It seems to me that most life-saving medical procedures are done at the time of need. People tend not to get their appendix removed “as a precaution”, and the most preventative care I can think of is an annual visit and vaccinations (and somehow we have managed to get a small segment of the population stupid enough to start protesting even that...)
I have no clue what the numbers are, but how many people actually have a will? A medical directive? Actively engage in preventative care before they have a problem? How many people go so far as to invest a large sum of money in advance, to ensure their health?
The most I’ve heard of is basic lifestyle changes: exercise more, eat healthy, regular checkups. In a different vein, setting up a will or an advanced medical directive. That’s it. I can’t think of a single example of someone spending $10,000 today, in order to prevent something ten years down the road.
Women with a high hereditary risk of breast cancer sometimes opt to have both their breasts removed pre-emptively. People take statins and blood pressure drugs for years to prevent heart attacks. Don’t you have eye tests and dental checkups on a precautionary basis? There’s plenty of preventative medical care.
Maybe the availability and marketing varies between countries—the fact that you assume people have to invest their own money to ensure their health suggests you’re from the US or another country with a bad healthcare system. My country has a national health service which takes an interest in encouraging preventative medicines like statins, helping people give up smoking, and so on, since that saves it money overall. I’m sure the allocation of preventative care is far from ideal and shaped by political and social factors and drug company lobbying, but it does exist.
It would be a bad tradeoff to go through painful appendectomy to prevent the small chance that you might get appendicitis (and you can get your appendix removed when it’s actually infected, and the appendix may have an evolutionary function acting as a reservoir of gut bacteria, and it can also be used to reconstruct the bladder).
Don’t you have eye tests and dental checkups on a precautionary basis?
I tend to view there as being a strong difference between “go for a 2 hour checkup” and “invest $28K in cryonics”. I wasn’t aware of the pre-emptive breast removals, though, that would definitely qualify as the sort of thing I was looking for—and I still wonder how common it is, amongst people who would benefit.
the fact that you assume people have to invest their own money
I’m not aware of any country whose socialized healthcare pays for cryonics, so cryonics is certainly an out-of-pocket cost. If I’m wrong, please let me know so that I can move ASAP :)
That does make me wonder if cryonics is a harder sell in countries with socialized healthcare, just because people aren’t used to having to pay for healthcare at all. The US, at least, is used to the idea of spending money on that scale.
When I said “you assume people have to invest their own money to ensure their health” I was obviously referring to preventative medical interventions, which is what you were actually asking about, not cryonics.
The breast/ovarian cancer risk genes are BRCA 1⁄2 - I seem to remember reading that half of carriers opt for some kind of preventative surgery, although that was in a lifestyle magazine article called something like “I CUT OFF MY PERFECT BREASTS” so it may not be entirely reliable. I’m sure it’s not just a tiny minority who opt for it, though. I’m sure there are better figures on Google Scholar.
If you consider the cost of taking statins from age 40 to 80, in total that’s a pricy intervention.
Maybe the lack of people using expensive preventative measures is because few of them exist—or few of them have benefits which outweigh the side-effects/pain/costs—not that people don’t want them in general. If there was a pill that cost $30,000 and made you immune to all cancer with no side effects, I’m sure everyone would want it.
I think the real issue is that people don’t consider cryonics to be “healthcare”. That seems reasonable, because it’s a mixture of healthcare and time travel into an unknown future where you might be put in a zoo by robots for all anybody knows.
It seems to me that most life-saving medical procedures are done at the time of need. People tend not to get their appendix removed “as a precaution”, and the most preventative care I can think of is an annual visit and vaccinations (and somehow we have managed to get a small segment of the population stupid enough to start protesting even that...)
I have no clue what the numbers are, but how many people actually have a will? A medical directive? Actively engage in preventative care before they have a problem? How many people go so far as to invest a large sum of money in advance, to ensure their health?
The most I’ve heard of is basic lifestyle changes: exercise more, eat healthy, regular checkups. In a different vein, setting up a will or an advanced medical directive. That’s it. I can’t think of a single example of someone spending $10,000 today, in order to prevent something ten years down the road.
Women with a high hereditary risk of breast cancer sometimes opt to have both their breasts removed pre-emptively. People take statins and blood pressure drugs for years to prevent heart attacks. Don’t you have eye tests and dental checkups on a precautionary basis? There’s plenty of preventative medical care.
Maybe the availability and marketing varies between countries—the fact that you assume people have to invest their own money to ensure their health suggests you’re from the US or another country with a bad healthcare system. My country has a national health service which takes an interest in encouraging preventative medicines like statins, helping people give up smoking, and so on, since that saves it money overall. I’m sure the allocation of preventative care is far from ideal and shaped by political and social factors and drug company lobbying, but it does exist.
It would be a bad tradeoff to go through painful appendectomy to prevent the small chance that you might get appendicitis (and you can get your appendix removed when it’s actually infected, and the appendix may have an evolutionary function acting as a reservoir of gut bacteria, and it can also be used to reconstruct the bladder).
I tend to view there as being a strong difference between “go for a 2 hour checkup” and “invest $28K in cryonics”. I wasn’t aware of the pre-emptive breast removals, though, that would definitely qualify as the sort of thing I was looking for—and I still wonder how common it is, amongst people who would benefit.
I’m not aware of any country whose socialized healthcare pays for cryonics, so cryonics is certainly an out-of-pocket cost. If I’m wrong, please let me know so that I can move ASAP :)
That does make me wonder if cryonics is a harder sell in countries with socialized healthcare, just because people aren’t used to having to pay for healthcare at all. The US, at least, is used to the idea of spending money on that scale.
When I said “you assume people have to invest their own money to ensure their health” I was obviously referring to preventative medical interventions, which is what you were actually asking about, not cryonics.
The breast/ovarian cancer risk genes are BRCA 1⁄2 - I seem to remember reading that half of carriers opt for some kind of preventative surgery, although that was in a lifestyle magazine article called something like “I CUT OFF MY PERFECT BREASTS” so it may not be entirely reliable. I’m sure it’s not just a tiny minority who opt for it, though. I’m sure there are better figures on Google Scholar.
If you consider the cost of taking statins from age 40 to 80, in total that’s a pricy intervention.
Maybe the lack of people using expensive preventative measures is because few of them exist—or few of them have benefits which outweigh the side-effects/pain/costs—not that people don’t want them in general. If there was a pill that cost $30,000 and made you immune to all cancer with no side effects, I’m sure everyone would want it.
I think the real issue is that people don’t consider cryonics to be “healthcare”. That seems reasonable, because it’s a mixture of healthcare and time travel into an unknown future where you might be put in a zoo by robots for all anybody knows.