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.
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.