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Michael Barone: Obama Would Stifle Military and Medical Creativity
We Americans tend to take the great strengths of our country for granted. In the hubbub of political debate, we concentrate on things that are allegedly wrong with America and lose sight of our great achievements. We make up only 4 percent of the world’s population. Yet we lead the world in many ways, and the rest of the world — or that part of it not in the thrall of evil regimes — depends on us for many of the things necessary to the good life.
Cases in point: Most people in the rest of the world are free riders on the productivity and ingenuity of the U.S. military and U.S. medicine. They get the benefits of U.S. military protection and U.S. medical innovation without paying, or without paying in full, for them.
That has been the case through all six decades after World War II. The U.S. military has protected democracies from Communist expansion and today protects people all over the world from Islamist extremists. They get this service, if not free of charge, then at reduced rates. American taxpayers have been spending 4 percent of gross domestic product on our military and during the Cold War paid twice that share. NATO and most other allies spend significantly less.
American administrations of both parties have tried to get others to spend, but this is Sisyphus’ work. We are entitled to take pride in the fact that, in the spirit of “From those to whom much is given much is asked,” we are able to do so much for others.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration wants to do less. Defense has been scheduled for spending cuts. We are halting at lower than scheduled levels production of the F-22 fighter, whose brilliant advanced design is intended to ensure U.S. control of the skies for decades to come. The administration also seems to be scaling back missile defense, which could protect friends and allies from nuclear attack and over time might discourage nuclear proliferation.
The administration is expanding our ground forces, who have shown that with the right strategy they could achieve victory in Iraq and, one hopes, again in Afghanistan. But limiting the number of F-22s and holding back on missile defense would reduce the advantage our high-tech military expertise can give us and our free riders as well.
We also may be at risk of squandering our high-tech advantage in medicine. As Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution points out, the top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in all other developed countries. America has outpointed all other countries combined in Nobel Prizes for medical and physiology since 1970.
American theoretical health research financed by the National Institutes of Health and by U.S. market-oriented pharmaceutical companies outshines the rest of the world combined. And the rest of the world tends to get the benefits at cut rates. American taxpayers finance NIH, which reports results publicly to the whole world.
Pharmaceutical companies that produce benefits for patients and consumers get the profits that support their research disproportionately from Americans, because other countries refuse to spend much more than the cost of producing pills, which is trivial next to the huge cost of research and regulatory approval. Getting these free riders to pay more is, again, Sisyphus’ work.
The Democratic health care bills threaten to undermine innovation in pharmaceuticals and medical technologies by sending those with private insurance into a government insurance plan that would be in a position to ration treatment and delay or squelch innovation. The danger is that we will freeze medicine in place and no longer be the nation that produces innovations that do so much for us and the rest of the world.
We are quick to grow irritated with the imperfections of our health care system and with the inefficiencies inevitable (because there is just one buyer) in military procurement. But our grouchiness should not keep up from losing sight of the wondrous American ingenuity and creativity of the U.S. military and U.S. medicine.
It is ironic that an administration that promised hope and change is instead pursuing policies that could stifle American creativity. It is encouraging that, on health care, so many Americans are recoiling from that prospect and, as polls show, starting to appreciate the wonders of American achievement.
— Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. Click here to contact him.
Comments
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» on 08.07.09 @ 07:14 AM
Once again, what a surprize that Michael Barone is against anything that the Obama administration is trying to do. Regarding drug research he could not be farther from the truth.
-Most of the U.S. research is conducted at colleges and universities through taxpayers funds and tuition.
-The Obama Administration has set aside almost 5 times as much funds for pharma research and development as the previous administration
-If other heathcare systems and policies of other countries are so backwards and lack innovation then how do you account for the large number of drug patients from companies outside the U.S. such as Glaxo and Roche?
-Finally the F-22 fighter cannot fly well in the rain or at night. Even the pentagon asked that it be scrapped. I do not know where you get your information.
How about redirecting the 30% of all the money that is in the healthcare system being extracted by the insurance companies and allocating it toward better and more efficient patient care which includes a greater focus on preventive medicine?
I think what is absolutely funny is to watch some senior citizen stand-up and protest at these healthcare discussions. The comment is along the line of I do not want the government involved or to interfere with my healthcare. It turns out that same person is utilizing Medicare and the VA. Do these people think for themselves or are they just taking talking points and directions from lobbying groups funded by the drug companies? You know the answer if you just do your research, remember Dick Army? or Ralph Reed?
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» on 08.07.09 @ 11:31 AM
Well, Mr. Barone is certainly entitled to his opinion.
While it is not shared by the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, perhaps
Barone’s 13 years as an Air Force and commercial aviation test pilot and design
engineer give him special insight to the value of the F-22.
Oops, I guess the reason he left those 13 years of hands-on aviation-defense
experience turns out to be because he didn’t have any. Sorry.
The American Pharmaceutical Association, led by former Republican House power
broker Billy Tauzin, has already cut a deal with the Obama people in support of some kind of comprehensive national health reform.
Maybe some APA members whose ten-year profit rates have only risen at 3-4 times
the rate of inflation were disaffected enough to lobby with Mr. Barone for a better
deal. Or maybe he’s getting his medical research investment data from that
extraordinary private citizen he so reveres, Mrs. Sarah Palin.
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» on 08.07.09 @ 11:48 AM
this guy is terrible..
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» on 08.07.09 @ 11:29 PM
“Most people in the rest of the world are free riders on the productivity and ingenuity of the U.S. military and U.S. medicine.”
Even such stunning chauvinism is not a surprise from the likes of Mr. Barone.
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» on 08.08.09 @ 08:30 AM
OK, Marcel, name three significant advances in either health or technology research that have come from outside the U.S. Not counting extensions or outright piracy of U.S. work by others.
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» on 08.10.09 @ 11:55 AM
His name is Marcy Kinky Dinky and he is just another arrogant Frenchman living off the fat of America that somehow feels superior to US for who knows what reason.
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» on 08.10.09 @ 08:22 PM
Rather than debate or add anything to the conversation, he calls the author names, has no defense for his criticism and that’s all the mental power he can muster up for the day.
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» on 08.10.09 @ 08:35 PM
Oh such witty utterances from the local cabal of European socialist worshippers! Local, at it again with the “but the Europeans always do everything so much better than we do” BS. The point Barone should have made is that most of the developed world depends on US military might for their protection. Europe and Canada have created huge nanny states with enormous tax loads on productivity. How do they get away with it? They spend very little on their own defense. Their industry is heavily subsidized by their governments and necessarily so because they could not compete in a global market otherwise.
Obama’s “Deathcare” bill has got a lot of senior citizens terribly upset and wisely so, since the south side Chicago mobster has decided its better to let the old folks die so we can provide free healthcare to illegal aliens (you know the people who democrats use as voting pawns). Now that the little tid bit is out, the old folks (who actually vote) are steaming mad and feel betrayed by the man they helped elect. Of course people like Marcel think these poor old folks are paid political saboteurs. I guess it takes one to know one, Marcel? Or is it the old problem of hey that is what we do so they must be doing it too? Yes the senior citizens are hopping mad and their once embracing party of panderers is calling them phonies and “brown shirts”, nice.
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