, accounting for 58 percent of all 2007 spending,

The U.S. National Institutes of Health was the second-largest source, paying for 27 percent, they reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But funding fell in real term

Yup your right 27% is most of the R&D funding, even with assuming all non industry money spent on R&D comes (excluding private donations you know like Save the Tatas, Live strong, and 1000's of others), Govt coffer's you still can only amass a 42% even that still does not = " Funds the Bulk of". Yes Private industry and the charitable giving of both private individuals and business combined do fund the lions share of bio-med.........................


Also why buried in the AcA can you no longer get a a private loan for a university education. Why must it be Federal tax payer backed, after all it worked out so well for the housing industry didn't it.............

For the record I have no real issues with education, what I have issues with is the notion one must go to one to make anything of them selves, and the predatory nature in which many educational institutions and lenders have taken advantage of that notion. I dont believe its the Govts place to step in and fix these problems for those that got into them either.

[BraveUlysses]

Also why buried in the AcA can you no longer get a a private loan for a university education. Why must it be Federal tax payer backed, after all it worked out so well for the housing industry didn't it.............

That's not accurate.

http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2012/jun/01/kelly-ayotte/kelly-ayotte-claims-student-loan-change-government/

[tjts1]

Damn it, quit with the fact checking. You're going to make mrsleeve cry.

[rwh11385]

^
Article is a little old, ( I trust Reuters is a sufficient information source for you)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/12/us-research-usa-idUSTRE60B5FL20100112

Yup your right 27% is most of the R&D funding, even with assuming all non industry money spent on R&D comes (excluding private donations you know like Save the Tatas, Live strong, and 1000's of others), Govt coffer's you still can only amass a 42% even that still does not = " Funds the Bulk of". Yes Private industry and the charitable giving of both private individuals and business combined do fund the lions share of bio-med.........................

I give you credit for posting a source, unlike others, and NSF's summary on funding is in line with your source. I'm not defending smooth, but you ought to also take into consideration that the country has encouraged more private R&D spending with the R&D tax credit.

http://www.economist.com/node/21560863

Three things in particular help influence firms’ R&D spending. The first is tax treatment. America was quick to offer tax breaks, introducing “research and experimentation” tax credits in 1981. This reduced firms’ tax liability by 20% of their R&D costs, so $100m spent on research in effect cost only $80m.

[Other items were mergers slowing R&D spending and cutting R&D in favor of dividends]

More on this: http://www.investinamericasfuture.or...2011_09_16.pdf

This report finds that the R&D credit has a significant impact on private R&D spending:
 The existing credit is estimated to have increased annual private research spending by $10 billion in the short-term and by $22 billion in the long-term (beyond the first several years), substantially higher than the credits roughly $6 billion to $8 billion annual revenue cost.
 Strengthening the credit by increasing the simplified credit from 14% to 20% is estimated to increase annual private research spending by an additional $5 billion in the short-term and an additional $11 billion in the long-term.
 In total, the overall policy – the existing credit plus strengthening the alternative simplified credit – is estimated to increase annual private research spending by $15 billion in the shortterm and $33 billion in the long-term.

The R&D credit also has significant effects on US wages and employment.

Higher wages:
 In the short-term, wages are estimated to rise by $10 billion from the overall policy, with an additional $7 billion due to the existing credit and $3 billion due to strengthening.
 In the long-term, wages are estimated to rise by $23 billion from the overall policy, with an additional $15 billion due to the existing credit and $8 billion due to its strengthening.

Higher employment:
 Research-orientated employment in the US would be 130,000 higher in the short-term and 300,000 higher in the long-term because of the combination of the existing credit and the strengthening of the alternative simplified credit.

In the increasingly global economy there is increasing competition between countries for additional R&D spending. Based on a 2008 study by the OECD of global R&D tax incentives, the United States ranks 24th among major developed nations offering such a tax incentive.

R&D spending is restricted to the US...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/focus-7

For 2011, #2 and #3 are Swiss healthcare companies, followed by US's Pfizer at #4, Merck at #7... and France's Sanofi, UK's GSK down the list.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4401707/Counterpoint--R-D-tax-credit-spurs-innovation

The R&D credit is on the list of “extenders” that Congress should take up in the lame duck session before they adjourn in December.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21646 - call to make it permanent (and more competitive)


As mentioned before, I highly support government investment in science and R&D - one of the few things that I feel they can do to improve the country. But encouraging private R&D is important as well, and although support for the R&D credit is bi-partisan for the most part, sometimes conservatives or libertarians don't support direct government expenditures in the sciences. If we can grow R&D/GDP, it'd be a plus for solving the problems we face - medical and health, or energy and efficiency.

