ABC has no shame in their mission...

I prefer it when a news anchor does not tell me what to think about issues. And that "opinion" what made this low-cost arm possible, hence it is integral to the story. If these engineers didn't think that they could present a better alternative, they wouldn't have produced this arm.

So, for people who don't have 40,000 freaking dollars to spare, wouldn't you say that this arm is better than nothing? Or, to put it another way, the problem is not that $40,000 prosthetic arms exist. It is a problem if ONLY $40,000 prosthetic arms exist, because the vast majority of people who need them can't afford them. This product fills a niche which needed filling, and that is what the free market should be doing.

 

Does it bother you at all that China steals our technology? Our companies develop software etc., spending vast sums of money to do so..and China simply turns their hackers loose and steals them?

 

I think the question you really need to ask is why a prosthetic arm costs over $40,000. Can you itemize the cost for us, including R&D, materials and labor?

 

let's see, what is it you're missing here that would make a commercially manufactured arm so much more expensive? oh, how about the years of research and development that these these students already had at hand? how about the fact that they didn't have to worry about purchasing the necessary insurance or threading their way through the mountains of red tape it takes to bring a new product such as this to market? they didn't have to deal with the building/leasing and equipping of a factory, so that they didn't waste their time making one device at a time, or hiring a workforce, with all the insurances, taxation and further red tape that that entails. there was no packaging or shipping to worry about and no investors breathing down their neck to see some return on their investment.

sure, it can be easy to make it on the cheap when you're doing it for the fun of it, with other people's research and equipment and on other people's time. when you have to deal with the details of running a real business, costs can add up awfully fast.

 

There is a continuing assumption throughout this thread that the engineering students were using other people's research. Now they most likely reverse engineered an expensive arm to some degree, but I doubt they had access to the actual R&D files of the company that made it, and they must have done some R&D of their own, because a different manufacturing process was used. But isn't that how it's supposed to work - not reinventing the wheel, but improving upon an existing technology?

 

Seems to me that prosthetics have been around for quite a long time, just like cars. A lot of the research is simply built on old research that has been refined over the years, made better and more complex. Yet cars are competitively priced. There is absolutely no reason a prosthetic arm should cost more than many cars, simply from a materials and labor cost POV- absolutely no reason at all. And if you're going to try to tell me that R&D on cars is cheaper that than on prosthetics arms, that's not going to happen. Cars have to be tested and destroyed in crash tests constantly. That's expensive. Not to mention shipping and everything else you mentioned-hugely expensive with regards to making cars.

But yet, you can buy a car for a lot less than you can buy a small prosthetic arm. Why?

 

yes; that's how it works, but only after a substantial period of time and a certain amount of alteration to the existing design. this allows the original investment to be returned before everyone and his brother jumps on the bandwagon. even then there is the cost of developing the alterations and all the rest that goes into operating a real business. a real business must be concerned with its continued survival, so that they may keep on providing this equipment to the next customer and the next and the next....

 

I don't know if there is any real moral obligation to wait a long time before introducing a competing product (while your competition gets entrenched). But even assuming that there is, how long have there been prosthetic arms? A VERY substantial length of time. As far as alteration to the existing design goes, well we are talking about an arm, so it has to look and perform as an arm. Therefore there isn't a whole lot of design wiggle room. An arm is shaped like an arm, and it bends at the appropriate places. BUT, in terms of how you manufacture that design, well substantial alteration was definitely made there.

Maybe children having arms is more important than a business model. But as far as providing the product to new customers goes, if you make the design open source (on a website like thingiverse, for instance), then you have empowered people to make their own equipment. Hell, you might even inspire them to make their own improvements as well.

 

And what happens when the price goes so high that customers can no longer afford the product?

 

Exactly, a much cheaper alteration.

One would think.

 

Something capitalists can't comprehend.

