[lopmotr]

Perhaps the problem is more that there exists expensive treatments. As long as they exist, people will be upset at not getting them. When they don't exist, people won't blame anyone for their death. Imagine if some miracle cancer cure is discovered but it genuinely costs a million dollars (not just due to patents). There'll be no option but to let uninsured poor people die. There might not be enough money in the country to actually save them all.

[eigenvector]

Considering that the USA spent $1.9 trillion on the Iraq war, something that was quite literally not needed by anyone, I wouldn't be so sure that money couldn't be found to provide lifesaving treatment and research technological advancements to bring its cost down in the long term.

[CobrastanJorji]

In this scenario, that $2 trillion would prevent about a quarter of the deaths from cancer in one year, except that spending was over a decade, so assuming that we could spend at that same rate perpetually, replacing Iraq War spending with million dollar cancer cures would prevent about 2% of cancer deaths.

[ShorsHammer]

Do you have a source for that $2 trillion/ quarter of all deaths figure? I understand healthcare in the US costs far more than in the rest of the developed world, but those calculations seem quite wrong.

http://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2016.34.15_suppl.661...

> In the EU in 2012 the estimated cancer incidence was 2.6 million cases. The estimated cancer mortality was 1.3 million deaths, accounting for 26% of all deaths. DHCC (direct health cost of cancer) in the whole EU increased from €79 to €86 billion during 2005-2014 (in 2014 prices)

The population of the EU is over 500 million people. The annual taxation needed to afford this level of care ranges from 50-270 euros per person across the region.

[candiodari]

It's not just expensive treatments unfortunately. A very significant proportion of healthcare expenditure comes from caring for patients that can't take care of themselves (in fact that's 90% of the reason hospitals exist at all).

[xbmcuser]

the problem would be that the miracle cure would be patented so others won't be able to work on it to bring the price down.