Instead of putting all his efforts into mandated health insurance for all, why

[dkf]

doesn't Obama put a trillion dollars into finding a cure for Diabetes, Cancer, Heart Disease and Dementia?

I worry that this is going to cost us the Presidency, have no real effect on actual delivery of health care and we won't be able to use the full benefits of stem cell research before we lose to the idiot yahoos again.

Our healthcare system has no interest in making us all healthy. I read where one industry player says they don't want people to die, they just want us to all be pretty sick. The only entity that is interested in finding a cure is pure research at Universities and the Government.

I fear Obama is too much of a pragmatist to see where success truly lies.

[HelenWheels]

1. Why not hand the presidency over to big business permanently

at least 70% of American's want public health care. We're ranked 37th in the world for our present quality of care but we're 1st as far as the money we pour into it.

Obama needs to cut through the crap and address those in congress that are whoring themselves out to big business instead of representing their constituents. He needs to put these idiot birthers and deathers in their place by using the l word loud and clear every time one of them starts about him not being American or that the public option is going to kill old people.

[saltpoint]

2. The insurance companies, which are significantly the problem here,

are being given no choice but to defend their own greed and monopoly against the president's initiative for health care reform.

We still don't know the final form the initiative will take, only that it will undergo mutations in order to advance through the 111th Congress.

But the insurance companies have lost, or are losing, what little public support they had. They've been implicated here more than ever before, exposed as pimps, and all they have is their corporate muscle which they bring to bear against people like Max Baucus. Obama knew in advance the impediments he was up against. Reports suggest he has marshaled resources to break their hold.

If the insurance companies can be broken or weakened, the final bill will be a scaffold to make further refurbishments.

[dkf]

3. You don't see my point at all do you?

I want cures, not band aids. Our health care system is dependent on having to provide band aid after band aid after band aid. That is where the money is made.

Doctors, no matter how well meaning they are, can't provide these cures. They can just treat them with the half assed fix we call medicine. We depend on expensive drugs that have to be taken every day, twice a day, to keep things moderately ok.

I want to know exactly how much money is being spent to find a complete fix for these diseases. I bet it is miniscule in comparison to how much we spend "treating" them.

[saltpoint]

5. Legislation has to be effective within the Congress first.

If you have a magic formula that has not yet been tried to break the lobbyists' hold on various House and Senate members, let us see it.

Absent that formula, the process of breaking the insurance companies' hold holds primacy.

[dkf]

8. Umm, I want to cure all the major diseases and you want to

break the insurance companies.

You don't see kind of a disconnect there?

[saltpoint]

10. I'm disagreeing with your shift of emphasis for the president's role.

IMO President Obama is appropriately engaged in health care reform.

It is not the president's role to cure diseases.

[dkf]

12. It should be. Big corporations aren't going to do it.

Who else is left?

[saltpoint]

13. If people wanted 20-minute orgasms should the presidency then be

redirected to achieve that goal?

Not that it's a bad goal, mind you.

Just that the folks in the White House tend to find other imperatives requiring their more immediate attention.

[dkf]

15. See you don't think its possible so you won't even support it.

Bah.

I read that the NIH prefers to give grants to studies on why people eat what they eat instead of funding possibly breakthrough discoveries on cancer cells because they are theoretical.

That is what is wrong with this country nowadays. Whatever happened to big thinkers? No more JFKs here.

[saltpoint]

16. So as not to disrupt your limited notions, I'll give you every point you want.

And then some.

I not only don't understand your post but I in fact am subliterate to start with.

I know nothng about medicine.

I don't understand logic and context and am entirely unfamiliar about the politics of funding medical research.

I don't think cancer is even a real disease.

I think you can cure most diseases by eating more spinach and carrots.

[dkf]

17. If you don't think these are diseases then why are you so adamant

about health insurance for all?

I don't get it.

[saltpoint]

18. It seems to me that President Obama is as likely as the rest of us to

wish that cancer and other diseases can be one day cured.

