While using private institutions can work very well with public
sector subsidies when we discuss education, it is not advisable to use the same
tactic to deal with life and death issues.
It is not a good idea to have people choose the quality of their
healthcare, especially when they are at their most vulnerable. It is unfair.
Not every person has a highly educated support system helping them
choose between health choices at different price points. Education, in an ideal world where basic
needs are met, can be postponed until later dates to benefit from better
options. However, physical and mental
health often does not wait for anyone.
It is therefore critical to ensure everyone has access to free
healthcare at all levels. It works quite
well in most developed countries right now, except for the United States of
America, so plenty models of success already exist. Add to that advanced AI technologies through
devices such as smartphones, allowing people to self-diagnose from home,
integrated AI and robotics in hospitals to increase hospital efficiency. Automation can also be further leveraged to
increase capacity, and finally a lower social stress level decreasing the need
for hospitalization in the fist place.
If we calculate all that, free healthcare should be much less expensive
than what it is today and therefore very economically viable.
We can’t use a privatized health system and hope that costs won’t
become problematic and we certainly can’t have hospitals compete, gambling on
our health and selecting what treatments should be provided based on
profitability. We want a population
cured of health problems, not one that is kept half-healthy and constantly
treated to satisfy corporate bottom lines.
Healthcare
coverage
The Ministry of Health’s job would be to monitor the general
physical and mental health of the national population through data taken from
hospitals, clinics and even from some self-diagnosis applications connected to
the Internet, if the citizens allow the data to flow. This way, the Ministry would be able to
determine what health problems and diseases, what procedures and what medicines
should be covered by healthcare.
In a nutshell, free healthcare should cover anything that will
allow individuals to get back on track with their passions. So clinical examinations and life-saving
surgeries apply since one is needed for the other. Medicine used at the hospital during
treatments or surgeries also apply. On
the other hand, recommended medicine to treat patients at home to alleviate
symptoms could be covered or not on a case by case basis. Some may also be partially subsidized by the
Ministry of Health while some may not.
After all, we want to get back to our fun occupations, but we also want
to choose what additional medicine we’ll take at home under the guidance of our
self-diagnosis tools or our local human or AI doctor. Choice has always been important to us all.
So, the ideal system would keep us healthy for free but would
offer us reasonably priced symptom relief medicine when the symptoms in
question aren’t problematic. Therefore,
it is a case by case question as to whether medicine should be provided for
free, inexpensive, or left to the variations of a free market.
The Ministry of Health can take those decisions for us all. For example, aspirin is used to treat mild
headaches and some few other mild symptoms.
Thus, it is an over the counter drug with alternatives, offered in the
free market. Anesthesia drugs used for
major operations shouldn’t be sold in pharmacies. They are only used in operating rooms as part
of life-saving surgeries, therefore the tab for that drug should be picked up
by the Ministry of Health along with the full cost of the surgery.
There are also many current and future treatments that may not be
covered because they would be declared electives. However, just like the drug example above,
there are exceptions to this rule too:
- Organ replacements: our scientists are currently working on ways to create replacement organs, either by growing them from stem cells or using 3D printing, starting with the patient’s own cellular stock. This will become reality in the next few years. Of course, a replacement organ implanted to replace a failing organ would be covered under the free healthcare rule. However, this technology would be available to people who wish to enhance their fully functional organs in some way too. After all, since we’re making these organs using materials that won’t cause an immune response from the recipient, it is reasonable to assume businesses will emerge offering genetic engineering and transplant services. We’ll likely see the emergence of private transplant clinics that will offer enhanced organs or replacement organs to whoever has the resources to purchase them. These would work in the same way as artificial enhancements work today at cosmetic surgery clinics: you want it, you pay for it!
- Self-diagnostic tools: We’re already seeing a few minor apps for smartphones that help people self-diagnose at minimal to no costs. Some apps check for skin cancer using the camera and AI. Some look for eye discolorations to detect problems with the liver or other conditions that are diagnosed through coloration. Some non-smartphone devices may be sold by companies to detect more serious issues, like diabetes and heart conditions by measuring chemicals found in tiny amounts of blood. More will come out over time. While these applications and devices can be important to catch debilitating diseases early, it is not reasonable to expect the Ministry to pay for any of these first medical opinion devices. The Ministry can certainly encourage the use and purchase of such tools however, because they help catch real problems early on and relieve the burden on the public healthcare system, keeping more of the system available to identified problems. In some cases perhaps the Ministry would subsidize some devices to help with the self-diagnosis of certain conditions if the population as a whole thinks it is a good idea to offer some of their taxes to that initiative.