[randomsv650]

Obamacareless is doing what its supposed to..building government dependency. Skip the welfare line and start doing some "side jobs" and "underground" stuff. Hopefully it wont come to that, but it's not looking good. Pretty disgusting.

[rwh11385]

Also why buried in the AcA can you no longer get a a private loan for a university education. Why must it be Federal tax payer backed, after all it worked out so well for the housing industry didn't it.............

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You can still get private loans. As annoying as the government takeover and website is for students, it has not really changed that much. Direct Loans were already available before at some schools, and were just about a fourth of the federal loans. But the main change is they eliminated new FFEL loans (3/4ths share) and instead of Sallie Mae or whoever taking your application through your school for Fin Aid Federal Stafford loans and servicing it, the Fed takes your application directly for the same amount as before - and then has them serviced. They were federally backed before - so your argument is not aware of facts.

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/ffel/index.html - FFEL are no longer offered and it's just all direct now.

http://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/attachments/0304Vol8Intro.pdf

Federally guaranteed loans were first authorized in Part B of Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). For many years, these were termed “Guaranteed Student Loans.” The Higher Education Amendments of 1992 (P.L. 102-325) renamed the guaranteed student loan programs the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program, comprising Stafford Loans for students and PLUS loans for parents. The Student Loan Reform Act of 1993 authorized the Direct Loan Program, which is now Part D of the Higher Education Act. The loans that are offered under these two programs have the same eligibility rules and the same annual and aggregate maximum amounts.

The primary difference between the Direct and FFEL loan programs is the source of funds for borrowers. Funds for Direct Loans come from the federal government; loans made through the FFEL program are provided by private lenders and are insured by guaranty agencies and reinsured by the federal government. The federal guaranty on the FFEL loans replaces the security (the collateral) usually required for long-term loans from banks and credit unions.

So yeah... ACA didn't change what you think it changed.

http://www.finaid.org/loans/dl-vs-ffel.phtml

President Obama has proposed eliminating the FFEL program starting in 2010-11, in which case all loans would be funded by the Direct Loan program. He argues that this will save billions of dollars a year by eliminating the middleman.

While I like some of the benefits the marketing of federal loans by private or semi-private banks provided and think that they were upset by the taking away of the loans, they were FEDERAL LOANS that the government backed that they were complaining about, not the elimination of private student loans. Although it did eliminate the access to Federal student loans for banks... like the Government-Sponsered-Enterprise of SallieMae... more people getting private loans. (Federal fin aid loans are capped, and private loans make up the difference) Private loans may end up being serviced by the same entity as federal loans to boot.

A plan by Romney to reverse ACA's change was unpopular:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/09/romney_moves_to_reintroduce_private_lenders_in_federal_student_loan_market/

Romney student loan plan criticized

such a move could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over a decade without saving students money, according to several higher education analysts.

The prime beneficiaries, critics say, would be banks and loan companies that stand to reap a financial boon through subsidies to make nearly risk-free, government-backed loans.


The old guaranteed loan program was rife with lobbyists and will go down in history as a system that existed far longer than it needed to simply because it was enriching private companies,” said Jason Delisle, director of the Federal Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. Inviting private lenders back into the program, he said, appears misguided: “What’s in it for students or taxpayers? Nothing.”

Private lenders, however, argue that Obama’s move in 2010 cost the industry thousands of jobs as companies went out of business or shut down divisions that dealt with the servicing of such loans.

The current market for loans to help students and parents pay skyrocketing tuition rates is dominated by government-backed loans made exclusively through the Department of Education’s federal direct loan program. In addition, the private market offers more loan options with no such backing — typically at higher interest rates. Before 2010, private firms also made government-backed loans.

Romney has long had financial ties to the student lending industry, a lucrative sector that has come under intense scrutiny in recent years because of some questionable practices.

The sector has contributed more than $29,500 to Romney’s campaign this election cycle, making him the top recipient of all candidates, presidential and congressional, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In comparison, Obama, who ranks ninth, has received $5,250 from student loan companies.

The industry’s top campaign contributors — SLM Corp., NelNet Inc., and College Loan Corp. — have donated to Romney but have not given to Obama. SLM Corp. owns Sallie Mae, a former government-sponsored enterprise that began to privatize in 1996. Though it now provides only private loans, it remains the largest originator of federal loans that until 2010 made up the bulk of its business.

