Wojtek
On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wojtek: We are facing a similar situation today. The productive potential of modern economy is enormous - capable of creating prosperity for everyone, yet we are told by pseudo-science of economics that somehow 'we must live withing our means" and there is no money to fund anything from infrastructure to health care. Bullshit! There is enough "money" or rather productive potential to fund everything, but that cannot be done without destroying the profitability of prior investments that property owners made. So to protect that profitability, the unleashing of full productive potential is restricted , as to to "overheat the economy" we are told, or "to live within our means."
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> Somebody: I strongly agree. The most resounding condemnation we can make of the bourgeoisie today, which is at its most extreme in America, is that it is stifling technological progress and the dispersal of the fruits of that progress. In the U.S. both parties agree (and I fear much of the left as well) that we should be spending less on health care and medicine. They point to GDP figures and point fearfully to the day when 30 or 40 percent of gross domestic product goes to paying for improved health. But, why should this prospect frighten us? Does it not make sense that a more prosperous society, once it can provide food, shelter, education, and amusement, should turn to improving the quality and duration of life itself?
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> Now the issue of the patchwork quilt of private insurers hiking up the costs of U.S. health care is a legitimate issue, but the solution should not be to slash health care spending per se. It should instead be to maximize the health benefits per dollar spent, by, for instance instituting greater price controls and a single-payer government run health service. But, of course, nothing of the kind is being sought, and instead we're being told we must "bend the curve" of health spending through relentless austerity.
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> But, technological progress in medicine, that is to say, the development of cures for diseases, of regenerative medicine, mass production of organ replacements, stem cell therapy, and one day, nanotechnology, in fact holds the real key to spending less on health care, if indeed we even remain fixated on that goal. The polio vaccine is far cheaper than taking care of polio victims for years on end, just as a vaccine for HIV or kidneys grown on demand would be cheaper than current treatments. Long-term care for the elderly will devour more and more of U.S. private and public spending, as well it should. But if the quality of life of the aged were improved by radical new treatments already in development, it might well cost less. I would like to see the left push forcefully for increased, not decreased, government funding for medical research. Right now the U.S. is slashing funding for the NIH, the main body providing basic research investments, at the same
> time it is supposedly reforming health care in an outrageous act of bloody minded short-sightedness. It is a disgusting farce that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
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