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To: Way2Serious
The flaw in your argument is that the price of your "$3 million medical procedure" stays fixed at $3 million indefinitely.

You don't get to hold the technology constant any more than I get to hold the price of any given technology constant. No matter what wonders become routine, there will always be some new wonder that costs $3 million, and there will always be people who need whatever it is.

In the past, doctors really could say, truthfully, "I'm sorry, nothing can be done." We are approaching an era where there will always be something that could be tried, the only brake on using it will be cost. This is a new thing for most humans to have to face. It will be gut-wrenching for many.

15 posted on 01/08/2004 1:52:13 PM PST by Nick Danger ( With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.)
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To: Nick Danger
No matter what wonders become routine, there will always be some new wonder that costs $3 million, and there will always be people who need whatever it is.

Allowing for your monetary inflation, and my advancing technology, I'm still trying to fathom how the impact of, say, brain transplant surgery in the year 2070, will present a different moral, ethical, and social challenges than did heart transplant surgery did in 1970. The for-profit and the non-profit sectors of healthcare each did their part to bring the procedure to Joe Blow when the needed skills rippled through the medical profession.

We are approaching an era where there will always be something that could be tried, the only brake on using it will be cost.

The development costs for wiping out every disease, infirmity, and malady known to man will have approached infinity long before point-of-service treatment costs will even be a consideration. By then, we'll be using magical Federation "credits" like on Star Trek. 'Til then, we just need to minimize the interaction between the legal and medical professions and hope for the best.

16 posted on 01/08/2004 2:17:35 PM PST by Way2Serious
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