It also seems to me that he is not in charge of said discovery of cures.

[dkf]

19. American Cancer Society: Americans Don't Want to Cure Cancer

By Trista Morrison | August 2nd, 2009 @ 9:43 pm
1 Comment


“People say we want a cure . . . but the American people have decided what their priorities are and their priorities don’t include cancer,” Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said in a recent BioWorld interview.

Brawley was referring to the fact that the entire annual budget for the National Cancer Institute is less than the budget for two weeks in Iraq.

That’s part of the reason the treatment of metastatic cancer has been a “disappointment” over the last 40 years, according to Brawley.

http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10003407/american-cancer-society-americans-dont-want-to-cure-cancer/

[saltpoint]

21. People who are in charge of the search for cures for diseases by and large

are not the people in the White House. I'd be surprised if there were exceptions.

The Iraq War does not predate cancer.

To reiterate, I believe President Obama is appropriately engaged.

[dkf]

24. How do you think the people looking for the cures get funded?

The fact that Nixon declared a "war on cancer" means that they know it does rest with the federal government ergo Congress and POTUS, but so far our Presidents have been too much talk, not much action.

[saltpoint]

36. Research can come from private or public funding.

The White House may initiate, encourage, or discourage action, but it is customarily not in charge of spearheading cancer research, for example.

[dkf]

28. The American Cancer Society says Cancer Funding starts with the budget submitted from the President

http://action.acscan.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Approp_budgetprocess

Here is a chart of the process. I imagine this is how it works for all medical research and funding.

[saltpoint]

45. We appreciate the flow chart and you may find that this president,

more than certain Republican other presidents, is likely to submit generous percentages for scientific research, including specific medical research.

But appropriations is where it's at and that tends to mean Congress.

Two sites I've worked with in the past, plus a quick exceprt from each:


http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/pne/pubs/fundscience/papers/newhouse.htm


"Despite the United States' recognition of medical research as a public good and the sustained support it has enjoyed, this research still relies on the annual decisions of congressional authorizers and appropriators. Unfortunately, the scientific community cannot always rely on federal support for medical research to consistently parallel or provide for future scientific opportunities or, more importantly, public health needs."

========

http://myeloma.org/main.jsp?type=article&id=634

One Voice focuses its advocacy on funding for cancer research programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHHD), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Regulatory and other funding issues important to the members of One Voice can, and will, still be important to their respective agendas, but will not be included in that of One Voice. In this coalition, we focus on specific cancer research appropriations; stated more simply, we focus on the money.
As we all learned in our civics classes, Congress can authorize anything it wants—and it usually does to give the illusion that something is being done. Appropriations—funds released to be spent—are action. If it ain't appropriated, it ain't going to happen.

[dkf]

22. The National Cancer Institute (part of the NIH) only gets 6 billion in funding. Pathetic.

Few issues enjoy as much bipartisan support as America's long-running "war on cancer," as President Nixon put it in 1971. But political rhetoric hasn't been reflected in congressional action. Funding for cancer research has remained flat since 2004 -- and has fallen significantly after adjusting for inflation, according to the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index, Office of the Budget, National Institutes of Health.

In recent years, the NCI's ability to fund cancer research has been severely restricted.

2009-07-17-NCIBudget1.JPEG

President Obama has vowed to make significant changes. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009 includes an unprecedented boost of $10.4 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). $1.26 billion from the stimulus is designated for the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The stimulus package plus the permanent budget of NCI increases the number from $4.95 billion in 2008 to nearly $6 billion for FY2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-sawyers/cancer-research-and-the-s_b_237544.html

[saltpoint]

37. Whether this White House approves of more funding, budget legislation

tends to generate in the House of Representatives.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. You want miracles, not policy

Why not just cure cancer?

Jeez. Maybe there is NO FUCKING CURE for cancer?

Some days in here.

