This is common knowledge to anybody that works in medical research.
I don't know of a way to prove other than telling you to go to a medical research laboratory and ask some of the people that work there.
Most of them are going to chuckle a bit at your suggestion that I'm wrong.
I would also suggest looking at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins, which are the premier medical research institutions in the world. (I'm sorry, this is also common knowledge...I can't offer you any 'proof' of it other than...look).
Then it should be easy to support. Let's talk fact here, common knowledge is often wrong.
Sure! In 2003 the United States spent about $94 Billion Dollars on medical reseearch. About 28% of this came from the National Institute of health. Yes, you are technically correct, this makes them the largest "single" contributor. (http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/HealthPolicy/...)
I understand that these sorts of things are inconvenient, and I apologize for not citing sources earlier. Like I said, this is pretty much common knowledge to anybody even remotely familiar with medical research.
In the future, I suggest using this website: http://www.google.com .. it is really great for helping you find things that support "common" knowledge.
How does any of this bantering disporve my statement that the United States is doing the overwhelming majority of the medical research in the world?
The United States is responsible for 4x as much medical research as the United Kingdom is. How can you in any way misunderstand this to mean something other than "The United States does more Research than anybody else. This is common knowledge".
No, and I think you're retreating from your argument because you can't defend it.
You asked: "Who do you think pays for medical research and why?"
It appears everyone, including the US, pays for medical research via taxation and government directed research and this dwarfs private investment on a global scale (absolute or per capita), even in the only first world nation to avoid socialized medicine (i.e. the US).
You didn't challenge this interpretation when the other poster said:
"Even in the US, the largest research funder is in fact the US government, just like every other country."
Yet, you suddenly suggest that you meant:
"The US pays for a lot of medical research because it is a populous first world country" which is true but utterly facile.
Why don't you answer your own question? Who pays and why? Maybe then we'll be able to figure what you're actually trying to say and how it relates to the topic being discussed.
Luckily, research isn't done per capita. Find a cure, it's applicable to (pretty much) everyone.
You might say that other, smaller governments spend at a comparable per-capita rate. But that doesn't change the fact that the USA is still spending much more and accomplishing more research.
So we've gone from "The US not having socialised medicine makes it a reseach powerhouse that the rest of the world has to leech off because of their backwards programs" to "The US has more citizens than other 1st world countries".
Hardly a great argument, but at least the latter actually is "common knowledge".
The original claim was "The United States is subsidizing the medical expenses of the rest of the planet."
When some evidence was provided, you stated that per capita they're only doing 1/3 more than the UK.
The thing is, that original claim that others were arguing with had nothing to do with per capita. The proposition is based on absolute numbers.
And for the larger argument about what current proposals would do to innovation in medical treatments, what we're really talking about is the total amount of research, not per capita -- the latter is a red herring.
The fear is that, if the USA clamps down on healthcare spending, then much of the research that's done in the USA won't continue. And if that's the case, then the pace of improvements in healthcare will slow, and in the long run that's a very bad thing.
That proposition is certainly open to debate. But decomposing the facts into per capita data is a red herring that does nothing to resolve the question one way or another.
The original claim was about private medicine leading to greater investment. That's why it was pointed out that the largest single investor was a US government agency.
Showing that other nations with socialised medicine have higher per capita investment is entirely germane since the point is at what level the US could be investing if it chose another approach. It's evidence that directly contradicts assumptions in this thread.
This is nothing more than conjecture and PR taken to laughing stock levels (outside of the US at least).
Even in the US, the largest research funder is in fact the US government, just like every other country.