GUEST COLUMN
A Dramatically Better Future
see beyond the daily focus and realize the amazing things being developed in laboratories, research centers, and small entrepreneurial companies. We are close to almost unimag- inable breakthroughs in health, space, energy, robotics, and the use of infor- mation through artificial intelligence and artificial general intelligence. In the area of health, we are close to three parallel breakthroughs. First, the development of true cost and quality transparency in health care will lead to a constant cycle of better outcomes and greater produc- tivity. Bureaucracy imposes price controls to slow the rise of prices (creating red tape, waiting times, and declining quality of services). An information-rich market — with you, the patient, knowing what you are getting and what you are paying for — will lead to crashes in cost combined with dramatic breakthroughs in qual- ity and availability.
Second, the number of diseases on the verge of being cured or managed is remarkable. President Richard Nixon’s 1971 declaration of a war on cancer has paid off with continuous breakthroughs in biology and in medi- cal solutions. When I was in Congress, we also recognized the importance of getting better cures for and better management of incurable diseases. So, we insisted on doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health. With the breakthroughs from the Human Genome Project, we are gaining a dramatically better under- standing of how the human body works, what makes it ill, and what cures or prevents illness. Whether it is diabetes, sickle cell anemia, cancer, heart disease, or a host of other prob- lems, our abilities to extend life — and importantly, quality of life — are going to continue to accelerate at an amazing pace. Third, scientific breakthroughs are beginning to build a revolutionary opportunity to extend a healthy life for an almost unimaginable time.
Newt Gingrich
A merica is on the edge of a series of technological and scientific breakthroughs that are going to transform our lives. We will live longer, be wealthier, and have dramatically greater productivity. The emergence of new tools for living well will mean many of today’s prob- lems will simply disappear. Remarkable new science and technol- ogies are being developed all around us. Unfortunately, the focus of poli- ticians and the news media is nega- tive, conflict-oriented, and fixated on immediate problems. It is difficult to
08 • AMAC Magazine
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