Let me explain. Our health care industry is part of our (mostly) global capitalist economy. That means investors demand the maximum profit the industry can produce. Imagine that this industry had the choice of providing an inexpensive one-time cure for cancer, or a long-term expensive treatment. Which option would generate the most profit for the industry? It doesn’t matter if there are people in the industry who would like to find a simple inexpensive cure. The board of directors is elected by the shareholders, which really means the largest and most ruthless capital owners. If the CEO or any officers approve research on an inexpensive cure that will threaten the profits of the corporation they will be ousted and replaced with someone who “sees the wisdom of using existing proven treatments”. So the built-in conflict of interest of a for-profit medical system means we will always be stuck with a system that extracts as much cash as possible from its patients.

Are there alternatives to this approach? Of course, but they depart from a pure capitalist system, and so, at least in the US, we will never see them as long as we accept our current economic structure.

It’s too bad that curing patients is not a sustainable business model. Even if this did work we would only ever see it developed if you had to take it twice a month for the rest of your life in order to survive.

Edit: sorry, I just noticed this is in Uplifting News. So, let’s be optimistic. Maybe global capitalism will collapse and governments will start trying to take care of people.