Cheney Has Heart Transplant

Beerina said:
There are trillions of dollars to be made by inventing a way to make or grow a new heart. We want this. Repeat that to yourself a million times before disdaining money.

A greedy society that pulls such things into existence years before government gets around to inventing it will save billions more lives. Not concerned about fairness in that sense. Am concerned about net lives saved.
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This reminds me of a couple of articles I've read recently regarding the latest and greatest: the Pulseless Artificial Heart, which was developed by the Texas Heart Institute. No links sorry, I'm on my phone. Like yourself, I would have preferred to see the "new heart" come from private funding. However, on the THI wiki page it states:
"2008 - the THI receives a grant from the national institutes of health to develop a new total artificial heart... (Goes on to describe the PAH).

Since the NIH is a taxpayer-funded government institution, it would only be fair to give the public sector credit for the recent advances in artificial hearts.
 
Beerina said:
There are trillions of dollars to be made by inventing a way to make or grow a new heart. We want this. Repeat that to yourself a million times before disdaining money.

A greedy society that pulls such things into existence years before government gets around to inventing it will save billions more lives. Not concerned about fairness in that sense. Am concerned about net lives saved.
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Yeah, if you can't argue for your position, just make stuff up.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
Yeah, if you can't argue for your position, just make stuff up.
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There's evidence to support his statement, but there's one question that still remains: Cheney was over 70, and not in the best of health. How did someone in his position get a heart transplant.

Some answers have already been given: His was the best match. He was the healthiest of a bad lot. I don't think money would have bought him much, considering the outcry following the cases of Mickey Mantle and David Crosby, (the latter of whom continued/continues to misuse drugs following his transplant.)

And there's evidence of those who have bypassed fortunes in order to help their fellow man. It's practically a cliche. I don't think Beerina's too far off the mark.

Not that there aren't those who would be willing to make a buck withholding life-saving discoveries from others. That's practically a cliche, too.
 
Roadtoad said:
There's evidence to support his statement, but there's one question that still remains: Cheney was over 70, and not in the best of health. How did someone in his position get a heart transplant.

Some answers have already been given: His was the best match. He was the healthiest of a bad lot. I don't think money would have bought him much, considering the outcry following the cases of Mickey Mantle and David Crosby, (the latter of whom continued/continues to misuse drugs following his transplant.)

And there's evidence of those who have bypassed fortunes in order to help their fellow man. It's practically a cliche. I don't think Beerina's too far off the mark.

Not that there aren't those who would be willing to make a buck withholding life-saving discoveries from others. That's practically a cliche, too.
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I believe one of us is not understanding someone. Here's how I interpreted Beerina: Big gubmint spends money on health care to make things fair. This stifles the Free McMarket because people depend on Gubmint, and stops Rich McGuy from buying himself a new liver after boozing it away, thus stopping us from having heart farms in our backyards.

A bizarre non sequitur.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
I believe one of us is not understanding someone. Here's how I interpreted Beerina: Big gubmint spends money on health care to make things fair. This stifles the Free McMarket because people depend on Gubmint, and stops Rich McGuy from buying himself a new liver after boozing it away, thus stopping us from having heart farms in our backyards.

A bizarre non sequitur.
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I think there's enough misunderstanding among all of us. Eventually, in restating what we understand, we get to the nub of it.

I don't think of Beerina as being a huge fan of the free market as it's currently constituted. But I would agree that the market can aid in moving forward research that might not otherwise take place.

At the same time, even Dr. Walter E. Williams made note, for example, of the tragedy of "orphan drugs," those medications created for medical conditions which exist in a miniscule corner of the populace, but can't get enough support in the market to start production.

Anyone thinking this is a simple issue is deluded.
 
Roadtoad said:
...
At the same time, even Dr. Walter E. Williams made note, for example, of the tragedy of "orphan drugs," those medications created for medical conditions which exist in a miniscule corner of the populace, but can't get enough support in the market to start production.

...
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That is one of the reasons we need a National Health System.

We should task the NHS with producing orphan drugs, and pass specific legislation exempting NHS from patent law when producing an orphan drug.
 
Beerina said:
There are trillions of dollars to be made by inventing a way to make or grow a new heart. We want this. Repeat that to yourself a million times before disdaining money.

A greedy society that pulls such things into existence years before government gets around to inventing it will save billions more lives. Not concerned about fairness in that sense. Am concerned about net lives saved.
Click to expand...