“Here’s a guy putting out an education policy that’s essentially putting the middleman back in for an industry that he used to have financial ownership in,”

Reversing the ACA move would only benefit the companies who would make money on government-backed loans.

Last I checked, ACA doesn't prevent you from getting a private loan, but the truth is for most people and situations, federal loans are lower cost - so usually people don't use them until they hit their federal caps. They are not guaranteed by the government and debt does not get wiped with borrower's death necessarily. There are some benefits to private loans - Discover gives you a 2% bonus at graduation. Sallie Mae used to give you 5% rebate when paying a year on time previously with their FFEL, as a marketing tactic, which is now gone but oh well - students get federal loans to go to school not 5% back on their debt.

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/545/what-are-main-differences-between-federal-student-loans-and-private-student-loans.html

What are the main differences between federal student loans and private student loans? [UPDATED OCT. 29, 2012]

While both federal student loans and private student loans allow you to borrow money to pay for education expenses, there are some distinct differences.

Federal student loans can be better for students in several important ways:
In some cases, the federal government will subsidize - pay the interest on - your federal student loan while you are in school.
Your interest rate for a federal student loan is generally fixed, not variable; most private student loans carry variable interest rates.
Federal student loans allow you to limit the amount you must repay each month based on your income.
For borrowers pursuing careers in public service, loan forgiveness on federal student loans may be available after 10 years.
Federal student loans also feature other important borrower protections, including:

Options to delay or temporarily forgo payments (like deferment and forbearance)
Discharge upon a borrower’s death
Discharge upon permanent disability (with certain limitations)

Private student loans are any student loans that are not federal student loans. These loans do not offer the flexible repayment terms or borrower protections featured by federal student loans. Private student loans are not funded or subsidized by the federal government; instead, they are funded by banks, credit unions, or other types of lenders.

The bank or lender – not the federal government – sets interest rates, loan limits, terms, and conditions of private student loans. Your ability to qualify for and borrow a private student loan may be based on numerous factors that can include your credit history, whether or not you choose to have a co-signer, your co-signer’s credit history, your choice of school, and your course of study.

While private student loans are all structured differently, they are generally different from federal student loans in several ways and may include:

Variable interest rates that can rise when interest rates rise during the life of the loan — which can substantially increase your payment
Fewer options to reduce or postpone payments
Less flexible repayment options

For some, private loans are going to be cheaper than federal ones...

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-23/private-student-loans-are-becoming-more-competitive

Private Student Loans Are Becoming More Competitive [May 23, 2012]

Private student lenders are stepping up their game to compete directly with government loans. For several years, private lenders offered mostly variable-rate loans that students used as gap funding to cover their needs above what they could get on government loans. Now private lenders are introducing loans fixed at nearly the same rates as some federal products, seeking to nab a bigger piece of the student loan market as outstanding debts balloon to more than $1 trillion.

The largest student lender, SLM (SLM), known as Sallie Mae, introduced fixed-rate loans earlier this month. On May 21, Discover Student Loans (DFS), the third-largest education lender, started a fixed-rate loan program as well. Wells Fargo (WFC), the second-biggest lender, had launched fixed-rate loans last summer. For families with good credit, the private loans could be as low as 5.75 percent—a full point lower than the 6.8 percent for unsubsidized federal loans.


In 2010, President Obama signed into law reforms that reconfigured how students borrowed money for education. It eliminated a program that subsidized private lenders to offer fixed-rate loans that the government guaranteed in case students defaulted.

It's hard to believe they are competing with their private student loans versus the government ones, if no can get a private student loan anymore as you claimed...

Even though the government is no longer allowing banks to profit from their federally-banked loans, there is plenty of growth in private student loans:

http://www.finaid.org/loans/privatestudentloans.phtml

Private student loan volume grows when federal student loan limits remain stagnant.

Private student loan volume grew much more rapidly than federal student loan volume through mid-2008, in part because aggregate loan limits on the Stafford loan remained unchanged from 1992 to 2008.


The annual increase in private student loan volume was about 25% to 35% per year, compared with 8% per year for federal loan volume.

Private student loan volume is expected to return to the 25% annual growth rate unless there is another increase in federal loan limits or an expansion of the availability of federal student loans.

The reason for federally backed loans is students may have low credit scores (or no credit) that would make it challenging or too expensive to be able to go to college. They have no income and want to borrow a lot, so federally-backed loans made it possible. Unlike your assertion that people must not be poor to be in college in some thread, there are poor kids trying to improve themselves and backed in part by Pell grants, etc. but also can make their way through by federal loans, which can be forgiven with public service in teaching or through the military. (Private loans don't have that benefit). Private loans are also not typically subsidized which makes it harder on college students from poor families. The idea behind federal support of college is tied to defense.

