I agree with this. (Not necessarily the rest of the thread.) Task-shifting can make the basics of medicine cheaper and more accessible.https://twitter.com/wolftivy/status/1128350889335332864 …
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I'd also say that the *biggest* way to cut health costs is through "decisive technology", the kind of medical innovation like vaccines or antibiotics that fully eradicates diseases. As Lewis Thomas notes, these are invariably cheap.https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/simple-upstream-and-decisive-a-heuristic-for-medical-progress/ …
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The biggest win of all would be a geroprotector, a pill you could take to prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc. You don't need expensive medical care for the diseases you don't get. And it's easier to develop a pill than to promote "healthy lifestyles."
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
If you had such a pill, would you release it? What would be the likely effects?
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Replying to @Plinz
absolutely, that's what Daphnia Labs is trying to develop. The ideal (which there's a growing body of evidence suggesting is possible) is a small molecule that substantially reduces the risk of multiple diseases of aging, just as, say, statins reduce the risk of heart attacks.
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It seems to me that senescence is an evolutionary adaptation to avoid outcompeting the grandchildren. That may mean that mechanisms to reduce aging may indeed exist, but also that we may need to implement a birth lottery first?
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