[dkf]

14. I do believe we will find a cure for most of these things.

Hopefully it happens in my lifetime.

But if some of you are in charge, you'll never try hard enough to get us there because you simply are limited in your thinking.

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. Will we cure broken arms, too?

Why not cure hunger instead of coming up with food policy?

People need health care, always. It's method of delivery may vary, but it is a constant. You have to devise complex policy for delivering healthcare to 300 million people. You want silver bullet cures. This is childish nonsense.

[dkf]

30. Broken arms do get cured.

They generally aren't chronic conditions you know.

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. It would seem we need a

fucking health care system to do so, no?

[Blue_Roses]

29. the cost to single out diseases for a cure

is a good idea but not realistic--financially. Also, it limits many other things that need to covered under health care--like dental.

[dkf]

31. Dental isn't covered under anything I've seen from Obama.

Is it?

[HelenWheels]

4. They also have a choice to admit their greed and promise to be better

Hell would freeze over before that happened but it is still a choice. They simply choose to defend the indefensible.

[saltpoint]

6. Agree. I've often wondered why they don't just come clean. They'd feel

a whole lot better and the rest of us would be far better off.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. "I worry that...."

What else is new?

:eyes:

[dkf]

11. True. Its why I'm a Democrat.

I always thought we were the sane party.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. Spending trillions for a cancer cure rather than developing sound health care policy is sane?

Oh, OK, then.

:wow:

[dkf]

34. One trillion.

Which would basically triple the existing NIH budget which is about $30 billion a year for 10 years.

Who knows if we find silver bullets maybe we can reduce it.

That's the wonderful thing about cures.

Hey, I found this wonderful blog written in 2003 which says we could cure cancer in 10-15 years.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001474.html
James D. Watson Calls For Manhattan Project To Cure Cancer In 10 Years

Nobel Prize winning Co-discoverer of the DNA double helix James D. Watson says a large effort to systematically collect information on the genetic makeup of many cancers should be done.

The world's scientific establishment is frustrating research into cancer, which could probably be cured in 10 years if fought through a central agency, according to one of the world's most eminent scientists.

...

Along with one of Australia's top expatriate scientists, Bruce Stillman, Dr Watson is pushing for an international effort to map the genetic makeup of all cancers. It would be similar to the sequencing of the human genome, a task completed this year, but would cost much less - up to $A300 million compared to the $A4.5 billion spent on the human genome.

As I understand it, Watson's argument is that rather than parcelling smaller amounts of money out to many different scientists to study which ever facet of cancer they find interesting there should be a big systematic effort to examine a large number of cancer cell lines and to look at their gene expression for a large number of genes.

Watson is saying, in essence, we now have the tools to collect the genetic information we need in order to discover the changes in genetic regulatory mechanisms that cause cancer. Given that it is possible to do this he says we should spend the money on a big effort to collect the information we need to.

Hey, suppose he is right. But suppose the tools are expensive to use. If discovering a cure for cancer was going to cost, say, $500 billion dollars would you be for or against? I do not think it would really cost that much. But even if it did I'd be for it. Put that number in perspective. The US economy produces about $10 trillion dollars per year in goods and services. The health part of that is around 14% (give or take a percentage point - didn't look up the latest figures) and so is about $1.4 trillion per year. So what is $500 billion in the bigger scheme of things?

The late Lewis Thomas, former director of Sloan-Kettering, observed in his book Lives Of A Cell: Notes Of A Biology Watcher that diseases are expensive to treat when we do not have effective treatments that get right at the causes. He cited, for example, tuberculosis sanitariums. People had to be kept in professionally staffed institutions for long periods of time and could not work or take care of family while sick. But along came drugs that cured TB and the people walked out in a few weeks. The cost savings were enormous. Similarly, the cost savings that will come from a cure for cancer will be enormous. Even if we spent hundreds of billions on Watson's Manhattan Project to cure cancer we'd gain it back many times over because effective treatments would be far cheaper than radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and the other treatments currently used that have horrible side-effects and which can not even cure most cancer patients.

