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President Obama: Steve, that's always the case. That's always the case. America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us. That's the deal.
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I long for a day when we don't answer the phone. Wealthy western Europe enjoys health care and have governments that care for their people. Why can't they answer the fucking phone instead and our government take care of us for a change?
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dontshoot
(63 posts)what the world would look like if after WWII we just said the hell with it and became like the Swiss?
Scary thought
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)...the USA military actually fights for freedom and Democracy. Lol.
dontshoot
(63 posts)
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)we have the (false) belief that we are entitled to whatever resources we want, no matter where it is in the world, by any means necessary. we routinely concoct boogeymen to get the support of the flag-waving yokels at home. and if "the enemy" happens to have brown skin (or yellow or red) we can definitely count on a portion of americans to automatically support any military action. works like a charm.
SHRED
(28,136 posts)
napi21
(45,806 posts)"Quit fighting their neighbors and just get along." They WILL usually help if we or any other country asks, but they won't volunteer. If you noticed, France is flying fighters with us in Iraq and England just voted to also do sorties over Iraq.
As to healthcare...I talked to my Dr. last week about the insane differences between the cost of European HC & ours. He said "You'll find that every country has it's own philosophy for handling HC. In Europe, their HC is very good, but they also decided to direct the care to help the most people. In the US we have decided to work to getting the best & newest technology, best equipment, thus concentrating on curing many rare aliments (which is VERY EXPENSIVE) and still helping all the normal and usual ailments, but it costs more.
Evn the Doc said we need to reach a happy medium, like authorizing physicians assistants to treat & prescribe for 90% of the problems that are presented, and leave the physicians & sopecialists take care of the unique problems and diseases. It would be better for all concerned.
dontshoot
(63 posts)they use have been developed by US owned companies.
How much does France , Spain , Greece spend on research to develop new drugs that save lives?
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)Light found that U.S. companies actually discovered fewer new drugs than you’d expect, given their proportion of R&D spending. Europe brought more new treatments to market than would have been expected from its proportion of R&D dollars. And Japanese drug makers were the most productive, according to the reanalysis.
“It would appear that American research provides poorer value,” said Light. U.S. research productivity has been “low and flat in proportion to the large company investments in R&D, while the number of major new drugs credited to Europe is high and increasing in proportion to company investments. Why is American research performance not better?”
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/08/25/european-drug-makers-more-innovative-than-us-companies/
napi21
(45,806 posts)patient, was taking a medication that was only available through it's manufacturer in Ireland. It too was VERY EXPENSIVE and he was billed for not only the cost of the med, but some pricey shipping!
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)but worth it!
The reason we can't have the good things they have in Europe is low taxes on the rich.
