Slashdot Mirror
Americans Are Seriously Sick
jd writes "A study by US and British researchers on frequency of illnesses shows that even when you compare like groups in the US and the UK, people in the US are considerably sicker than their counterparts in the UK. This is after factors such as age, race, income, education and gender were taken into consideration. The most startling conclusion was that although the richest Americans were better off than the poorest Americans, they did no better (health-wise) than the poorest of the English. Previous studies of the entire population had shown similar results, with America placing around 25th amongst industrialized countries on chronic disease prevention, but it had been assumed that minorities and economics were skewing the results. This study suggests that maybe that isn't the case."
No doubt many other people are going to write in talking about "fat americans" being the problem - and its true that nutrition in America is a serious problem, but the comparison is to England, so not the cause of the differences.
Personally, I work on average 8 months a year and spend the rest of the time travelling - I am rarely stressed and almost never sick.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
So who ate all the pies?
Socialism == Medical
US != Socialism
HENCE
Medical != US
Sheesh.. when we'll we learn?
But at least we're not revolting!
A friend of mine who is typically an ardent democrat told a Democratic Party representative (who was asking her for money) told the representative that she'll give the Party money as soon as they get her universal healthcare.
Perhaps she's being a little unreasonable, but then again, if the Democratic Party continues to be ineffective, and impotent, perhaps we should be looking towards a party that does have the courage to stand up to the Republicans and actually get things like universal healthcare into the running for issues.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
NHS in the UK where if you are ill you might be waiting YEARS for treatment, so people die before they are treated so never go on the list of people being sick.
I often visit the UK & am aware that the NHS is far from perfect.
However, I'd like to see some links backing up your assertion that you have to wait years for life-threatening procedures.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Whereas Canadians are "x-treme", and the French are "to the max"
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
America placing around 25th amongst industrialized countries on chronic disease prevention, but it had been assumed that minorities and economics were skewing the results.
I really don't believe that was assumed by most public health experts, and certianly not ones outside the US. The US does not just have greater socioeconmic differences, but since thay have no proper pubic heathcare, those differences matter a lot more. And even if you belong to the group that can afford proper care, you still have to go get it; there is little follow-up by default. It would really be quite shocking if the US system resulted in high a level of public health as the more proactive systems found in western Europe. Now, I know that there are varying opinions on what are the responsibilities of society and of the individual, and I'm not going to go into that. But of there are effects. I assume that most of those against public healthcare accept those consquences as a fair price (for someone else) to pay, but if this result came as an unwelcome suprise, I would call that a tad naïve.
sudo ergo sum
I believe health care is a right, not a privilege for the rich, and I'm proud to pay my taxes towards the NHS that provides top notch treatment to EVERYBODY.
I'm guessing you're one of the lucky ones with private health insurance. Try living on the povery line and making a choice between getting that lump looked at or eating for a month. I know what most people are forced to choose in your so called land of the free...
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
You idots
The most startling conclusion was that the richest Americans were better off than the poorest Americans
...but, working in the healthcare profession in the US, no one gets paid unless you're sick. Sadly, healthcare here is definitely for-profit. So of course we're all 'sick.'
(Not a supporter of socialist programs in general, but healthcare is too important to be trusted to human greed.)
Well, I am sure it has something to do with diets. You see, I haven't been sick for years (except once for a day or two in China). I stopped smoking, I eat a varied healthy diet and I exercise. But I'm not a health freak. I drink, I eat hamburgers etc. every now and then and I don't exercise THAT much.
However, my brother smokes, eats lots of junkfood and never exercises more than going for a walk. He gets a flu or some other bug maybe five or more times a year!
A simple change in lifestyle will make you much healthier.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Michael Moore is going to expose the rotten health care system in the USA in his new movie called Sicko:h p?id=193
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.p
The health insurance industry is a parasite the purpose of which is to interfere with your patient-doctor relationship and to deny your treatment.
You don't wait years when you're ill. That's retarded, so don't spout bullshit. Oh and by the way pasting in a daily mail headline of one poor person who had to isn't evidence, that's using an exceptation as an example. Americans get fucked over by their insurance just as often, if not more. The waiting lists are usually for things like knee replacements, which are my no means life threatening.
You should also remember that the per head costs of the health service in the UK is about half the per head costs of medical care in the US.
It would be interesting to know how rich you actually have to be before the US system looks like a better deal.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Living in the Chicagoland area where air quality is more a mocking term than something to brag about, I seem to remember during my stints in europe several years ago that everybody seemed to be a lot more concerned with things like air quality, environmental impact. I remember there being a law severely restricting output of several chemicals in germany as early as ten years ago whereas some of those are still being thrown in the air happily every day around here. that's just one of several items where laws and regulations are a lot tougher in europe when it comes to the environment and keeping it healthy.
Maybe it's because of the fast food? I live in England and I eat pretty much entirely home cooked and prepared meals, except maybe apart from the odd sandwich from Sainsbury's.
I recently went out to stay at a friends house for a weekend, and on the first day we ate McDonalds in the evening. The next day I was feeling pretty sick. All I ate about two burgers and some chicken nuggets.
Let me quote this from the BBC article:
Rates of smoking are similar in the US and England but alcohol consumption is higher in the UK.
There you have it, folks, DRINK!
(I am only half joking)
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Normally I'm not a spelling Nazi, but "pubic healthcare" is too good to pass up... ;-)
Grab.
PS. Having said that, you've written "naive" with a diacritic, which I'd never bother with, so bonus points there.
Sure, the US does expend much more money on healthcare than the UK, but if this study suggests that people in the UK are still healthier, what does that say of the US healthcare system?
Perhaps the NHS with it's endless 'performance targets', NICE reviews, and Local Trust bureaucracies is actually doing a better job of making people better than the largely private US system, with it's deeper pockets, and strong-arm tactician pharmaceutical companies?
I did not expect such a big number...
From tfa:
"The United States spends about $5,200 per person on health care while England spends about half that in adjusted dollars."
So you lot are spending twice as much to get worse results? Great system guys. It's shameful that in the the richest country in the world people are suffering and dying because they can't afford to see a doctor.
Sounds like a troll, but maybe we should compare it to Australia just to be sure to dismiss this trollish thesis.
The official nationality of people from the UK is British, not English. By referring to Brits as "English", you're pissing off a sizable number of people who are proud to be Scottish, Irish, Welsh, etc. Us English did some pretty nasty things to them in the past, so calling them "English" isn't exactly going to ingratiate yourself with them.
By referring to people from the UK as British, you're still going to piss off some Irish, but at least you're correct in your terminology. Yes, British is the correct term to use for somebody from the UK, even if they aren't from Great Britain. References:
Having read the article, I have no clue exactly which region of the world it is talking about, because it seems to use different regions as synonyms. It could be the UK, which is a country and member nation of the UN. It could be Great Britain, which is a geographical region within the UK comprised mainly of England, Wales and Scotland. Or it could be England, which is a region, home nation and constituent country of the UK, but which doesn't have its own government.
If I had to guess, I'd say that they were talking about the UK, even though they don't use the word "UK" at all, instead opting for "British" and "England". I base this guess on years of experience with peopel from the USA getting it wrong and the sentence "Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens." Hint: England spends nothing whatsoever on its citizens. The NHS in England is run by the UK government. It's the NHS in other parts of the UK that belong to their respective constituent countries - England actually has very little to call its own these days.
England, Great Britain and the UK are three completely different things. Mix them up, and you piss people off. It's a bit like mixing up California with the USA with North America. You'd think somebody was pretty ignorant to do that, right?
It was "pubic heathcare", you insensitive clod.
sudo ergo sum
What exactly makes health care a right to you or anyone else?
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
That was Austraila, and they seem to be doing a damn sight better without us.
So from the evidence, I can only assume "Nutcase" and "criminals" depends on your point of view, and as for the number of "Sick people". it looks like they dealt with it pretty well.
Most of the people who emagrated to America were pretty healthy. Sick people would have had trouble surviving the journey.
Yeah this is true. People often talk about how much more money is spent on medical care in the USA without actually looking at the underlying figures. Most medical procedures and drugs cost a hell of a lot more in the States than they do in the UK so just looking at total spending is very misleading.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Uh, how about all the tax we pay? You know, for public services?
It's up there with liberty and live mate.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Not only are they sick, they are rather fat too!
w00t
Well, I know that there is a lot wrong with the NHS but I've actually never had a problem with it, the service my family has had has always been first rate (particularly the few occasions when we had to visit the Sick Kids hospital here in Edinburgh when junior had an accident). I used to have private health insurance (which is still an option in the UK) but I couldn't see the point.
