TrueBlueAussie, first of all, my intent is not to insult Australians in any way. Only to contradict someone like Lorenz, who unjustifiably gloats over the supposedly lower med costs there.

Second, I don’t claim to know anything about the Aussie system. But I do know that the U.S. creates something like 80% of the pharmaceutical innovations worldwide and the majority of med tech innovations, too. If Aussies or anyone else pay less for drugs discovered in the U.S., whether in component form, generic imitations or whatever, the discoveries were still a product of the enormous investments in research in the U.S. In that sense, if these discoveries are available for cheaper anywhere else, then the U.S. is “subsidizing” that cheaper availability. That’s bad enough in my opinion, but when beneficiaries of U.S. innovation gloat about how they are able to exploit it at lower cost than we can, it seems childish to me. When Australia or any other country starts coming up with medical innovations at anything like our pace and manages to do it significantly cheaper, I will bow in respect. Until then, get real.

Sorry for the snark in the prior post, but I get pretty sick of people in other countries who benefit in various ways from America’s medical, technological and scientific discoveries, or live in some measure under our defense umbrella, copping an attitude about how much superior thay are. I detect that a whole lot less in Aussies than Europeans and Canadians. But there you are.