John Stossel?s latest special, ?Whose Body Is It Anyway? Sick in America? features a range of examples and interviews with experts, including Galen?s Grace-Marie Turner, to counter Michael Moore?s documentary ?SiCKO? and comes to a very different conclusion about America?s health care system.

Below are studies, and their relevant excerpts, referenced by Grace-Marie during her interview:

1. Why Job Churn Is Good

By Robert M. Kimmitt

The Washington Post

Tuesday, January 23, 2007; Page A17

More than 55 million Americans, or four out of every 10 workers, left their jobs in 2005. And this is good news, because there were over 57 million new hires that same year.

These statistics illustrate a recent and growing trend of dynamism in our job market, especially among younger workers. Data on labor demand in the United States, gathered for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), show that the 12 months ending in November had the highest average of labor turnover since the U.S. government began tracking this information in 2000. But the data also show that our economy has maintained a consistently strong ratio of new hires to separations. Over the year ending in November, new hires in America exceeded employee separations by an average of 364,000 per month.

2. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

U.S. Department of Labor

Bureau of Labor Statistics

 

3. The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs

Joseph A. DiMasi, Ronald W. Hansen, Henry G. Grabowski 

Journal of Health Economics 22 (2003) 151?185

For example, NIH (2000) found that of 47 FDA-approved drugs that had reached at least US$ 500 million in US sales in 1999, the government had direct or indirect use or ownership patent rights to only four of them.  In addition, we used a Tufts CSDD database supplemented by commercial databases to determine that of the 284 new drugs approved in the United States from 1990 to 1999,12 93.3% originated from industrial sources (either from the sponsoring firm or from another firm from which the compound was licensed or otherwise acquired). Government sources accounted for 3.2% of these approvals and academia and other non-profits accounted for the other 3.5%.

 

4. Technology Transfer: Agencies’ Rights to Federally Sponsored Biomedical Innovations

July 2003

According to the GAO report, in 2001, the government had licensing rights in only 6 brand name drugs associated with the top 100 pharmaceuticals that the VA procured and in 4 brand name drugs associated with the top 100 pharmaceuticals that the DOD dispensed. In other words, the government had licensing rights in only 6% of the drugs purchased by the VA and 4% of the drugs purchased by DOD.

John Stossel?s latest special, ?Whose Body Is It Anyway? Sick in America? features a range of examples and interviews with experts, including Galen?s Grace-Marie Turner, to counter Michael Moore?s documentary ?SiCKO? and comes to a very different conclusion about America?s health care system.

Below are studies, and their relevant excerpts, referenced by Grace-Marie during her interview:

1. Why Job Churn Is Good

By Robert M. Kimmitt

The Washington Post

Tuesday, January 23, 2007; Page A17

More than 55 million Americans, or four out of every 10 workers, left their jobs in 2005. And this is good news, because there were over 57 million new hires that same year.

These statistics illustrate a recent and growing trend of dynamism in our job market, especially among younger workers. Data on labor demand in the United States, gathered for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), show that the 12 months ending in November had the highest average of labor turnover since the U.S. government began tracking this information in 2000. But the data also show that our economy has maintained a consistently strong ratio of new hires to separations. Over the year ending in November, new hires in America exceeded employee separations by an average of 364,000 per month.

2. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

U.S. Department of Labor

Bureau of Labor Statistics

 

3. The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs

Joseph A. DiMasi, Ronald W. Hansen, Henry G. Grabowski 

Journal of Health Economics 22 (2003) 151?185

For example, NIH (2000) found that of 47 FDA-approved drugs that had reached at least US$ 500 million in US sales in 1999, the government had direct or indirect use or ownership patent rights to only four of them.  In addition, we used a Tufts CSDD database supplemented by commercial databases to determine that of the 284 new drugs approved in the United States from 1990 to 1999,12 93.3% originated from industrial sources (either from the sponsoring firm or from another firm from which the compound was licensed or otherwise acquired). Government sources accounted for 3.2% of these approvals and academia and other non-profits accounted for the other 3.5%.

 

4. Technology Transfer: Agencies’ Rights to Federally Sponsored Biomedical Innovations

July 2003

According to the GAO report, in 2001, the government had licensing rights in only 6 brand name drugs associated with the top 100 pharmaceuticals that the VA procured and in 4 brand name drugs associated with the top 100 pharmaceuticals that the DOD dispensed. In other words, the government had licensing rights in only 6% of the drugs purchased by the VA and 4% of the drugs purchased by DOD.