"Only non-Hispanic whites were included in the study to eliminate the influence of racial disparities. The researchers looked only at people ages 55 through 64, and the average age of the samples was the sammples was the same."
Great. Of course as the comparison data, they must have used the non-Hispanic and non-mainland-European Brits to compare them to. I didn't know NHS would have that data available.
What if e.g. the Hispanic people would have showed to be healthier in US than in Latin America? Or Black Americans as opposed to Black British, Black Africans, Black Latin Americans, Black Swedish, Black Canadians and so on...
Why do they make the conclusion that ALL Americans are so and so, based only on selected WHITE Americans of a certain age? Because they still think there is a White MAJORITY of people?
Not only are they sick, they are rather fat too!
I can't help but wonder, do you think these two things might have something to do with each other?
>healthcare is too important to be trusted to human greed
it's too important not to be.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
Good comment! But dont feed the trolls.
It's also possible that we (in the UK) simply don't get sick as often and some of the protections we have (including the NHS) but also employment protection (most people can't be kicked out of their job on a whim, unlike the US) and greater holidays makes us less stressed and thus less prone to sickness.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Its so obvious!
"Americans reported twice the rate of diabetes compared to the English, 12.5 percent versus 6 percent. For high blood pressure, it was 42 percent for Americans versus 34 percent for the English; cancer showed up in 9.5 percent of Americans compared to 5.5 percent of the English."
I am dutch, but have been to the states a lot as my parents have lived there on several occasions. My impressions:
Higher diabetes rates could well be explained by the large amounts of sugar in lots of food products in America. Even the bread was very sweet to my senses, let alone the rediculous amounts of soft drinks consumed( "would you like a refill for that half-a-litre of coke you just drained?" ).
Higher blood pressure: higher work stress. I don't think I need expand on this, it's a well known fact that Americans work more and have less holidays/vacations.
Also less physical exercise will not help either conditions.
But the higher cancer rates quite baffle me. Strange stuff.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Because we decided as a nation that it should be a right that want to grant to our fellows - and I'm very proud of this fact.
I should have added *ducks* whoops.
ALmost every health analysis names another issue being the cause of the given results. But I almost always tend to agree that one of the most important cause is probably in the differences of the different countries' health care systems. Many arguments can be raised in favor and against the different systems, still, such high differences IMO can not be explained just with working culture/number of workfree days per year/income/immigrants. Just my 0.02.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Seriously.... is there anything which makes America a preferred place to live? Most Americans hardly seem to know much... make that anything, about other peoples, cultures, food habits etc. The images on TV during the Great Power Outage over New York.. well, even young people seem overly bloated.
Ingenious health insurance schemes making it even more difficult and expensive to stay reasonably healthy... not much political will to change things anytime soon.. why not dump it all and relocate elsewhere? The culture of "Each Man to Himself" seems largely to blame for the inertia.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
My experiance with several family members using the NHS recently was very good.
Waiting list are down to a week or two for most things.
My nan passed some blood and was in for a biopsy within days.
Of cousrse just like the USA you can pay for private health care and get seen instantly but the service we recvie on the NHS is nothing to sniff at.
So if the euro families ate just as much junkfood how can they possibly be thinner?
I don't know what the fuck causes the effect these scientists have discovered. Are americans really that fat and overworked that even though they got more money they are less healthy?
Cause any claims that european healthcare (for the welloff) is better is idiotic. Especially british healthcare wich seems to specialize nowadays in shipping patients abroad to get decent care.
Then again wasn't there the little fact that people in Cuba (poor) had better medical care then americans? That infant death rate was significantly higher in the wealthy US then in the poor Cuba?
Perhaps money doesn't mean shit when it comes to being healthy.
Oh well. Go europe eh?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
NHS in the UK where if you are ill you might be waiting YEARS for treatment, so people die before they are treated so never go on the list of people being sick.
Verus the US where if you don't have the money you never get treated period
NHS is very far from perfect (due to mismanagement will probably collapse in next decade or so) but it provides to very clear benefits
Medical treatment for those who could otherwise not afford it
Keeps private treament prices lower for those who wish to go that route because the private sector know they are universally in competition with the NHS
With half decent management (aka non political) NHS could be easly 100 times better
No, you are wrong.
UK law gives you four weeks holiday, which is 20 days a year if you work 5 days a week, but the law does not give anyone time off on bank holidays. Some employers will give you a paid day off, but some will make you use your annual leave allowance if you don't want to work on a bank holiday.
There is lots of information here and here.
From adviceguide.org.uk:
A latent existence
Dude, you want to eat Indian food. You will have a hot ring the next day, not in 4 days time. OK, I haven't got the faintest idea what governs the rate of progress of food through the gut, but your timing seems way weird- curry was just an example, tomato skins and sweetcorn also prove to be reliable timing indicators. Dunno why you are modded flamebait, people seem interested rather than annoyed.
AS to the whole veggie thing, I'm with the mythical Chinese "eat tree bark when you have to, chicken when you can". Or in my case, rare beef, and bacon.
Healthy people cost less money to make better, unhealthy people cost more money. The US burns through healthcare money not because of the poor service, but because they're unhealthy long before they get to the Doctor's office (or the ER). Honestly, how can you say that the country home to some of the best hospitals in the world (Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, etc.) is second tier in terms of services rendered?
You could argue that most citizens never make it into these tier one hospitals, that they are reserved for the rich, but TFA makes the point that our health is worse across the board (from richest to poorest.) The issue that this article is bringing up isn't about poor healthcare, it's about poor lifestyle (whether that's too much work, too little exercise, too much food, or whatever would probably require further research).
1. Americans eat too much; there are all-you-can-eat buffets at Denny's and similar places, and fast food chains have "value-added" extra-size meals. And since Americans work a lot, they don't have time cooking.
2. Americans exercise too little; they sit in their cars for an hour to work, then an hour from work, and when they come home they are so tired that they can't do anything but watch TV and drink beer (plus having BBQ and mashed potatoes before bed time).
3. Americans are socially divided; since some parts of the US are like third world countries, it is to be expected that the lower stratum should be worse off than anywhere in Europe, where the poor at least have guaranteed access to medicine and doctors.
4. Americans don't give a shit about the environment, and is the premier polluter in the world. Pollution causes disease and death. For instance, the drinking water in most parts of the US are undrinkable, and contains various metals.
5. The American school system is to blame for giving the kids a bad dietary foundation. American schools serve pizza and hamburgers for lunch... and the P.E. in American schools also sucks.
Those Texans will always keep fucking up their geography.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
They're salubriously challanged.
All that newspeak is making me doubleplussick.
But which has less healthcare costs per kg of bodyweight!!!!
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
I remember one nutritional study that reported that our human GI tract is better for handling plant matter, and unlike carnivore digestive tracts.
Lions, Wolves, Dogs, Cats have digestion geared for handling meat, whereas primates (including humans) are better off eating fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Looking at nature this makes sense.
You typically don't see packs of monkeys chasing down a water buffalo and tearing out its throat.
Y'know, I get the feeling I'd do a lot better with my career if I were to strike out on my own as an independent consultant or by founding a small start-up. The problem is, I have a health condition that requires a trip to the emergency room once every few years, and some seriously expensive medicine to keep it under control. There is no way in hell I can find affordable health insurance on my own, and I can't afford the enormous cost of an ER trip out-of-pocket, or the couple hundred bucks per-month in medication while I'm in the "Eat ramen, max out the credit cards and work out of the garage" phase any solo gig or small company goes through for the first year or so.
Even if I didn't have the health condition, and were fit as a fiddle, I'd be doing the equivalent of driving without car insurance. I'm one serious traffic accident or cancerous tumor away from financial ruin if I don't have healthcare.
So, I turn down all kinds of consulting gigs, and leaf wistfully through my file of business plans, and wonder, do I love my country more than I love my career? I'm poorer and less fulfilled by living in a country without a single-payer system. I'm dependent on a corporate benefits package, and unable to pursue the American Dream.
I could emigrate to New Zealand in a heartbeat, as they're looking for tech workers there and would put me on an immigration fast-track. I really like Montreal and Halifax, too... but I'm a New Englander at heart, and I would like to stay where I feel I belong, where all my family and freinds are.
Now I find out that even with a company-funded HMO, I'm not as healthy, either. I mean. what the hell am I getting for my healthcare dollar? It's a serious chunk of change out of my paycheck and my employer's operating budget, and an expense that gets more and more and more expensive every year without returning much in the way of improvement in quality of service or quality of life. As far as I can tell, I'm just paying to fund Washington lobbyists and golden parachute accounts for HMO and Big Pharma execs.
I think it's time to put to rest the United State's overpriced, poorly managed and underperforming healthcare system, and join the rest of the civilized worl in the 21st century.
It is easy got spend less IF you force the medical staff to starve.
Considering other alarm stories about the NHS I would hardly claim the medical care is the cause of brits being healthier.
But from the study I think there is one shocking possibilty.
What if the UK health care is so bad that only the strongest survive. If in the UK you die while in the US you can live on unhealtily then yes UK citizens are more healthy.
It makes as much sense as claiming the NHS is somekind of miracle institution. Most likely it is down to differences in live styles.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yes I only realised what i was doing after i hit the post button.
I think more early nights with less beer are called for.
Averege expected life spans for the US and the UK are nearly identical, and the average expected life span for non-hispanic white Americans is considrerably better than the UK average. So what does this study mean?
(1) Being more sick more often won't actually make a difference to how long you can expect to live? Sounds implausible.
(2) Americans get sick more often but their health care is better so they live just as long or longer? Sounds more plausible, although it seems like too much of a coincidence that better healthcare is almost exactly balancing worse health.
(3) Maybe better access to health care in the US results in a higher rate of diagnosis, rather than a higher rate of illness? That would explain the nearly identical lifespan, but only if the better access to healthcare makes little difference to lifespan.
(4) A difference in medical culture, where doctors in the US are more likely to diagnose and attempt to treat problems that doctors in the UK would just tell their patients to live with? I know that psychiatrists and psychologists in the US are very quick to diagnose and prescribe drugs compared to Japan or New Zealand (the other two countries that I am familiar with). Maybe there is something similar going on with the medical profession in general.
The fundamental problem in large parts of the US is that people spend far to little time walking anywhere compared with the UK. Also, it is often difficult to find good quality food amid all the wasteland of fast food joints. I actually ate less than I do in the UK when I was last in the US because the food was so awful. I'm not claiming the UK has great food but you guys have it much worse. Portions are too large and the food is too greasy. Worse, when you are on a budget this high calorie/low nutrition junk food ends up being attractive.
Add the rotten food to the car culture and you have a disaster. The UK is sure to follow this trend although it is much easier here to live close enough to work that you don't have to drive (I cycle). Just 30 mins exercise a day would make a world of difference (I try to get an hour in) and there is no reason why you should pay to get it at a gym. Heck, even if you do drive try parking 15-30 mins walk away from work and go the rest of the way in on foot. When I do have to use my car I do that and I still get in quicker than I would if I tried to drive the last couple of miles.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Too much exercise for those that do ...
Not enough for those that don't
I didn't see much wholesome food in the cities I visited and I saw too much food in the plate at every meal (not talking about junk food which you use to kill your poor)
Air pollution
Stress
The list goes on
realkiwi
Careful. Anyone caught by a Yank caring about someone other than themselves will be labelled a "Commie". :-)
Don't mod this a troll as I speak from experience.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Yeah, have to agree there - we may have less extremes of wealth and poverty, but I still have to get the bus from Old Swan to Liverpool City Centre sometimes, and it is a truly depressing journey though what I can only describe as Dickensian squalor - a long, long road of burnt-out terraces, vandalised pubs, closed-down shops not least of which is this hideous, oppressive 60's market that need pulling down desperately. Butty shops litter this grim landscape. I think environment clearly shapes our health, it's almost brainless of me to point it out.
Most saliently, I'm reminded of 'Chips or Crisps woman' - one morning an obese couple got on the bus with their daughter - the woman was so fat that she _did_ look like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. And the kid was screaming, and she was asking '...what? what? you hungry? do you want chips or crisps......chips?.......crisps?'
This was at 7.30am, and I felt truly sick. The kid plumped for crisps btw.
Spot on, poster. One point you missed though: despite the long hours and few vacation days in the US, there are more Americans in poverty now in real terms than at any time since the Great Depression. For tens of millions of Americans, despite all the work they are still dirt poor. This is for several reasons:
- Minimum wage is not tied to any meaningful cost of living index.
- The official 'Poverty Line' is similarly not based on any meaningful cost of living index (it is uselessly taken as 3 times the cost of food; food is dramatically cheaper now than even 25 years ago, and much less healthy, so this metric is positively retarded).
- Rent on property has gone sky high as the economy has grown, meaning the cost of even the crappiest housing is essentially unaffordable for a minimum wage worker.
And lastly, Employers are becoming increasingly exploitative, harkening back to 19th Century labor practices. Labor is less organized now and unions are weaker (where is a Wal Mart workers union for their 900,000 employees?). With so-called 'unskilled' jobs, employers encourage high turnover so they don't have to give pay increases with all sorts of draconian practices.
On this last point, culpability falls largely on the government. Without regulation, unbridled capitalism is taken America steadily in the direction of Asian sweatshops. Supply and demand in the labor market defies all textbook economic logic because workers have no time to shop around for the best jobs, or to switch jobs when a better one becomes available and because they have no access to information about what other jobs might be available. Sure, you might get a dollar an hour more somewhere else, but if they withhold the first weeks' pay there, you can never switch because you won't ever be able to pay the rent or buy food if you miss a week's wages. Millions of people are that close to the edge. And so without rules - without government regulation - keeping companies from fucking low-wage workers, guess what? Those workers get fucked.
So the point you missed is that millions of Americans are in a state of profound poverty. Sure, the US has pretty good general public infrastructure - roads, water, electricity - so it doesn't seem like poor people are living in the same poverty and desperation that exists in places like India, but in many instances they are. The toll on a person's health from the stress of poverty alone probably outweighs the toll of long working hours and few vacations. Bill Gates works 80-hour weeks, so I hear. He probably doesn't have the kind of stress-related health problems that a single mother holding down two jobs has, even if she only works a 60 hour week.
Be sure to read Nickel and Dimed for more information about the impossibility of surviving in America on minimum wage.
A-Bomb
The combination of following...
These are mentioned in article but not enough to explain it entirely.
Obesity.
Unhealthy food.
Lack of exercise.
Stress.
These are not mentioned in the article...
Air pollution from cars and power plants.
Chemicals that can cause health problems, dumped to environment getting to people.
Look at the cancer rate its double in US, so there must be something that causes that problem. And its probably the attitude towards environment biting back. When nobody cares if they pollute their neighbours habitat the result is that all get pollution in their environment. And in the end just like wild animals we humans get affected by the pollution we put in our environment, and we all get some health problems because of that.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Are you seriously implying that all Wikipedia editors have multiple PhDs? I think you'd be in for quite a shock when you realize how many editors are still in high school.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
I think you replied to the wrong post.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
As onyone who has worked in Japan will tell you, even though work days are long, they don't actually work very much.
However, in The States they really make people work hard, especially managers. And there are always PLENTY of managers in the work place.
I guess it is because managers can legally be made to work crazy hours with no compensation.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
The fast majority of citizens of the UK are white and if you want to sample "normal" group where social/economic factors aren't going to be a major influence then you are stuck with them.
Would a study between say muslims or blacks be intresting? No. Background is too different.
A large portion of blacks in americas were former slaves. Britain was a slave nation BUT did not import them in any numbers. The majority of blacks in britain today are the descendants of immigrants.
As far as muslims are concerned. Well at least in europe there are huge differences per country as to where the muslims come from. Germany has a lot of turks, Holland morrocans and england has a lot of people from pakistan. So you can't compare them because their ethnic background would interfere. Hell, you are talking three different races if your strict.
So this study focusing on whites is not racism. It is just trying to exclude other factors from influencing the results.
If you did a study into the health of pets in various countries would it really be fare to compare the german shepperd with the british bulldog to determine wich country takes better care of its pets? No you would have to pick a generic breed to elimenate inbred diseases from skewing the results.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you plot the percentage of doctors in a society, and the percentage of illnesses in a society, you will get 2 lines that follow a similar path.
If only it were so easy as to just say "meat is bad, plants are good." It's the nutritional components they break down into, and your overall intake of nutrents and "poisons" that matters. You need carbohydrates, fiber, protein, omega-3's, etc. Trans fats, saturated fats, sugars, etc. tend to not be good for you.
While these may typically be more abundant in meat products, all meat is not created equal. A prime steak (which is worth having on ocassion) or a burger from McDonald's is not equivalent to grilled chicken breast & fish.
And on the vegetarian side... McDonald's french fries - nutritionally the most evil thing that even McD's serves, which says a lot - are completely vegetarian.
There's a big difference between being sick and using medical benefits. Big difference between being sick and taking a day off, but the way PTO is structured at many companies, there's no difference at all, :-). And so on. Statistics can tell you any truth you want them to tell you.
