From Britain comes encouraging news that scientists have fully decoded the cancer genome. This means:
Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.
That is terrific news – and keep it coming please!
But congratulations aren’t the purpose of this post. Scolding and reality check is.
Currently there are NO solutions to our healthcare cost dilemma.
Democrats try to play sleight of hand by sticking young people with more of the bill, and trying to hide cost cuts imposed on seniors, while using the huge bills to hide payoffs to constituency groups like the SEIU.
Republicans do a little better. Their market based proposals actually would defer health care “judgment day” a bit.
But even sound proposals, like tort reform, and moving away from third party payment systems, can only push back, not defeat the aging population soon to swamp our healthcare delivery and finance systems.
The ONLY way forward is to fund science, reform drug and medical procedure approval systems with an eye towards SPEED, and hope it works.
Where to focus? Diabetes currently takes up something like 40% of our healthcare system costs. Amazing isn’t it…. a War on Diabetes might be the best war we ever fought.
Right now, only science can save us, and the best thing we can do is give it the time it may need. The Democratic proposals hasten the end. Republican plans help, moderately, and should be enacted.
December 17th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Is that a call for more deficit-financed federal spending, or do you have a waste-fraud-abuse source for the money, noting that WFA is usually anything benefitting someone else’s objectives.
December 17th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Sigh. Try and be constructive.
Hmmm let see.. cut the Dept of Education budget entirely. Spend 1/2 on science.
There. Easy.
December 17th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Oh, I’m glad you’re being constructive, but politically you are just another guy with a good idea for government to pay for. All those Education programs were also good ideas, just proposed by someone else with a different concept of value. The whole deficit problem is more good ideas than the nation, including you, is willing to pay for. Before you can get your good new idea adopted, you have to negotiate a settlement with the competing ideas and the level of government finance. Shouting a good idea is nice; getting it adopted in a way that helps the larger problem is even better. There’s where more good and workable ideas are needed. Propose a constructive deal because our world’s best political system lives by deals. Be a Hamilton proposing a deal that solves the nation’s financial structure problem by moving the nation’s capital.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Not just another guy… I’m saying don’t waste money on something that won’t help. Either help science or get the hell out of the way.
Our system is not the best system – it used to be but is now as corrupt and getting worse.
Deals on fundamentals are stupid.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:05 am
You know my views on this. The feds can spend on CLEARLY common good things that states probably can’t do themselves. Education can be done on a state or city basis. Science, which benefits all, should be done by private concerns, with federal funding only in cases where the individual benefit isn’t great but the common benefit is.
You know this, yet you persist in blathering on about I’m just a guy with ideas, and I need to make deals.
NO NO NO. That is the stupidity that brought us to ruin. “deals” with Ted Kennedy. Deals with the devil never work out – and we’ve done plenty.
The time to “deal” is over. That time to restore fundamental values is now.
Your generation had your shot to “deal” and you just dealt yourself goodies from the future. No thanks.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:06 am
When it comes to basic science, government isn’t in the way; government is the way. Massive government amounts are already being spent on basic health and other science. Private investment in science is small by comparison (no, I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’ll bet NAS has them) because the economic returns are too uncertain. Basic research is faith that if you poke around in the unknown, you will find some very useful knowledge. Big pharma spends a lot on pharma development but not on the basic knowledge of how nature works. Would you hire a PhD mathematician to study information theory?
BTW: if our system isn’t the best, which other system do you nominate as the best? And can you name a period in American history where government got less corrupt? The nature of our expanding industrial and knowledge society simply presents ever increasing opportunities for illicit profit.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I’m fine with government spending on basic science. Very fine with it. But don’t ask me to horsetrade it for some stupid bridge in your home town. That reeks.
As to which system… Switzerland comes to mind. We had a decent system until we trashed it with the 16th amendment.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
#6. As the lady from Alaska would say, You betcha!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon