Medicine that might have once been deemed science fiction is now becoming a reality. In his most recent medical accomplishments, Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, has successfully created cells, tissues and organs for patients by using the patients’ very own cells to create new body parts.

Atala and his team of researchers have produced about two-dozen different body parts, including muscle, bones and a working heart valve.

“Right now, of course, we have a limited life span because your parts are breaking down. But imagine a time in the future when once those parts start breaking down you can just plug a new one right in,” said Atala.

In this complex, regenerative process, the first step is building a mold of the body part. It is then seeded with live cells and finally placed in an incubator where the cells multiple and grow. Upon completion, the body part is implanted into a human where it operates as any healthy body part would.

This medical breakthrough is something that will save the lives of countless people.

Take a person with heart failure, for example. The wait list for receiving a heart transplant is miles long. A person could die waiting in line for a heart donation. But what if you could generate a healthy, working heart from a patient’s very own cells within weeks? Will replacing deteriorating body parts become as commonplace as replacing a light bulb when it burns out?

This advancement in medicine also means that human longevity could be increased by decades. Combining a healthy lifestyle with regenerative medicine, people may be able to add 120 to 130 years onto their life, said Atala.

How will this change the world if the average lifespan of a person becomes 200 instead of 80? With a world full of energizer bunnies, will an already overcrowded planet reach its maximum capacity?

If we have advanced this far in medicine in 2009, is it only a matter of time before immortality is only a credit card swipe away?

A key concept to Democratic political thought is equality. Democrats believe that every poor person has the right to the same quality of life as a wealthy person. Of course, equality is a high-minded ideal. We know that the poor are often marginalized in society. They often decide between medicine and food, and health exams and mortgage payments.

The president said Monday that about 46 million Americans do not have health insurance. If a person without health insurance needs emergency care, they do receive quality health care, but are then saddled with high bills which, in many cases, result in bankruptcy.

The lack of affordable health care in America is a serious issue. We remain the only developed nation without universal health care.

President Obama sought to begin health care reform when he struck a deal with health care insurers and providers at the White House this week. He said at a press conference following the meeting that out-of pocket health care costs and premiums have risen at four times the rate of wages over the last decade. He said that Americans are spending more on health care than any other nation on earth. These facts led up to what Obama called an “unprecedented commitment” on behalf of health care insurers and providers.

The Los Angeles Times reports that while the letter outlining the health insurance companies’ and providers’ commitments “lacked detail.” These companies and organizations committed to lowering health care costs by 1.5 percent each year by eliminating wasteful billing practices, transitioning into computerized medical records and changing the way that hospital employees are paid. Obama said these efforts will save the American people and the government $2 trillion — over the next 10 years, that is.

Is this commitment really what we wanted when we elected Barack Obama?

As a candidate, Obama’s health care platform was multifaceted. His proposals were to require that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions so that no one is excluded from having health insurance, and to establish a National Health Insurance Exchange which would provide all Americans with the option of private insurance plans and a public insurance plan based on the health insurance given to members of Congress. In his speech this week on his negotiations, he echoed his commitment as a candidate to save the average American $2,500 in health care costs.

He planned to pay for his health care reform proposals by repealing the Bush tax cuts for those who earn more than $250,000 and by keeping the estate tax at its current level.

While Obama’s negotiations with the health care insurance companies and providers might be viewed as an easy way out in comparison to his ambitious proposals as a candidate, he prefaced the developments this week by noting that “the only way these steps will have an enduring impact is if they are taken not in isolation, but as part of a broader effort to reform our entire health care system.”

Congress is working on a health care reform bill that Obama hopes will be completed by the end of the year. The President’s original proposal of a national health care system based on the health care plan provided to Congress, with low premiums and co-payments, might be smart to make it universal.

People would still be able to retain their private health insurance if they prefer, or they may choose the president’s health care plan. His original proposal might forge a middle way between republican dedication to low taxes and private industry and democratic dedication to establishing equality and a fair standard of living in America.

It’s essential that Obama push forward his original health care reform plan, and that it is passed. The health care providers’ and insurers’ commitment to reduce costs by 1.5 percent per year over the next decade isn’t change, and it isn’t what we voted for.