- Gene-editing: Similar to organ replacements, gene-editing tools using CRISPR can be considered treating a disease that causes individuals to be less productive. Genes that are causing disease within the population should be replaced with healthy genetic variants. The nature of gene-editing means that once the genetic disease is cured, it won’t come back, so that is a massive benefit to society and a huge cost savings to the healthcare system. Therefore, genetic diseases that cause serious health issues should be covered while other issues that may be more aesthetic, like hereditary baldness, would be an elective. In addition, with gene-editing available, we’ll see the emergence of private companies offering gene-editing services to enhance the human body in many ways. We’ll see an emergence of eugenics. Whether lawmakers will allow eugenics for aesthetic or enhancement purposes in our future, that remains to be seen but definitively those enhancements would not be covered by the healthcare system either.
- Recommended medicine: As mentioned above, sometimes clinics send you on your way and recommend some medicine to alleviate bothersome symptoms. If the symptoms are important, then it is a real productivity problem, so it should be covered. But if the symptoms are not chronic and weak, lack of productivity in society is minimal and temporary. Thus, human and AI clinicians should be allowed to determine if a person should receive medicine for free to take home, be offered subsidized medicine or be offered medicine at market price.
Aging
treatment
While many future treatments will undeniably increase our
lifespans in the same way modern medicine has, aging treatment is something
different. In this case, the treatment
is tackling how aging occurs in the body in the first place, reversing the
systemic effects that makes us actually become old.
Since aging is in fact a debilitating problem that ultimately ends
with death, should aging treatments be covered under a future free healthcare
plan? What about those people who, for
their own reasons, do not want to live hundreds of years?
Well, what I know for sure is that pain and suffering are always
undesirable and cause a great amount of stress on society, families and the
economy. Aging is a drain on energy
individuals and our society could otherwise put to good use.
So how do we tackle the problem of choice?
The solution already exists in the form of euthanasia.
In a world where people can essentially live healthy lives, with
free healthcare, for hundreds of years or longer, our perception of mortality
changes.
I personally wish to live healthy until the day that I die,
whether that day is tomorrow or two hundred years from now. During my many interviews and talks about
the treatment of aging, this sentiment has been unanimously echoed by most. However, not everyone I have spoken with
wishes to live forever. People want
their cake and eat it too, so since we’ll have the capacity to do both, we
might as well do both.
Hence, aging treatments should be considered as an integral part
of our free healthcare system. But
remember, these treatments can be paid for by the savings made of not having to
spend additional funds tending to the elderly.
As our population grows older in the United States of America, the costs
of healthcare have gone up significantly.
In 2015, average health care expenses for Americans aged 65 or more was
$10,082 per year compared to $3,931 for those aged less than 65.[1] That is more than twice the expense. If our future healthcare system keeps our
population’s bodies young and healthy, the treatments will pay for themselves.
And if, at the end of a long or short life, a person chooses to
end their life safely with full conscious thought, then that can be arranged. Everyone deserves to die peacefully with
family and friends around them, on their own terms.
Mental
health
Healthcare should not be only about the body. Our mental health is also important and
should be covered and supervised by our free healthcare system. Non-physical pain truly exists for those who
perceive it and thus should be treated for free the same way as the body.
Also, it is important to note our obligation to treat anyone that
may be mentally unbalanced. A person
that just doesn’t feel right should be able to use AI or real live
professionals freely to help them gain psychological balance. After all, unbalanced individuals often
cannot be productive in society, have healthy relationships with others and
will have difficulties reaching their personal goals. Once again, excellent self-diagnosis tools
can help individuals find peace and reach out for proper treatment before the
imbalance causes serious social issues like crime. This can be done in very much the same way as
physical health diagnostics. Since our
ideal society does not worry about working to live, it is highly likely
individuals will spend more time and presence of mind to assist one another
diagnosing real problems that can later be treated at hospitals, clinics or by
simple social comfort. Thus, the
Ministry of Health would be responsible to educate the population in the best
way to remain psychologically balanced and would offer some basic free
professional services to treat mental health.
As far as the individuals sent to mental health institutions
because they were found mentally unstable or required treatment by the Ministry
of Justice, the treatment of such individuals would be funded by the government. Patients coming from the justice system would
then be treated and kept under observation until the conditions for their
release are reached. We want as many
citizens as possible fully stable, healthy, educated, safe and rational, as a
public service that helps us all feel safe.
Keeping our population healthy and stress free will keep the costs
of such systems very low. A healthy
stress-free life, automation, keeping the bodies of our population young,
robotics and self-diagnosis tools will mean we won’t need as many hospitals or
physicians to care for our population.
[1]
Wayne Caswell (January 2015) The cost of
aging in America. - http://www.mhealthtalk.com/cost-aging-america/
