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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rickyb" data-source="post: 3350998" data-attributes="member: 56035">this is unrelated but: `It gets worse. Harvard’s Malcolm Sparrow, the leading expert on health care billing fraud and abuse, conservatively estimates that 10 percent of all health care expenditure in the United States is lost to computerized billing fraud. That’s $270 billion dollars a year!``from their page:  did you know that NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, investing more than $32 billion a year to enhance life, and reduce illness and disability? NIH funded research has led to breakthroughs and new treatments, helping people live longer, healthier lives, and building the research foundation that drives discovery. the government does research for new drugs and just gives it away for free to drug companies which then charge as much as they can to patients.<a href="http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/ralph-nader-big-pharma-is-crony-capitalism-out-of-control/article_5b51d23f-f6a6-5438-b4fc-41cbccb48ed2.html" target="_blank">Ralph Nader: Big Pharma is crony capitalism out of control</a>` That drug was produced by a grant of $31 million of taxpayer money through the National Institutes of Health, right through the clinical testing process. The formula was then given away to the Bristol-Myers Squibb company. No royalties were paid to the taxpayer. There was no restraint on the price. Charges now run $10,000 to $15,000 per patient for a series of treatments. If the patients can't pay, they go on Medicaid, and the taxpayer pays at the other end of the cycle, too.`` - from an older article``not only do taxpayers pay for a very large percentage of industry R&D, but are in fact paying twice because they then get hit with high prices for the drugs themselves.”so im not an expert on the precise number but we can guess its alot of money</blockquote>

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