HB of CJ wrote:Flash forward to today from about 1986 or so. A lady friend acquaintance recently had her right knee joint replaced. Out surgery clinic. Went in the early morning and went home that same night. Incredible. Quite the difference from 30 years ago. How medicine has progressed.

The problem is finding
where it has progressed. On knee surgeries, there are net ads claiming the basic problem is in the synovial fluid, and can be cured without surgery if the damage isn't too great.
It looks like modern medicine is good at handling trauma (provided the surgeon does his job, not
HB of CJ wrote:A secret video was made of several procedures with no knowledge and we found that the knee surgeon quickly wiped his nose TWICE with his fingers, raising his mask to do so.
or other foul ups). However, preventive medicine is often poor. BJ learned from a nutrition expert some basics, and our health is better than normal for our age. Causation

Another problem is that if a treatment works, but will not pay back the pharmaceutical companies for producing it, it cannot be mass produced. Part of this is the high expense of getting a treatment
officially approved, over half a billion U$ for many methods. Example:
WORTH READING:
"Outsmart your Cancer" by Tanya Harter Pierce. 2nd Edition.
alternate title: Alternative non-toxic treatments that work.
In 2001, a relative of hers was diagnosed with cancer. The conventional treatments provide poor long term results for that type of cancer. She spent months researching alternatives and filtering the results.
Assuming even a half quality research was done, this is worth reading, if only to learn about systemic medical failures.
Example: in the trial of Dr. Burzynski, the issue of whether the treatment actually
worked was never allowed to be introduced. Dr. Burzynski's clinic finally has permission to conduct phase II clinical trials, but FDA regulations for these require many potential patients to be turned away. Insurance companies will pay for less effective treatments, but not this more effective "experimental" treatment.

Make it a legal requirement that insurance companies pay for a certain percentage of experimental treatments which have a proven record that is equal or better than conventional methods.
The "How do we fix the Economy?" thread has an ongoing argument about whether socialism or a really free economy is better. The basic problem with either happens when that design produces a systemic headwind against effective results.
Could an economy be devised which would produce a systemic tail wind to effective results? Would it be possible to arrange things so that mass production of a more effective treatment would be profitable even without patents or other such
