[quote=davelj][quote=jficquette]We will have cures for Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes within 20-30 years. In 30-50 we will be growing our own Organs for transplantation when, if they wear out.
We should take a long term view on this and create some type of crash program to bring these advances ASAP.
Get rid of disease and we get rid of the burden of these expensive end of life treatments that weigh the system down so much now.
A child born today will have no reason not to be able to live to 120-150.
Sci Fi? Nope.
John[/quote]
And what happens when folks get to be 120, when these organs start to wear out? We’ll have exactly the same problems. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of advancing medical technology. But… even when we’re growing our own organs, etc. we’re just going to keep coming up with new expensive procedures that everyone will feel is their right to have access to. Thus, the cycle will never end.[/quote]
davelj is so right. There will always be expensive treatments that are on the cutting edge of current technology. I think even if we could address some of the malpractice costs, there still would be very expensive treatments having to do with new sensors, new genetic treatments, perhaps nanotechnology, etc.
Who gets access to those – everybody? Who pays? How much does ICU cost per day? ECMO machines for preemies? I don’t think such things will ever be cheap, because there is the cost of the R&D, the engineers to implement the thing, the cost to build them, and the cost of the trained folks to operate these machines. Why does anyone think such a thing would ever be cheap? Sheesh even an apple computer or a mercedes is kind of expensive – you think an MRI machine is simpler? Plumbers get paid a good wage per hour – do you really think a surgeon will ever be cheap?
Nowadays with ventilators, etc, we can keep folks alive. We can swap organs at tremendous cost. If we spend $1 million on everyone at their end of life, and they’ve only paid in say $50k, and you do that millions of times a year, the accounting is not going to work out. The moment you accept that, if you have public health care, then you have to go to some form of “rationing” it seems to me. There will not be enough rich people in the country to pay for *everyone* to have the highest technology end of life.
It’s one thing if you say “insurance is for some surprising, unusual, catastrophic event”. But the thing is, *everyone* gets old and run down at the end, and ultimately dies.
Is it really “insurance” if you’re guaranteed to need it?
