The fact that for profit medicine is holding up some of the most advanced medical treatments in history is really disturbing. As a society, there will be a significant benefit, especially once it's cost optimized. But we'll never get there if beancounters hold it up, preferring short term profits above all else.
I'd love to know if anyone knows what a solution to this problem might look like.
Solution: public funding of research which appropriately gives intellectual property ownership to the people preventing patents and driven by reasonable boards giving away grants to researchers and practitioners to find and practice new therapies
We're kind of going in the right direction forcing open access of publicly funded research, but there's a lot more to do. And a big step backward with the insanity of the current administration which we can only hope will end soon enough.
Even with 100% public healthcare system you have budget constraints. What’s better to provide one treatment for a rare gene decease or cure 10 cancer patients?
I think now is a good time to see that privatizing essential services was a pretty dumb idea.
The only thing that could work is either have a natural public monopoly on the health sector (for essentials) with direct democratic control measures (otherwise the "beancounters" will corrupt it) or just pour public money on it and hope it sticks. It's pretty obvious by now that the market won't regulate itself and will not care if people die. If it's not profitable enough they won't care (and by they I mean the abstraction of individuals who would care but are on distance by capital/stakeholders or psychopaths).
I'd love to know if anyone knows what a solution to this problem might look like.