The Director of the US National Cancer Institute says death from cancer can be stopped in 15 years.

But with the recently announced historic completion of the Human Genome Project, and other advances in molecular biology and proteomics, medical science is about to take its largest leap, probably since the discovery of antibiotics.

The results for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer are expected to be profound. "We are now in a position to rapidly and continuously accelerate the engine of discovery, so we can eliminate suffering and death from cancer by 2015," said Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, Director of the National Cancer Institute. "We may not yet be in a position to eliminate cancer entirely," he continued, "but eliminating the burden of the disease by preemption of the process of cancer initiation and progression is a goal within our grasp."

[Mass]

20. Many of these diseases could be prevented with a decent care BEFORE HAND.

Getting the cure is not enough if people cannot afford it or go to the doctor too late...

[dkf]

23. If its cured its cured. Done.

The problem is we haven't found a cure.

[Mass]

27. OK. Let's cure cancer and let people die from the common cold.\nt

[dkf]

32. I've gone to the doctor for the common cold because my employer

wanted a note.

Now if that isn't a waste of money I don't know what is.

[Bluenorthwest]

33. You know how to prevent Alzheimer's and Cancer?

You need to tell the world, for no one else knows that at all. Diabetes? Easily preventable in all forms? Really? Heart disease, never genetic, really?
Which of the four listed diseases can 'be prevented' with care before hand? I'd say some cases of a couple of them could be prevented sometimes. But your statement is a bit over the top.
Tell me your Alzheimer's prevention regime.

[dkf]

35. Not prevented. Cured.

The late Lewis Thomas, former director of Sloan-Kettering, observed in his book Lives Of A Cell: Notes Of A Biology Watcher that diseases are expensive to treat when we do not have effective treatments that get right at the causes. He cited, for example, tuberculosis sanitariums. People had to be kept in professionally staffed institutions for long periods of time and could not work or take care of family while sick. But along came drugs that cured TB and the people walked out in a few weeks. The cost savings were enormous. Similarly, the cost savings that will come from a cure for cancer will be enormous. Even if we spent hundreds of billions on Watson's Manhattan Project to cure cancer we'd gain it back many times over because effective treatments would be far cheaper than radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and the other treatments currently used that have horrible side-effects and which can not even cure most cancer patients.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001474.html

Business Week predicts that a cure for Alzheimer's will come in the next 10 years.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/02/0225_inventions/18.htm

[Mass]

38. No more than the OP who thinks that curing these diseases will solve every problem.

If you cannot afford going to a doctor, what is the point of having these miraculous treatment?

It is the case already in this country. For a very small part of the population, healthcare is the best in the world. For most, not so much ... Curing Alzheimer and cancer would be a wonderful accomplishment. However, without other substantial reforms, how many would benefit from it?

[dkf]

40. Think about how much it costs to treat normal TB.

And then think of how many poor people die from TB here in the US.

[avaistheone1]

39. Sorry but the hard work needs to continue we need a national health plan for all Americans.

That really is the only honest and true answer.

[dkf]

41. But maybe if we put more money into cures then the whole system would be less expensive.

Isn't a cure the best way of controlling cost after all?

[berni_mccoy]

43. Type-1 diabetes is not preventable.

[berni_mccoy]

42. Because people with Diabetes, Cancer and Heart Disease can't afford to be treated, let alone cured

And what makes you think they AREN'T putting money into these programs? They are. My family are JDRF advocates and we've lobbied Congress directly (i.e. gone to D.C. and met with Congressmen) to fund a cure for diabetes. Even in 2008, they renewed a long-running program to fund a cure.

[4lbs]

46. Because pharmaceutical companies long ago decided to follow the illegal drug dealer model.

Why cure people once, for $5,000, when you can have them paying $200 monthly for the rest of their lives?