JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,776
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Our health care system aka Obamacare can limp along for decades, but what might save it or whatever healthinsurance system we have in place in ten years are the advances in medical technology that are coming out.
I posted the below in another thread, but after some thought, I feel like it merits its own thread for a different discussion.
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The way the insurance companies work to reduce medical care costs is one of the few forces downward on medical costs.
Their competition is another downward force in medical costs.
But the real deflationary impact on medical costs will come when we have a truly healthy population that does not need as much medical care and there are several new technologies coming out on that avenue.
1. Genetic engineering drugs that will cause cells to repair themselves as they used to when we were teenagers. Human trials of age-reversing pill to start in six months | Daily Mail Online
2. Cures to genetic disease are right around the corner. Scientists show that gene editing can 'turn off' human diseases
This is just a start and given another 20 years, genetic disease might be thought of much as we today think of Polio.
3. The use of 3D printing to replace degenerating organs is almost here as well. No need to wait for a holiday set of fatal car crashes to get organs. We will be able to 3D print any organ needed using the stem cells of the recipient, thus avoiding huge complications due to tissue rejection. The Future of 3D Printing in Healthcare
Here a heart is built using a natural matrix of connective tissues instead of 3D printing and stem cells. Scientists Grow Beating Human Heart From Stem Cells
4. Introduction of nanotech robots and chemicals can repair the human body BEFORE there are problems. Tiny Implants Could Give Humans Self-Healing Superpowers
Here microscopic stealth drones are used to combat heart attacks. Drones could be used to seek out arteries to prevent heart attacks
We are on the cusp of indefinite life spans and constant good health IF we cooperate and make sure that such research is able to find its way to a market that can pay for it, thus we need to make sure that the elderly can purchase these treatments, and a government shepherded health insurance system I think is the optimal approach to this.
If this technology rolls out as planned, health insurance is going to become fairly cheap.
I posted the below in another thread, but after some thought, I feel like it merits its own thread for a different discussion.
*********************************************************************************
The way the insurance companies work to reduce medical care costs is one of the few forces downward on medical costs.
Their competition is another downward force in medical costs.
But the real deflationary impact on medical costs will come when we have a truly healthy population that does not need as much medical care and there are several new technologies coming out on that avenue.
1. Genetic engineering drugs that will cause cells to repair themselves as they used to when we were teenagers. Human trials of age-reversing pill to start in six months | Daily Mail Online
Scientists have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing.
The drug could help damaged DNA to miraculously repair and even protect Nasa astronauts on Mars by protecting them from solar radiation.
A team of researchers developed the drug after discovering a key signalling process in DNA repair and cell ageing.
During trials on mice, the team found that the drug directly repaired DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or old age.
'The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice after just one week of treatment,' said lead author Professor David Sinclair.
Human trials of the pill will begin within six months.
The drug could help damaged DNA to miraculously repair and even protect Nasa astronauts on Mars by protecting them from solar radiation.
A team of researchers developed the drug after discovering a key signalling process in DNA repair and cell ageing.
During trials on mice, the team found that the drug directly repaired DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or old age.
'The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice after just one week of treatment,' said lead author Professor David Sinclair.
Human trials of the pill will begin within six months.
2. Cures to genetic disease are right around the corner. Scientists show that gene editing can 'turn off' human diseases
Gene editing has already been used to fight diseases, but there's now hope that it might eliminate the diseases altogether. Researchers have shownthat it's possible to eliminate facial muscular dystrophy using a newer editing technique, CRISPR (Clusters of Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) to replace the offending gene and 'turn off' the condition. The approach sends a mix of protein and RNA to bind to a gene and give it an overhaul.
This doesn't mean that doctors suddenly have a cure-all on their hands. They haven't tried CRISPR on real live people, and there's no guarantee that it'd work with every genetic condition under the Sun. The initial test was only 50 percent effective, too. If this gene mending is useful in the field, though, it could do a lot to transform medicine. Doctors could treat the root cause of a genetic disease rather than deal with the symptoms, and possibly wipe it out entirely -- or at least, make it more bearable.
This doesn't mean that doctors suddenly have a cure-all on their hands. They haven't tried CRISPR on real live people, and there's no guarantee that it'd work with every genetic condition under the Sun. The initial test was only 50 percent effective, too. If this gene mending is useful in the field, though, it could do a lot to transform medicine. Doctors could treat the root cause of a genetic disease rather than deal with the symptoms, and possibly wipe it out entirely -- or at least, make it more bearable.
This is just a start and given another 20 years, genetic disease might be thought of much as we today think of Polio.
3. The use of 3D printing to replace degenerating organs is almost here as well. No need to wait for a holiday set of fatal car crashes to get organs. We will be able to 3D print any organ needed using the stem cells of the recipient, thus avoiding huge complications due to tissue rejection. The Future of 3D Printing in Healthcare
Here a heart is built using a natural matrix of connective tissues instead of 3D printing and stem cells. Scientists Grow Beating Human Heart From Stem Cells
4. Introduction of nanotech robots and chemicals can repair the human body BEFORE there are problems. Tiny Implants Could Give Humans Self-Healing Superpowers
A new military-sponsored program aims to develop a tiny device that can be implanted in the body, where it will use electrical impulses to monitor the body's organs, healing these crucial parts when they become infected or injured.
Known as Electrical Prescriptions, or ElectRx, the program could reduce dependence on pharmaceutical drugs and offer a new way to treat illnesses, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing the program.
Known as Electrical Prescriptions, or ElectRx, the program could reduce dependence on pharmaceutical drugs and offer a new way to treat illnesses, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for developing the program.
Here microscopic stealth drones are used to combat heart attacks. Drones could be used to seek out arteries to prevent heart attacks
We are on the cusp of indefinite life spans and constant good health IF we cooperate and make sure that such research is able to find its way to a market that can pay for it, thus we need to make sure that the elderly can purchase these treatments, and a government shepherded health insurance system I think is the optimal approach to this.
If this technology rolls out as planned, health insurance is going to become fairly cheap.