There is some ring of truth to the notion of socialized medicine. After all, look at how low malpractice insurance rates are in the UK. If you go to the doctor there and something goes wrong, it isn't automatically a windfall for the patient. One of the banes of our form of free enterprise is the propensity for unsatisfied consumers to litigate. I can't recall exactly how much of our GDP is committed to lawyering, but it has got to be significant, and significantly more than any other country ever, and it is growing.

However, back to the point. I do feel that in our economic model, except for the more militaristic aspects such as Ironraven cited, private sector interests would tend to pick up the slack on R&D funding should government spending diminish. It may not be quid pro quo, but would certainly be more economically efficient. As with any other industry, there are always certain safegaurds there to protect the consumer from excessive price escalation and market monopoly. It is this limbo state we have presently that seems to wrankle so many. Just like Social Security, Medicare and Welfare have also proven to be quite counterproductive to our long term stability. Governmental inefficiencies are the absolute worst from a financial standpoint, just look at the Postal Service, or Amtrak. Either you give up and commit 100% to a government run program much like the Europeans have, or else you decide that government has no business funding goods and services. All this gray area is wreaking havoc on us. Kinda reminds me of the poker games we played aboard ship, where dealers would call 3 or 4 wildcards, low chicago, high chicago, and you'd have so many people splitting the pot that no one won, but the game went on. Regulation is sometimes necessary, but artifical comptetition via subsidy and treaty just hurts the market and the consumer alike, and accomplishes nothing positive. I would prefer a free market to social services, but even going wholly PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. would be better than what we have now. That's something I never thought I would hear myself say, until about a decade ago, when NAFTA went into effect.