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How could a Powerball lottery winner transform healthcare?

Wednesday’s $564 million Powerball drawing (which has a $381 million cash value) left winners in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico just slightly richer. It’s easy to fantasize about how you’d spend that kind of money, where you’d invest it, what you would buy. That kind of money could make huge strides in areas of healthcare, […]

By Nicole Oran on February 12, 2015

Wednesday’s $564 million Powerball drawing (which has a $381 million cash value) left winners in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico just slightly richer.

It’s easy to fantasize about how you’d spend that kind of money, where you’d invest it, what you would buy. That kind of money could make huge strides in areas of healthcare, but how would people not necessarily in the industry spend it?

Turns out some popular ideas on Reddit include buying out members of congress and investing in anti-aging research.

“Buy as many seats in congress as possible and fill them with people that will work on real issues facing our generation. Forbes says the median price for a congressman is ~$24 million, so you could buy around 20 seats.” –lolbuttlol

Would buying seats in congress make a difference when it comes to healthcare reform? There would probably be an entire new list of issues to deal with, regardless of who takes the seats, but it’s hopeful? This user added:

“If it were working properly, the US gov’t would pave the way for a bevy of social services and new jobs, which means more social mobility and more people receiving higher education. With more education the world gets more technology faster, not to mention more doctors.” –lolbuttlol

One Reddit user decided splitting up the $500 million collaborating with X-Prizes would be the best plan, including:

“50 million for hand held tricolor that can detect most prominent diseases faced by the poor… 100 million for cures to aging process (extending the lifespan of a mouse to 10x its current level at youthful health)…50 million for nanobot demonstrations that show cancer can be destroyed noninvasively.” –cptmcclain

The anti-aging investment idea was pretty prominent in the thread, but not everybody agreed.

“I think anti-aging will not improve anybody’s life. Take me. If I suddenly live to 200 years I’d be slacking off even more than I am now. I might invent 3D cat pictures but that would be all.

A lot of people in this thread would donate to / invest in anti-aging, but I wonder what would happen if every person suddenly lived longer but the attitudes would be the same. Probably only bad things.

  • Life in prison is now around 150 years. Would someone still be human after that long a time in prison?
  • Population boom in every country.
  • At minimum wages people have to work 3 jobs for about 100 years. Something’s gonna give.”

–piazza

Users had a variety of other ideas, including efforts toward sustainable energy research, funding education, AI research, even a giant indestructible blimp to drop supplies to countries in need. But one user thought anti-aging made the most sense – simply because if we don’t age, we don’t have to get to all of that other stuff right away…

“I can’t believe there’s not more anti-aging answers in here. If we don’t grow old it doesn’t really matter how fast everything else gets here.” –_ChestHair_

Maybe not the most sound logic…

[Photo from Flickr user Scott Mindeaux]

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