Life without Disease: The Pursuit of Medical Utopia

The chaotic state of today's health care is the result of an explosion of effective medical technologies. New molecular strategies may eventually contain costs, but genetic intervention will shift the focus of medicine from repairing the ravages of disease to preventing the onset of disease. Schwartz maintains that medical care in 2050 will be vastly more effective and less expensive than the resource-intensive procedures that medicine relies on today, but there are scientific and public policy obstacles that must be overcome.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 19 August 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

The chaotic state of today's healthcare system is the result of an explosion of effective medical technologies. While rising costs will continue to be a concern for the U.S. healthcare system in the coming decades, new molecular strategies may eventually help contain these costs. As life expectancy increases dramatically through molecular medicine, a growing population of older individuals will present new challenges. Genetic intervention is expected to shift the focus of medicine in the United States from disease repair to disease prevention within the next fifty years. Understanding the role of genes in human health is considered the driving force that will revolutionize medical care, potentially bringing the age-old dream of life without disease closer to reality by the middle of the next century.

According to Schwartz, medical care in 2050 will be vastly more effective and potentially less expensive than the resource-intensive procedures currently relied upon, such as coronary bypass surgery. However, his vision of a medical utopia raises urgent questions about the scientific and public policy obstacles that must be overcome to achieve this goal. These obstacles include restrictions on access imposed by managed care plans, the corporatization of charitable healthcare institutions, the increasing numbers of citizens without health insurance, problems with malpractice insurance, and the threatened Medicare bankruptcy.

If the average American life span is projected to reach 130 years by 2050, as suggested by some experts, what social and economic problems will arise? Schwartz examines these forces.

Weight: 272g
Dimension: 234 x 156 x 10 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520335561