The hell are you talking about? This is about a guy who's not qualified for a transplant (too old, too many surgeries) and he still gets one. It;s unethical, but money talks. You absolutely FAIL at context Beerina. You may have also missed the thread about Santorum telling sick kids that buying medication is like buying an iPad, you can't always get one because you can't afford it (even if you need it) here

If anyone else was in that position with no money then that's the free market saying this:

 
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Roadtoad said:
I think there's enough misunderstanding among all of us. Eventually, in restating what we understand, we get to the nub of it.

I don't think of Beerina as being a huge fan of the free market as it's currently constituted. But I would agree that the market can aid in moving forward research that might not otherwise take place.

At the same time, even Dr. Walter E. Williams made note, for example, of the tragedy of "orphan drugs," those medications created for medical conditions which exist in a miniscule corner of the populace, but can't get enough support in the market to start production.

Anyone thinking this is a simple issue is deluded.
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I think the most important thing to remember is that market action and government intervention are not mutually exclusive. In fact, government intervention can aid market action.
 
Roadtoad said:
I think there's enough misunderstanding among all of us. Eventually, in restating what we understand, we get to the nub of it.

I don't think of Beerina as being a huge fan of the free market as it's currently constituted. But I would agree that the market can aid in moving forward research that might not otherwise take place.

At the same time, even Dr. Walter E. Williams made note, for example, of the tragedy of "orphan drugs," those medications created for medical conditions which exist in a miniscule corner of the populace, but can't get enough support in the market to start production.

Anyone thinking this is a simple issue is deluded.
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Beerina has made essentially the statement tubbablubba attributes to him many, many times on different threads touching on the UHC debate; that UHC would stifle the growth of medical technology and how the US is so far ahead in that field than any UHC country. So its not surprising that we infer that meaning from his post here. As far as I know he has never backed his statement up once, just repeats it over and over, mantra-like. Hence my earlier reply to him.
 
Most forms of UHC are actually some of the best customers for medical and pharmaceutical companies. Which makes the stifling bit nearly incomprehensible to me.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Beerina has made essentially the statement tubbablubba attributes to him many, many times on different threads touching on the UHC debate; that UHC would stifle the growth of medical technology and how the US is so far ahead in that field than any UHC country. So its not surprising that we infer that meaning from his post here. As far as I know he has never backed his statement up once, just repeats it over and over, mantra-like. Hence my earlier reply to him.
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A fraudulent lie. I have discussed this on many occasions. If I have been unable to keep up with the dozen-pages-a-day, 3 threads-a-day explosion of economically leftist quasi-religious posts around here the past couple of years, well, so be it.

One need merely look at the rates of technological development per capita. Europe is significantly behind the US in production of new drugs, most notably.

I have modified my position a bit -- I think the lag in Europe is due more to a generally unfriendly business environment there than to government-controlled health care per se, though there is overlap.



The same economic power that invents iPods and advances computers according to Moore's law is the same one that invents new medical treatments. Try having government take over those industries, and see what happens.


Any takers? Anyone?


Didn't think so. :rolleyes: You love your ever-better computers and consumer electronics. How much more vital it is thus for something that keeps people from dying?
 
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Moss said:
Most forms of UHC are actually some of the best customers for medical and pharmaceutical companies. Which makes the stifling bit nearly incomprehensible to me.
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Chin rubbing rationalization suggests this. This is a theory. Reality shoots it down, sadly.
 
Roadtoad said:
There's evidence to support his statement, but there's one question that still remains: Cheney was over 70, and not in the best of health. How did someone in his position get a heart transplant.

Some answers have already been given: His was the best match. He was the healthiest of a bad lot. I don't think money would have bought him much, considering the outcry following the cases of Mickey Mantle and David Crosby, (the latter of whom continued/continues to misuse drugs following his transplant.)
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I will offer up Walter Payton (RIP, Sweetness), wish he could have had a new liver, and observe that three score and ten is an arbitrary but useful benchmark.
Of course, my mom's only sister died at 68 ... :(

Beyond that, some of you who have posted in this thread have no heart.

Deeply sorry I opened this thread.

Ben, well done.
 
Darth Rotor said:
I will offer up Walter Payton (RIP, Sweetness), wish he could have had a new liver, and observe that three score and ten is an arbitrary but useful benchmark.
Of course, my mom's only sister died at 68 ... :(

Beyond that, some of you who have posted in this thread have no heart.

Deeply sorry I opened this thread.

Ben, well done.
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Ditto. Sadly.

I don't like Cheney, but I don't wish him ill. No matter what he did.
 
Darth Rotor said:
Deeply sorry I opened this thread.
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Don't be. It elicited some interesting discussion and you know more than you did before (ETA: OK, I can't say that. All I can say is that I know more than I did before). JREF. Not all knowledge is heartwarming. But discussion, dialog, and differences are why we're here.
 
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