If you really want to solve problems solve one of these.

 

Sure. Just gather together a team of esteemed medical research names, $1B in private capital, and make sure half of your team members play golf with FDA executives every weekend.

Always a good piece of advice. Good way to reduce "timing is everything" risk.

People forget this: yes building water pipes in impoverished villages is noble. But that kind of nobility is for the rich. The first worlders may be spoiled little snowflakes, but they have capacity to pay.

 

It sucks there is no incentive to solve problems unless there is profit in it. A long term cure that addresses the root cause is better than an expensive miracle drug you need to return for all the time.

 

Well for heart disease & diabetes people do have a long term cure: stop eating KFC everyday. Pretty much everything on that list can be mitigated by lifestyle decisions.

The profit motive works fine. Profit just means "outputs are worth more than inputs". The problems are usually deeper:

• People think healthcare is an entitlement
• After banking, healthcare is the most interfered with market by governments (by contrast: IT is the least).
• The existence of the FDA. The cost to bring a drug to market is now $2.7B. Which is completely insane.
• The job-coupled insurance-based model, which encourages waste and ever increasing prices.
• Western ethics. This has recently been addressed by congress passing the new "right to try" laws. There is no good reason for the $3B new drug price tag other than bad morals. For deadly diseases, there should be no limit on experimentation beyond patient consent.
• Malpractice lunacy. Everybody's happy to transfer open-ended responsibility for saving them to the doctor at the price he states, but if they don't get the outcome they want, they expect to treat the difference between "full health" and their result as a tort, to which they're entitled to millions in compensation.

Fixing this space would take:

• A constitutional amendment clarifying that the government has no power to be interfere with the healthcare market
• Repeal of any mandatory or employment-linked insurance statutes
• Totally deleting the FDA or any similar organisation. Common law was sufficient.
• Wipe out any laws that limit citizens rights to unilaterally decide which substances they will consume
• Tort reform. All records of the doctor's prior performance and training must be provided to the patient. The doctor's liability then ends, completely and finally, at the patient's signature.

None of which is going to happen. Classic governmental case of "the important of other people thriving ends where my power begins".

Therefore, staying within the topic of 1st world problems: a business play that uses 3rd world solutions. If western governments are the problem, that's OK: there are 200+ sovereign states in the world. I'm sure one of them is capable of providing a better cradle for healthcare innovation.

 

Road injury? What is happening to the poor roads? How can we keep the roads from being injured? Reminds me of the blind driveways. I've always wanted to help the blind driveways.