> It's clear that you've completely missed my substantive position, in fact, in a number of places you're supporting it.

Not really. You take "big numbers" as some magical comparison point between countries.

> To put a fine point on that, the US had 32,139 Biotechnological patents, and 43,317 Pharmaceutical patents from the period of 2001-2009. The UK produced 3,062 & 5,693 in that same period, that makes them fourth in the world, and they still produce roughly a tenth what we're producing in terms of medical R&D

...you are seriously quoting patent numbers of massively disparate populations?

Lets try to get this apples to apples:

75,456=32139+43317 vs. 8,755=3062+5693

319 million vs. 64 million. Or roughly 20% the population.
18,124,731 vs. 2,853,357. Or roughly 15% the economy.

75,456.15=11,318.4

1) If you scale that based on the size of the economy...yeah. The UK very much is "innovating" at the same pace as the US, its simply the US produces more patents because of its broken patent system and the difference in the size of the economy/population. Comparing a static value across such different economies is silly but since you insist...

2) ~9% GDP they get about 77% the R&D results. The US spends 17%. Double for ~23% increase in patents, a large portion of which are evergreen and overbroad patents that the US patent office rubber stamps.

> If we nationalize our medical system, yes, we could get prices down too, but we'd also be destroying the world's medicine R&D system in one fell swoop.

Not really. The Government in the US is the largest funding source for medical research and funds almost half of it.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/13/37680135...

Like many others, you delude yourself into believing "Government R&D bad!" when in reality its where about half of the advances the US generates comes from.

The Internet, medical research, basic science in literally every field, etc. All government.

Second of all, the wonderful US system heavily encourages patents in ways other countries do not which is why we are attempting to force it on them via TPP and others:*

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680578/

> In the pharmaceutical trade, when brand-name companies patent “new inventions” that are really just slight modifications of old drugs, it’s called “evergreening.” And it’s a practice that, according to some who have looked into it, isn’t doing a whole lot to improve people’s health.

> “Typically, when you evergreen something, you are not looking at any significant therapeutic advantage. You are looking at a company’s economic advantage,” says Dr. Joel Lexchin, a professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto, Ontario.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/245785...

> The TPP’s impact on access to essential medicines is alarming and extensive. Leaked texts reveal language that would “evergreen” and extend patents without just cause, enhance the monopoly rights of drug companies, and establish precedent-setting limits on generic medications that impact not just TPP countries, but the region as a whole. These restrictions on life-saving affordable medications in the developing world also threaten access to medications here in the U.S.

Those numbers are heavily misleading due to that. The US is actively fighting to extend that and force it on other countries with their trade treaties.

> “The response from the brand side is that they are trying to protect their markets so they can further invest in R&D [research and development]. And even if they make a modification to a drug, doctors are still quite able to prescribe the generic version of the older product. Having said that, the brand-name companies put an awful lot of money into marketing the newer version, and that marketing is designed to affect what doctors do.”

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> If China is planning to increase their Healthcare expenditure 10-fold, that will come at the expense of higher taxes, as again, they are not prepared for the private management of infrastructure.

...they need to raise it about 3.6% and are currently spending 5.5%. That isn't "10-fold".

> My "about half" number was intended to include Social Security, I misspoke. The point isn't about healthcare spending. It's about programs of "measurable and direct" outcome to the benefit of the population. (This distinction is common, as is evidenced by the Forbes Tax Misery Index -- http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/0413/034-tax-misery-reform...).

...that is a completely different point than the one you were making. You can't just change the goal posts like that and throw about outright lies and expect me to take you seriously, so I'm done.