Which do you think is less expensive, not to mention preferable:
a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes, or caring
for people with these diseases? Wouldn't it be better medical
and public policy to direct more resources toward finding a cure
for diseases that cost a lot to treat than to rely on a
government insurance program, such as Obamacare, which seeks
mainly to help pay the bills for people after they become ill?
Isn't the answer obvious? Apparently not to many politicians
trapped in an old paradigm that focuses too much on hospitals,
doctors, and medicines and too little on medical research and
preventive care so that people will not need hospitals, doctors,
or medicines. The pursuit of cures as a priority is a subject
that has been taken up by my colleague James Pinkerton in his
forthcoming book titled Serious Medicine Strategy and on his
blog. It's not that we are failing to fund research to cure
diseases that end lives too early. Rather, it is a failure of
political leadership to make r