First World Problem

Researchers are complaining that the total amount of money spent on medical research in the United States stayed steady at $140.5 billion dollars, or about 5.5 percent of money spent on healthcare. 

To put that in perspective $140.5 billion is:*

• More than the GDP of 72% of the countries on Earth.  
• More than the combined GDP's of the bottom 18% of countries.
• About .97% of US GDP
• About .2% of the entire world's GDP.

I'm a recipient of the products of the good research that's done in this country, and I won't complain about how much it cost because they make my life much better than it could be.  However, I'm not going to complain that we 'only' spend more on medical research than 130 of the countries on the planet spend on everything.

*Use the 2010 WMF GDP numbers