[extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality - who pays? What willthe cost be?

[Mark Walker]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc."

> Top Of The News
>  Health Costs Rise Beyond Belief
>  Dan Ackman, 01.09.04, 9:58 AM ET
>
>                      NEW YORK - U.S. health care costs are rising so fast
>                      that not only do they outstrip the prior year, they
even
>                      exceed forecasters' ability to project them
>
>                      In mid-2002, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
>                      Services projected that national health expenditures
>                      would reach $2.8 trillion in 2011--an estimate based
>                      on a mean annual growth rate of 7.3%. Since then,
>                      the growth rate has increased significantly to
>                      9.3%--to the point where health spending is already
>                      at nearly 15% of GDP, according to Centers for
>                      Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a unit of HHS.
>
Snip

I briefly address the cost question in "Killing the Physically
Immortal".www.permanentend.org/immortality.html . I think the general
principle is that treating the cause rather than the symptoms is cheaper,
e.g., treating the symptoms of polio with iron lungs etc. is expensive
compared with treating the cause of the disease through simple immunization.
Another example I discuss in the essay is the phase two clinical trials now
underway to treat the cause of diabetes (at least in some cases) with a
protein that causes stem cells to repair the pancreas. If it works this
should be much cheaper than treating diabetes with multiple insulin shots,
and then deal with symptoms like blindness, amputation, etc. etc.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org