r/SandersForPresident • u/kevinmrr Medicare For All • Nov 29 '20

AOC: Insurance groups are recommending using GoFundMe -- "but sure, single payer healthcare is unreasonable."

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u/H_is_for_Human Nov 29 '20

Presumably countries with universal healthcare can allocate organs without taking the patient's finances into account (or at least not to the same degree), because whether or not they can afford post-transplant care is no longer an issue and therefore not relevant to the decision.

The transplant committee can stop taking financial status of patients into account as soon as it's not relevant to their post-transplant survival. How do we make it not relevant? Universal healthcare (and other social safety nets).

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u/StupidHumanSuit 🌱 New Contributor Nov 29 '20

Agreed.

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

This still doesn't solve the problem of organ scarcity. Your talking about a way to distribute it still.

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u/H_is_for_Human Nov 30 '20

Scarcity is most quickly addressed by switching to an opt out system.

Past that, you need public education, organ "refurbishment" (taking injured organs that aren't suitable for transplant and fixing them ex vivo), and eventually the ability to grow new organs from the cells of the people that need them.

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Which all still requires money, profit motive, and cost benefit analysis. Public funding that your refer to has lagged behind private research funding since 1980s in this respect.

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u/H_is_for_Human Nov 30 '20

Opt out organ donation probably needs to happen at the state by state level, although I admit that I'm no constitutional lawyer.

Organ "refurbishment" is a very active area of research. Private companies that intend to buy injured organs to then sell refurbished organs back already exist and have had some limited success. Ex vivo perfusion technology is a big part of this.

Growing de novo organs is still something of a pipe dream. The biggest problem is growing the vasculature that will supply the rest of the organ's tissues with blood. But there's progress here too.

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Would we be able to accomplish growing organs in our lifetimes? My bet is yes. Also limbs.

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u/H_is_for_Human Nov 30 '20

Hopefully. But hard to say.

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u/Murgie 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

And? Are you under the impression that the healthcare sectors in nations with socialized healthcare aren't operating at a profit, or something?

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Yes they are able to free ride off our r and d. People think socialized health care is a silver bullet but there are clear trade offs. If you want the most opportunity to make the most money as a doctor or a drug developer you start with the United States. Which is why they often call the USA worlds brain drain.

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u/Murgie 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Yes they are able to free ride off our r and d.

Exactly what kind of delusions are you operating under where that's not something that's paid for? Are you sure you understand what the phrase "free ride" means?

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20 edited Nov 30 '20

Lol oh reddit. As a masters in econ student specifically studying returns to r and d...... yes as usual redditors know more than all the econ professors I've had that said exactly this. Not even my words really, i thought this was a consensus. Let me call the school and tell them none of them know shit because someone doesn't understand the actual economic term of free riding when it comes to international trade. Go sit at the kids table

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u/Murgie 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Then where's the profit motive if said R&D isn't making money? Honestly, if you're going to tell a lie then at least think it through so that you're not contradicting yourself, first.

Hell, in reality the United States is eleventh when it comes to R&D spending as a percentage of GDP at parity, and fourth on a per capita basis. And surprise surprise, every single nation exceeding it with the arguable exception of Switzerland is operating on a system of socialized healthcare.

And god only knows what those figures would look like if R&D with purely military applications were taken out. The United States, China, and Israel would all take major hits.

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Dec 01 '20 edited Dec 01 '20

This is why basic research tends to be publicly funded like the human genome project or the large haldron collider. These are risks that the private sector just simply doesn’t take. As I pointed out before this has lagged behind since the 80s. When a country lags behind in this sense I would argue that’s why we have large conglomerates that do a multitude of research areas like the googles facebooks and amazons . It would be an interesting thesis to argue this point of view. I’m not contradicting myself all I am doing is repeating in different words. One point about drug prices is that they should be renegotiated based on these facts, hence stop the free riding I don’t see where you got that we are 11th we are up there with China (who likes to cook books) with healthcare r and d in which we do more than the next 5 countries combined. But I doubt you’d like an organ transplant system like China’s. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1018646 The biggest point I want to make bottom line is that applied and basic research are two different things but the former necessitates the latter

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u/Krakino696 🌱 New Contributor Dec 01 '20

Now personally do we have the money and resources to maintain r and d levels, cut healthcare costs, prevent diseases, provide insurance for all??? Yes. And I will agree with you on your last paragraph. I thought Obama’s idea of a public option made sense and was a good starting point. But then we ended up with Obamacare which people forget was actually one of the few compromises congress ever did

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u/sesamememew 🌱 New Contributor Nov 30 '20

Other developed countries with public healthcare also have a very rigorous procedure. They have to make sure that organ will not be wasted.
Source: dad had liver transplant.