No, I'm implying that the sum total would be equivelant to several guys with multiple PhDs.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
American employee: Hello Boss, I can't come into work today. I'm seriously sick.
American employer: Oh, how sick?
American employee: Well, I'm in bed with my sister.
Get your own free personal location tracker
nt
At least that much. (God, I hate thinking of something to add to my post right before hitting submit)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
To people claiming that this is due to socialized healthcare versus not--how does that affect cancer rates and diabetes rates? It's possible I suppose that such conditions are caught more frequently in the US, I don't know. I would think diabetes is clearly a lifestyle issue, while cancer--who knows.
A second point--The US has the lowest incidence rate of stomach cancer in the world. The two countries with the highest rates? Japan and Korea. Interesting, given that the Japanese are generally considered to live one of the healtheir lifestyles in the world as born out by life expectancy.
Someone else made another good point in this discussion--to everyone sneering at American work hours, well, the Japanese work as much, and probably under more rigid frameworks and high stress more often than not. Everyone's heard stories about the Japanese suicide rate. Yet they still live a long time...
This is why I am lacto-ovo vegetarian. With beans, lentils, soya, ie. stuff that gives proteins, and milk and egg, you're better off on a vegetarian diet than meat. The FUD that some serve that you have to have meat is completely and utter BS, and only applies to vegans.
Vegans always strikes me as looking sick, thin and frail and lacking something. But it might partly also be contributed to lifestyle. Spirulina is known to give vegans what they need (K/B6/B12 vitamin IIRC), although not in enough quantities and good enough absorption-rate I think.
That said, some people have reactions to milk and egg, and also a poorer than average health.
this means the weak are effectively being weeded out, which will in the end lead to a stronger, conservative America!
the sad thing is, I have to state explicitly that I'm being sarcastic here...
The recent influx of diseases like West Nile disease suggests a warmer north is facilitating the spread of tropical diseases. I believe there's a suggestion that tropical climates or climates with extended warm seasons and no freezing winters breed a greater diversity of diseases and disease carrying hosts. Heat is also a stress factor and can complicate bad air conditions.
It would be interesting to see the demographics broken down between the northern U.S. and the far south.
just my loose change
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
It is quite likely that this has to do with eating habits. Not meat necessarily, but sugar. Sugar is added to almost anything (eg ketchup is 40% sugar, honey has added sugar) because Westeners like the sweet taste. Asian people more go for a sour taste.
Sugar is very unhealthy for people, however if you are healthy your body is able to cope. If you are a bit sick it gets harder for your body to get well.
Next time you are in the shop try to get some food that has no sugar added. You'll be surprised.
The incompetence of our NHS, the apathy of their "professionals" and utterly abysmal levels of customer service lead me to believe it is just a scheme designed to ensure that healthcare professionals have the right to a paypacket without actually having to compete with others in their field.
I have been given the wrong treatment twice, diagnosed incorrectly three times, almost killed by an allergic reaction to an antibiotic when I was twelve years old, and was given 10x the adult dose by a doctor who could barely speak any English, I have been refused treatment for 2 debilitating physical injuries suffered in my teenage years which now in my late 20s restrict my ability to enjoy sports and sometimes to even walk normally.
I have no dentist and cannot get one, and apparently eyecare I must arrange and pay for myself... I can safely say that if we had no NHS and only private sector medical care I would have a much higher quality of life.
It seems this is the only thread going today.
Anyway, I thought I should mention a great essay of Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness . His argument takes the extreme view that we should only need to work for four hours a week. Empirically, the argument derives from the experience of Britain during the second world war when most of the productive capacity of the country was spent on maintaining the war. And we didn't starve.
Of course, Russell is being a little toungue-in-cheek by calling his essay In Praise of Idleness. He doesn't really mean that we should watch TV for the remaining 108 hours of the (waking) week. Rather, he imagines a regime in which we need only do 'unpleasant' work for four hours to earn our income, and the rest of the time could be spent wisely on whatever might suit our tastes. Partially, this seems to be the ethos of Google labs, where a third (I think) of developers' time is given over to their own projects.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
I just finished watching American Pie and came to the same conclusion.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
a liberal commie?
My parent's generation, the returning soldiers (etc) from WW2, voted for the Labour government whose central plank was the Welfare state - universal state provided healthcare, universal state provided education.