You can thank Sputnik and the National Defense Education Act of 1958 for encouraging government to become involved with education and authorizing loans. Apparently we were more concerned with the space race and not losing to the Soviets than federal involved with education...

http://federaleducationpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/national-defense-education-act-of-1958-2/

It had no interest during school (like our current subsidized) and 3% when it entered repayment, with the ability to have 50% of it cancelled if a full-time teacher in a public K-12 school. All those Occupy kids fail to realize that serving the country they want to improve could wipe their debt away completely.

For the record I have no real issues with education, what I have issues with is the notion one must go to one to make anything of them selves, and the predatory nature in which many educational institutions and lenders have taken advantage of that notion. I dont believe its the Govts place to step in and fix these problems for those that got into them either.

Your mentality towards education would suggest otherwise. Technical training and skills are vital to the United States and we really should have more vocational options for trades than we do, especially as we lose students in HS who are bored and not going to fit into the collegiate style. My HS had a career center and people spent half their day learning skills instead of college-prep they didn't want or need. Obama has changed tune to advocate for technical training as well, as have a lot of people who have seen the result of too many BAs and not enough BSs. The reason government got involved with universities were to support agriculture and engineering, and later for defense (STEM). Now we still need to have growth in STEM fields, including medical and energy. Underwater basketweaving... not so much. But we also need parents to not promise their kids that a degree = a job, but hopefully everyone has realized that now.

And OWS can cram it and join the Navy. My sister was supporting student loan forgiveness and told her to enlist if she wanted the government to wipe away her loans.

[smooth]

^
Article is a little old, ( I trust Reuters is a sufficient information source for you)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/12/us-research-usa-idUSTRE60B5FL20100112

Yup your right 27% is most of the R&D funding, even with assuming all non industry money spent on R&D comes (excluding private donations you know like Save the Tatas, Live strong, and 1000's of others), Govt coffer's you still can only amass a 42% even that still does not = " Funds the Bulk of". Yes Private industry and the charitable giving of both private individuals and business combined do fund the lions share of bio-med.........................


Also why buried in the AcA can you no longer get a a private loan for a university education. Why must it be Federal tax payer backed, after all it worked out so well for the housing industry didn't it.............

For the record I have no real issues with education, what I have issues with is the notion one must go to one to make anything of them selves, and the predatory nature in which many educational institutions and lenders have taken advantage of that notion. I dont believe its the Govts place to step in and fix these problems for those that got into them either.

It certainly looks like the private sector is funding the majority of biomedical research when you compare those raw dollar amounts but the picture changes dramatically when you compare where the money comes from and where it goes.

That is, private and public sectors are not two separate entities in public universities. The money that you quote being spent from the private sector is used in university laboratories. So while a portion of the grants are paid directly from the federal government and a larger proportion are grants coming from private biomedical companies, those grants are going to public universities where the research is conducted by graduate students and professors whose tuition and salaries are paid for by state and federal funding.

While a portion of the research costs may be funded in large part by private biomedical corporations the overhead of the entire infrastructure conducting the research is supported by government dollars.

Try to find the data the other way: find some articles stating where the bulk of the research is being *conducted*. If the majority of it is being done in private labs then that would support your conclusion. If the majority of it is being done in public labs then that would support my assertion. It's not as simple as who wrote the biggest check for some research done in any given year.


And this is all ignoring the other factor of where the money originates from...unless you believe that private biomedical companies receive no government subsidies at all then the money you claim they are paying into the system is not "private" money at its source.


I remain curious why even though your own sources state that private industry accounted for a mere 58% of those years' research investments but your claim is that they should benefit 100% of the profit resulting from that research. Perhaps you could explain your position better? Or perhaps you're more willing after gaining a broader understanding of the situation based on your own research to agree that private biomedical companies should only receive a portion of the profits commensurate with their investment percentage?

[rwh11385]

Papa John did himself a real favor with his idle threats about cutting back hours: http://www.brandindex.com/article/an...-rhetoric-buzz

One exception to these two examples is Denny’s. Franchisee John Metz, who runs 40 locations, said in mid-November that he would add a 5% surcharge to customers' bills and reduce his employees' hours. Denny’s perception with casual diners declined afterwards, but much less so than Papa John’s and Applebee’s.