Thought about the health care debate

With increased knowledge alone- people have become healthier and need less health care. The research on the cancer causing effects of cigarette smoking- caused many to quit to their healths advantage. Untold millions of lives saved and billions of medical dollars saved by research.

Yet many continue to smoke, and if they end up with an expensive cancer, our society will at least help (in most cases) with cost of their treatment.

There needs to be an emphasis in education on the benefits of being healthy- of doing all one can do for themselves. Healthcare can not become a safety net for careless living. There is, I think, a psychological component that the high cost of getting sick currently - that causes many to take better care of themselves.

There also has been a lot of unnecessary cost associated with a medical system that lags behind especially at the patient level that is now being addressed. Patient records should all be digitized, This alone would be a profound amount of data that could be analyzed for predictive trends- and early less expensive and more effective treatments.

Genome Screening

Eventually, everyone should/will have genome screening; As an article in scientific America reports on what one of the wealthiest men in world learned when he had his screening done:

"Google founder Sergey Brin's investment in his wife's genome-screening company has gotten even more personal: the product has revealed he carries a genetic mutation linked to Parkinson's disease.

He adds: "The exact implications of this are not entirely clear. Nonetheless it is clear that I have a markedly higher chance of developing Parkinson's in my lifetime than the average person. In fact, it is somewhere between 20 percent to 80 percent depending on the study and how you measure."

"I feel fortunate to be in this position," he writes, noting that exercise could help protect him from the disease."


There are privacy implications to all of this. Yet the future of healthcare should be towards a concept of wellness rather than towards entitlement.

Inventor Dean Kamen in an interview said:

"Okay, where else do we want to put money in our economy? You know where I'd put a lot of money? Great high-paying jobs for Ph.D.s and professors solving problems, curing diseases, making advanced technologies to give people products to make their life better. [Medical technology is] one of the few industries where the U.S. still exports to the world and we still have leadership."
- Dean Kamen Quotes About Health Care Debate - Interview With Inventor Dean Kamen - Popular Mechanics (view on Google Sidewiki)