drsdannyt (August 20, 2008 at 7:45 pm)

I really wish that the GOP would listen to some of these points. I am a conservative, and it is kind of sad that conservative no longer goes along with GOP. The Republican party has lost its way and lost view of the mandates of the Constitution, once the mainstay of the GOP.

drsdannyt (August 20, 2008 at 7:45 pm)

I have felt the way I do for a ling time, that govt must be accountable to the Constitution and the people. It has no business making social policies, or interfering with economic market beyond enforcing the laws. State sovereignty is a big deal to me.

MostlyPoliticalStuff (August 15, 2008 at 10:08 pm)

I'm a consevative, I somewhat agree with Newt. I'm not anti-government, I'm just for a governemnt that stays the hell outta my life unless it's to protect me. AND YES, we do need taxes, but not as many as we do now and they don't need to be high.

jpbalkenende (August 7, 2008 at 5:45 pm)

1) Our GDP isn't 'more expensive' it is simply 'more'. A big mac costs 3 euros here which is still far too much for that crap.2) Hey there are probably loads of lists that rank them but the one I saw a few months ago had 1)Harvard 2) Oxford 3) Camberidge.3) Our healthcare is in better fiscal shape than that of America. Never mind that we pay half what you do how many times do I have to say this. So why whould it collapse? It's been around longer than the current shit America has.

AlanCom1 (August 7, 2008 at 5:27 am)

Haha jpbenkende,1) European GDP is more expensive because a big mac is 8 Euro in Norway. The 2 british universities in top 10 are on the 8th and 10th position. In the top 50 universities there are at least 40 US ones and none Dutch. 3) About the european health care system, it will collapse just like communism did. Give it some time.

AlanCom1 (August 7, 2008 at 5:24 am)

@himkdm1: I agree with you 100%.Medical costs rise when govt increases the regulation on the industry.

himkdm1 (August 6, 2008 at 11:42 pm)

AlanCom1,I agree that part of the problem is the FDAs approval system (one point firms use to lobby for more patent length), but that the larger problem lies with provision- the insurance system that we have now fails to deliver what people need. We ought to allow more firms to enter the pharmaceuticals industry (like Cipla in India) to encourage innovation at lower cost. Also, cutting down on malpractice suits would decrease costs by reducing malpractice insurance.

jpbalkenende (August 6, 2008 at 6:44 pm)

Yeah I can play that game as well in the top 3 universities in the world 2 are British. While Harvard costs more than the entire British university system. Some feat! I guess you call that efficiency over there huh? America is 20 times as large as NL and 5 times the UK.

jpbalkenende (August 6, 2008 at 6:42 pm)

Well I'm very sorry but the EU is 4 trillion bigger than the USA which would be about 25%. And Europe is far larger than the EU. Heck Reuters/Msnbc ran a story that Eurozone (as big as the states) overtook the USA in march. Which would be quite a feat because it includes poor countries like Portugal, Greece and a lot of Eastern Euro ones, while excluding wealthy, Scandinavia, Switzerland and UK. European healthcare if far better than the USA twice the beds and doctors per patient half the price.

AlanCom1 (August 6, 2008 at 4:54 am)

himkdm1,I disagree with what you said. If it takes FDA 13 years to approve a drug and 17 years is the patent length and a drug costs 500 mil to research, I would say that FDA is the problem. I think 17 years is not too much given that once the patent expires the whole world has access to this information for free. Without FDA, I would agree with a 15 year patent or even less.