Medscape 2050: Bronwyn Williams скачать в хорошем качестве

Medscape 2050: Bronwyn Williams

Bronwyn Williams, futurist, economist, business trend analyst, and partner at Flux Trends, discusses the future of healthcare economics and the “return on investment on life.” https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/... -TRANSCRIPT- “Who gets to live and who gets to die” is a question decided by who pays for healthcare, says Bronwyn Williams, a futurist, economist, business trend analyst, and partner at Flux Trends. More specifically, the decision falls to whomever pays for your health risk as an individual. In past decades, generally in the Western world, personal health risk has been socialized in the form of either national healthcare or commercial insurers. One of these has acted as an “intermediary to ‘de-risk’ yourself from your future,” she says. In 2050, this will no longer be the case. The future of healthcare economics, Williams says, will be personalized. And the former insurance model of aggregated risk won’t make economic sense. Advances in genetic testing and diagnostics will make health risk assessment even more accurate. Each person will no longer be a “black box” at birth but a set of risk ratios for health issues, and payers will use that data to generate premiums. Williams envisions a world where parents will receive a quote from the hospital on the day a pregnancy is confirmed: “This is the lifetime bill for your child.” It’s not a big leap from there to genetically engineering babies with lower health risks. Even the idea of mandated eugenics isn’t too farfetched. To lower that lifetime bill, insurers may demand less privacy and more surveillance, using biotech to monitor our health and behavior. Longevity will increase by 2050, but so will the cost of extending life. At a certain point, Williams suggests, the value of life comes into question. In our later years, how much are we worth to our families? Our insurers? Our governments? Ethically, how will we wrestle with the concept of “the return on investment on life?” Will we continue down this path toward healthcare that is highly regulated and utilitarian? Or will our values as a society shift toward preserving the lives of all? Watch Williams’ exclusive interview with Medscape to learn more. Transcript in its entirety can be found by clicking here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...