Originally Posted by
wiggin
Absolutely, there are lots of things we can do better. Some of them can be fixed through better access to quality healthcare, a lot can be fixed through us making healthier choices (which can partially be helped through money/government intervention), and big chunk of it is stuff that we don't have the technology or knowledge to fix yet. But on any reasonable metric we are living longer, healthier lives than at any recent era.
A former mentor of mine has a nice spiel about this with cardiovascular disease. He looks at the healthcare provided to POTUS, on the reasonable assumption that in the last century POTUS has probably had access to the very best healthcare available in the world. And not 60-odd years ago, Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack and there was precious little medicine could do for him - according to one report, he was recommended to 'cuddle more with his wife'. But the strides made since that period are truly astonishing (in the punchline to his story, he shows the hilariously long list of cardiovascular interventions that have been used on Dick Cheney). We can not only do much more to diagnose and delay and prevent heart attacks, but we have much better tools to treat them and minimize the damage to the patient's quality and length of life. This is one of the two biggest killers in America and we are, inexorably, conquering it.
On behalf of the massive effort by the many brilliant people before us who worked their butts off to make this a reality, I took exception to GGT's words.
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