RE: ADSactly Tech News - How Medical Technology is Saving Lives in 2018
If medical research and technological advances are only for the very rich, then what's the point? I can't think of anything more immoral than having the ability to cure a disease, treat an infection or provide some kind of life saving procedure, but then withhold it because the patient doesn't have the money to pay for it.
In America, we pay on average $10,600/year in healthcare costs. Out of the 11 nations recognized as the most industrialized and richest nations, we pay almost four times as much, whose average is around $3,200/year. For this, we get poorer health outcomes and a lower life expectancy age.
Out of the 11 nations, America is ranked dead last in healthcare quality, and it is only getting worse.
It's becoming like that movie Elisium with Matt Damon where only the very rich have access to a machine that can cure any disease. But medical care is withheld as a privilege of the rich and a punishment of the poor.
If medical technology is going to be weaponized and used as a tool for political control, then it becomes an evil, not a blessing.
I completely agree with your point about these technologies only being available for the rich. This is normally the way these things go at first but after a while there is a benefit to poorer countries as medicine is generally copied and then later sold for a fraction of the price as generic duplicates of the designer brand name pharma it was originally released as. The healthcare system in America definitely needs a lot of work and in many cases I believe Americans fund a lot of this research and development as they pay through the roof prices for medicine and healthcare. I went to a dentist in SE Asia and paid 20$ for a new filling. This same service would have cost me over $400 in the USA.