General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf the US cannot afford expensive healthcare, why is there so much
investment in cancer research? I would ask the GOP why cancer is socialized but the poor under the AHCA are not.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,860 posts)People can make money off it.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,860 posts)GOP ideologues don't want government money to be used for the benefit of the undeserving poor, who probably are poor because they bought refrigerators and iPhones.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)the rich. That research is smothered in government money after all.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,860 posts)Socialism is fine for the rich.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)at the Discussionist. All I got was crickets.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,860 posts)would be some kind of libertarian bullpucky about how people should take responsibility for their own health. Those poor people probably got cancer because they smoked, or lived near a toxic waste dump, so it's their fault anyhow.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)I thought all poor people eat at McDonalds every day.
Bettie
(16,126 posts)to the grocery store to purchase steak and lobster.
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Cuba looks to have the vaccine, and they are quite poor. They have only had it for 25 years and been handing it out free for 6. Sounds like Cuba care is great care.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7267518
CimaVax, which is both a treatment and vaccine for lung cancer, has been researched in Cuba for 25 years and free to the Cuban public since 2011...
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,860 posts)They just started clinical trials in the US last year. If it passes the trials and is approved for use, you can bet it will be expensive here.
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Not make Big Cancer rich
mwooldri
(10,303 posts)The GOP don't care.
The UK covers everyone through the NHS for £125 billion. That's about $190 billion in pre-brexit dollars. The Medicare budget was about $600 billion, the Medicaid budget about the same. 1.2 trillion dollars to cover 130 million people. Or $9,200 per person on Medicare or Medicaid. The UK government spends about $3,200 per person on the NHS.
Socialized medicine works.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)out there in the ether.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Politics drives research.
There is currently a huge uptick to mouth and neck cancers as well as rectal cancers. I blame HPV off the top of my head but I am no doctor.
Young and the relatively young get it. There will be a huge uptick in publicity and funding for these cancers in the next five years. There will be indignant marches, accusations of hate against politicians, etc. Get old enough you see everything a few times.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)as a secretary in a Cancer Centre. They were expanding the center's space by 80 percent to be ready for the uptick. But that was canada where the poor get the same treatment as the rich.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)I got a polyp removed a year or so ago. Doc says as long as I get fourteen feet of hose up my asshole every five years I will not get colon cancer. So I got that going for me.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)so it is socialism for those that can afford insurance but not for the poor who can't.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)I would like to see the exact figures, but their is alot of corporate/non-government money invested in cancer research, as well as plenty of government money.
Not to mention that there is much money to be made in cancer treatment.
I get your point, but I'm rather glad that public and private money goes into cancer research.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)MineralMan
(146,331 posts)The reality is that many, many Americans do have health insurance, mostly as part of their employment. so medical research is always ongoing, looking for new treatments (always expensive) for the diseases that plague humans. But, they don't need everyone to buy their new drugs or treatments. They don't care about that. As long as some will pay, they will keep creating new and expensive treatment products.
Here's the reality. If you have insurance that will pay for those new treatments, you're in luck. If you don't, you get to die from older, less effective treatments.
Some of the new cancer treatments that use immunotherapy are hugely expensive. If you have the type of cancer they can treat, you need a very good insurance policy that will cover those therapies, or you get to die without them.
Just because there is a new, effective treatment doesn't mean you can have access to it, as so many have learned. If you can't pay, nothing is preventing you from dying.
A lot of people die because they can't get new or costly effective treatment. It doesn't even get mentioned unless they have insurance that will cover it. "Sorry, Mr. Smith. We've done all we can. You have, maybe, six months to live." That's what you get if your insurance doesn't cover the latest, greatest treatment.
applegrove
(118,793 posts)newer treatments is it not?
metalbot
(1,058 posts)The US spends about $5B on cancer research per year, so about $15 per person. I'd fully expect that to get cut over the next four years, because of "SPENDING BAD" spasms in Congress.
That level of funding isn't even a drop in the bucket for the number of poor people who need healthcare in the US (in fact it would pay the average health costs for only about half a million people).
You could just as well ask why NASA should be socialized but healthcare is not (but then you'd get to the fact that we only spend $60 per person on NASA, which is nothing compared to health care costs as well).
applegrove
(118,793 posts)HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Which is not happening.
Americans do not really want to eliminate cancer.
So what makes anyone think that Americans want to cure it.
Cancer deaths related to tobacco usage should be reclassified as suicide.