Shut 'em Down!

Not saying you're wrong or anything but what do you base that off of?

Uh... no, not really. I know that some people really enjoy using that kind of number because it lends their arguments weight, but it has virtually no basis in reality. At best, that might represent the number of people who blaspheme against the Christian deity when they stub a toe or get pulled over for speeding. The number of people actually engaged in their Christian religion, the ones contributing to their church and evangelizing as the Bible decrees, they're much lower. In the Catholic community, the usual term I've heard for part-time pseudo-believers is C&E's, in that they only show up in church for Christmas and Easter.

I know it's convenient for posturing arguments to say that over 80% of the US population are Christians, but it's about as meaningful as saying that a similar number are right-handed.

If we winnow out the non-believers who cling to the apostasy that was pounded into their heads while still soft, then we can start dealing with real numbers and "minority" is certainly the correct term to describe them. When we further remove all the liberals and conventionally sane Christians so as to single out the vocal fringe that is given inexplicable amounts of media and political clout, it really is a very small group.

On the other hand, that's true of pretty much every group. There's a small (single-digit percentage at most) core that exploits the credulity and ignorance of the remaining 90+% to do whatever they want. I've ceased trying to figure out why people opt to be in that latter group. It's apparently just an outgrowth of human nature to want to be led by the nose by someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart -- c.f. the Tea Party.

Just because they're not practicing doesn't mean that people don't define themselves as Christians...

You can make the argument that people don't practice as required and whatnot... hell you can even make the argument that they don't really understand their faith but it doesn't mean that that many Americans don't classify themselves as Christians still... or that they can't be...

In any case all Sparth is trying to point out is that the radicals are a minority in the number of people that conside themselves religious... All Nik is saying is that there are still a ***ton of people that affiliate themselves with religion...

And the correct term is creaster you SOB! get it right! lol... besides that you can't really judge a persons faith or commitment on how many times a year they go to church... faith is a deeply personal thing and isn't subject to judgment on how an individual goes about it...

With a single-payer system, who do you think controls prices? The companies who are selling to the consumer or the government who pays for the services?

If you think that insurances are bad when it comes to services, what makes you think the government will be any better?

The government will be like what Walmart is to small businesses. They will drive out any chance of competition against the larger medical businesses because only the larger medical businesses (of all parts, either if it is hospitals, doctor groups, insurances, medical device producers, pharmas, and the like) will be able to survive with the price ceiling that the government will place on said businesses.

Single payer only works if you have another country to rely on for medical supplies and innovation. Take that away, and they all will fail.

If we winnow out the non-believers who cling to the apostasy that was pounded into their heads while still soft, then we can start dealing with real numbers

Oh, you! Seems you've misquoted me, as I said the vocal minority championing the death cult aspects of Christianity

O.K.
Let's pretend that the 250 million number in the usa or 2.2 billion worldwide is a farce. Hell, while we're dreaming let's say it's only 10% that actually believe. that's 25 million nationally and 200 million worldwide.

right, because the government doesn't usually pay double what the free market does.

I'm not talking about government only, but all US entities, which includes government but is not limited to government.

How much of the total medical R&D are done by the US government and pharma-companies and other medical companies located in the US? I'm pretty sure you will see my point.

How much of that R&D are funded by capitalist practices? Practically all of the funding.

How much of that funding will go away if we switch to a single-payer system which limits a whole lot of income to the medical community? A significant chunk.

Now I hope you understand my point, instead of looking at a limited portion of the entire picture...

Review of pharmaceutical companies financial statements as recent as 2011 and research for a paper I did while I was in college.

My paper is on my computer at home, so I can't grab the research or works cited page at the moment. If I remember correctly, the pharmas contributed to ~85% of total R&D in the world, and almost all of it were from America.

I just wanted to see if Kara had additional information that I didn't have, or if Kara's assumption is being based by government spending alone.

$400 billion is both private and government, US contribution to TOTAL world R&D. With over $1.3 trillion R&D world wide.

For medical, finding just medical is annoying but feel free to look at p. 14 for life sciences (medical, pharma, etc is included) and how they define it. US private compared to global private is in a bar graph on p. 15
http://www.rdmag.com/sites/rdmag.com/files/GFF2013Final2013_reduced.pdf

I'm tired at the moment and can't find all government (throughout the world) life science spending, but if you want to look here for some of the government numbers and comparision to some countries. Haven't read all of it but it only compares to a few countries.
http://www2.itif.org/2012-leadership-in-decline.pdf

Yeah, no. Pharma is less than 25% of US R&D, not even getting into world wide.

Still proves my point that US supports the majority of R&D.

I still am not at home to check my own research. I may have something different than your info. Or I could be remembering something wrong, which is more likely.

At least 3.5 million Americans have been issued cancellations, but the exact number is unclear. Associated Press checks find that data is unavailable in a half the states. Could be as high as 15 million people by the president's own words.

Um how do you define majority?

The US has the single largest expenditure per country, but it is not the majority.

China is expected to surpass US in the next few years as single largest expenditure country.

/sigh

You like beating dead horses don't you? No one has said peoples policies aren't getting transitioned... No one denies that the president said you would be able to keep your plan... I've even personally said that I'm upset about it... yet you keep bringing it up just to show this, at best, tepid outrage that accomplishes nothing but to show that once again you've only read like 3 sentences of the article you posted to take the only thing you probably agree with out of it and then go F yeah president this or that! Right in the kisser!

/sigh

When you are more than double the expenditure % than the next highest country, and you are also higher than an entire region, then yes, I would consider that as a majority.

Also, when you have 110 other countries spending money on R&D and you hold 29.0% of total expenditures, I would also consider that a majority. Can't use 2013 numbers yet because that is subject to change (since we still have just over 55 days left in the year).

Again another demonstration of poor math skills and silly outrages.

With a population of 319 Million plus, 3.5Million cancellations equals 1.1% of the population being affected and 15 million cancellations equals to roughly 4.8% of the population being affected.

All in all it's meh and sounds outrageous to people who don't understand math. After all they got Ted Cruz on their side who thinks 1.9 Million signatures (0.6% of the population) to repeal Obamacare represents the will of all US citizens.

No.

That is not a majority that is the single largest expenditure.

example: a charity raises $3 million. One person gives $1 million and many more give a total of $2 million. You would not say that one gave the majority of money The majority of donations came from many people but the single largest came from one.

edited ~

Tepid by you and the other liberals in this site perhaps. The media's been fixated on it for the last week. Some have called it the biggest lie ever told by a president. But hey it's NBD.....

The biggest lie ever told by a president? Ha! Not to downplay it or anything but it isn't even the biggest lie of the last decade let alone the biggest lie ever told by a president... maybe by this president... the people probably saying that are the same ones that called Obama a musli sheik sent to destroy the Americans from within by Allah by giving them healthcare! good try though...

So, you are saying that the US isn't basically supporting the world's R&D?

Let's put it from your example: One person that gives $1m and everyone else gives a total of $2m. Are you saying that the person who is a majority giver of the charity isn't also the one who is supporting the charity? Tell that to the one person and see if he will give another million next year. If the charity loses that one person's charity, their entire support drops by a third. If the charity loses one person in the many, it wouldn't hurt them much, if at all.

That is my point. Forcing the US into a single payer system will limit the total R&D budget that US gives. R&D budgets come from profits from private companies, and the taxes paid by those private companies to the US government. Take both of those away, and we will be right there with 1 European country in total R&D expenditures. That is telling the one person in your example that, since they have the $1m to give to the charity, they now must give that $1m to the government instead. Think that one person will be giving another million dollars to the charity next year?