 

and are we all, like blanche dubois, to depend on the kindness of strangers? are we to suppose there will always be some group of students or volunteers to make the thousands of arms needed to fill the need or that the equipment will always be made available by some kind heart? who then will spend the time to take his talent and develop the next great breakthrough? are we to trust in the altruism of the skilled and talented or is the profit motive still the most efficient engine to drive innovation?

have you heard of a little thing called charity? maybe not because it involves actually giving of yourself. there will always be those who cannot afford even the most basic services and there will always be those empathetic souls who try to fill that need. individuals do it, foundations do it, even those evil corporations do it. certainly not every need can be filled, but we do try to make a difference where we can. that some will go without is one of those cruel but inevitable facts of life.

another fact of life is that the price of any technology eventually goes down. as a wider audience is reached, techniques are perfected and design is refined the cost of manufacture decreases and the product becomes more readily available.

 

oh, we understand it quite well. it is a driving force behind the charity which our profits enable. you've heard of charity, haven't you? it's where you give of yourself instead of demanding that others take care of those in need.

 

True enough, but I'm 47 years old and do pretty well for myself- and certainly cannot afford to pay $40,000 for a prosthetic arm. Insurance should not have to pay that either.

And there's the key phrase right there. Given the length of time prosthetics have been available, there is no reason they should cost this much today. And guess what? These students just showed us why and how they can be much less expensive. They did exactly what you just said.

 

And yet we have a thread whining about the charity of some students. Because a for profit new agency compared costs.

 

why shouldn't your insurance pay for it? you may not get the $40k model with all the bells and whistles, but a perfectly serviceable model is well within the reach of most insurance. did you get a good look at that thing? can you honestly tell me that the prosthetics of even 20 years ago come even close the that thing, that isn't your fathers fake arm. i'm all for the altruistic gesture of goodwill, but at the end of the day that's all it really is - a gesture. y'all keep getting all excited, saying 'look what they did, look what they did", but none of you will address the necessities involved in continuing to produce these devices. the cost of dealing with the regulations alone would probably have bankrupted all of those students if they weren't simply giving it away. oddly enough, many of the folks who are all goo-goo eyed over the accomplishment of these students are the same ones who consistently demand that the state impose further regulation on the business community. if you are paying any attention you might realize how foolish are your desires for your nanny-state paradise.

 

no, what we have is a thread pointing out the hypocritical tendency of so many to compare the well-intentioned gesture with the reality of real production.

 

Perhaps you missed the part where I said that people have been EMPOWERED to make their own prosthetics. Very much the opposite of depending on others. This is a "teach a man to fish" situation, instead of the only option being to buy a $40,000 fish.

Wow, split personality much? First, a paragraph on not relying on others to build a product, but now you want people to have to rely on others to purchase it.

Yep, that's just what these students did.

 

Oh here we go. I get that this isn't the arm of past generations, just like cars aren't the same as past generations. Who could have foreseen turbo-charged engines, hybrid/electric cars or even bluetooth back at the turn of the century? But yet, all these things are relatively affordable. And do you have any idea how many regulations are in place for the manufacture of cars? And auto engineers are far from poor.

Look, I'm not saying prosthetic arms should cost $350. I hear you. But they certainly should not cost upwards of $40,000 either. And no, insurance companies should not be gouged to pay for something that has been around for a very long time, but just made better. The price should be reasonable. And $40,000 is not reasonable.

 

Now that's clever, but when, in 1880?

 

and how many folks do you think will have the proper knowledge to do what these students accomplished? do you really think that a one armed bus driver really has the where-with-all to go out and cobble together his own high-tech prosthetic? this isn't some ikea bookcase but a piece of precision equipment that not everyone could produce, even with the proper equipment and available design.

there will always be a place for charity, true charity, and there will always be both those who a willing to supply it and those who will need to receive. there is a big difference between giving away the occasional privately produced product, a process that provides employment as well as revenue for the public welfare, and insisting that the technologies for these products be introduced into the public domain. what these students did was indeed an act of charity and should be lauded, but not expected or relied upon.

 

You need to educate yourself better than they are, and work harder. You don't have an economic entitlements on a global scale.

 

I wish they still did. Sears houses were really beautiful. Lots of them are still sought after today. And they were offered between 1908 - 1940.

http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/tag/sears-homes-near-chicago/

 

Key word: stupid. That is the perfect description of Obama voters and his camouflage experts in the media.

 

Agreed on all counts. This is pretty much capitalism at it's best.