So we should create a black hole of funds for a few people ?
I don't see where the gain for society is there. Not everyone can be saved/helped, and medicines/drugs are probably too greatly overestimated now in my opinion.
Also it's sad but some organisms are just not fit for some tasks (or sometimes even for life), and I don't think throwing money without any supervision or afterthought about it is a very wise answer as a society. Like, maybe we can just have blind people.
We need to stop expecting healthcare to work as a fully independent, self-funding unit in a society. It doesn't, and cannot, work that way. Healthcare, like basic research, is a cost centre in a country, not a profit centre, by the very virtue of what it deals with. It's a place to which you allocate surplus created elsewhere in the economy.
That was my point, and you worded it in a clear way.
I don’t know what the solution to medical funding should be. It’s clear to me that the current situation (medicine for profit) does not work. It’s also clear that the current economic system is prone to waste and inefficiencies.
For all I know, maybe people should be able to get a grant for certain situations. The normal economic forces would then work to incentivize the grant holders to exchange grant funds for goods/services. The funds would still funnel the way they currently do, but grant holders would have gained some measurable benefit along the way. Presumably the grant holders would have made their choices based on perceived needs. (Ie if they have 2 chronic illnesses but only one is life threatening then the life threatening illness will be allocated most resources.) this is just a thought experiment.
Edit- another idea: change the funding for the DHSS to include funding for basic medical research and treatment with a set % of the GDP. I’m thinking that ratio should be based on disease rates.
You need to take into account how much it costs to you save a life through other means. If the marginal cost of saving a life with healthcare improvements were 100 million, it would be much better to put that money into other things.
The “formula” could be as simple as 10x annual salary for life threatening illness. That wouldn’t rupture the treasury and still provide means for people.
The budget is, though. And healthcare is not the only thing that saves lives.
If you care about saving lives, you want to allocate budget in the most cost-effective way, which means putting money where a marginal life saved costs the least.
I agree, but it really is a bottomless pit though, so I don't get how above poster think it's very wise to approach its cost and subventions by going without limits, because "bah, taxpayer will pay".
And by making it a decision by some body you make sure that it will be corrupted. By just limiting the money and leaving it to the private sector you make sure it's an actual economic decision.
So do you want the extreme rare condition that some important congresscritter's daughter has consume 80% of the medical budget ? This is the way to go.
The private sector is absolutely magical at corrupting economic decisions and sucking out all the money that passes through it, so it's not that easy either.
> So do you want the extreme rare condition that some important congresscritter's daughter has consume 80% of the medical budget ? This is the way to go.
People would scream bloody murder if that happened.
I wonder if you'd think the same if it was your kid (or you yourself) in that position. It's easy to take the pragmatic asshole position when it's not your skin in the game. It boggles the mind that people think like this in this day and age.
This is really just a corollary of the fact that it's easy to spend other people's money. Which itself is a corollary that people are selfish. No admonishment, it's just part of being human. A survey of people who stand to benefit from society paying for an expensive treatment isn't exactly the most objective.
It's been published a few times over the past few days that healthcare professionnals often have lower expectancies towards medicine especially during end of life etc. So I guess I would actually think the same indeed.
There is a difference between current days 70yo oncologist with cancer, and a 30yo proud parent.
As futile as it would be, before I had a child, I thought that in the event of a end-of-humanity catastrophe, I would get as close to the source as possible and admire the end. Now with a kid, I am going to hold the fort has long as possible, cook my own hand and serve it, just it case this isn't the end.
Nope, such testimonies even exist in 30 yo. It's not a matter of having children (and I firmly believe you can have children without becoming unreasonable on the way, even if having children often denotes of complete disregard for the world's state over one's egoistic interests but that's another problem), just having seen enough biology at work...
