In these trying times, it can be hard to be nostalgic for the future. However, FM-2030 would have urged us to look past despair and forward towards change. Here is a short thread on FM-2030, the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2030, and the Future of our Healthcare Systems.
#FM2030

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The most essential question that pops up in these times is the question of accessibility. A global pandemic begs the question: is the future of cutting-edge healthcare going to be egalitarian or reserved for the rich? This thread will investigate that question.

As testing kits were short in the USA, social media was constantly asking how rich celebrities were being tested, despite only displaying minor symptoms. Such extreme costs obviously provided a disincentive from poorer individuals displaying severe symptoms from seeking help.

The urgency of this question may subside as the crisis dies down but it has revealed something crucial: the lack of response and discrepancies across class lines seemed less an instance of genuine inability, and more driven by a reluctance to work outside of a profitable system.

Many Americans have been shocked to learn how little scalability beyond the “normal” state of affairs our hospitals have. This is most stark in terms of nurses and doctors warning they will be running out of masks, out of ventilators, out of other crucial, life-saving equipment.

However, it is not clear that simply removing the profit-motive would solve this problem - Italy’s less-profit-driven healthcare system has been struggling with many of the same problems. What sort of system would have the ability to scale?

The answer is not totally clear, but there is a mentality present that keeps the privatization of healthcare at the forefront of “American values”: a myth that can fairly easily be dispelled. It lies in the complex created around the primary care doctor-patient relationship.