I think those people (and the soldiers (etc) of WW1) had put their lives on the line for society, and had a right to define which way it should go.
I'd rather live with their vision, faults and all, than that of assorted isolationist fat-cats.
My gf is in medical. When she is informing her patients she tells them to stay away from a bunch of foods - she has some really cool props that shows how much sugar and fat is in the US diet! In short, you are absolutely correct in your assessment of the US diet!
From what I've gathered from folks who treat heart disease and other weight related ailments, the access of evil is: Coke, Krispy Kreme, McDonalds (of course, everyone else in that industry!) and ALL of the cigarette corps! It's funny, all of the firms I mentioned are also some of the rischest and most powerful corps on the planet - with the influence on our politicans to match!
I hear this all the time, that the US has the best healthcare in the world. If you do a little research, the ONLY area that we lead in is cost of care. Our infant mortality rates are an embarassment, our life expectancy is dismal, and satisfaction is ranked low. We don't have the best healthcare in the world. We rank pretty far down on nearly everything. Regardless of the actual quality of our healthcare system, what use is even the most mediocre of services if you can't afford them? The majority bankruptcies in the US are medically related. The majority of those declaring bankruptcies due to medical reasons had health insurance before the bankruptcies. Our healthcare system is broken but we're afraid to take it to the emergency room because we can't pay for it. Meanwhile little babies and children die.
It wasn't us English it was those feudal lords and aristocrats who abused the masses of English peasants just as badly.
They take vending machines to the next level
I totally agree such discussions suck, but here we go again ;-)
;-) when you begin to eat vegetarian is actually cleansing of the body / adjustments to different metabolism.
My reasons for vegetarism is so many without looking back at the past. Here's some you can use:
- Why spend 10x the water and food to raise stock, when that food could feed the rest of the world?
- Why torture animals by putting them in cage and giving them a totally unnatural/undesirable life - one which if we see movies of something like this done to humans we call it "horror movie" and "bad aliens".
- Your food is what you become - both in body and mind. It is both healthier (if you have knowledge about it), gives you more energy and spiritual development. OTOH, eating meat gives you a share of bad karma and foul smell. Any foul smells
- Animals are more similar to humans. We wouldn't want to eat humans, but we eat animals because we think less of them. Actually, by eating them you become more "animalistic", because their energy is going through your body. I know many here think this is a far stretch, but energy is always preserved, so it makes sense that some of the animalistic mind is still left in the meat while plant-food is more "tranquil".
- I don't want to participate in ignorance. Even though "everybody" does it, I prefer to do what I do based on knowledge and compassion.
To the argument about the canines, I dare people to eat raw meat. I believe our canines may have been developed as a result of humans starting to eat cooked meat, not the other way around.. but that's just a personal hunch, and a possibility to think about..
But just because I have canines doesn't restrict me from making my own decision where I want to go.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
My contract is pretty typical (for information).
I get paid:
20 days annual vacation - some of which have to be taken during plant shutdown
10 days public holidays
12 days flexed off (2 hours per week back as one day per month, approx) - 6 have to be taken on specified shutdown days.
37 hour working week, overtime is in theory payable, in practice I just flex more time off as it suits.
1.5 days per month accumulative sick leave to 120 days max (weird logic applies after that)
5 days per year accumulated long service leave - accessible after 10 years.
Compared with the UK, I'm behind on annual leave, ahead on flex time off, and the long service leave more or less makes up for the AL deficit. Sick leave is about line ball in practice - except that in Oz it is culturally acceptable to take sick days off at ones discretion.
(And for the record, due to free education (and healthcare) for disadvantaged families I'm now earning a 5 figure salary, and I'm paying back my student loan and a lot of tax that goes to the NHS and I'm happy to do this)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
My mod points ran out yesterday else I'd mod you straight down. Hopefully others will.
I fail to see how your implied answer; the government should take care of you, is relevant. Oh, we have to take care of our own health insurance. Oh, we don't get a free month of not working.
Quit your whining about how America isn't socialist. We work for a living, and if we take care of ourselves we're PLENTY healthy. The answer doesn't lie where you seem to think it does.
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
Some of the results may be explained by overdiagnosing. Nowadays, there are so many "new" diseases that one loses count. Every other kid has ADHD or some other disorder that needs immediate medication.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
I was reading this report on the BBC website earlier today, and I thought then that there is always the possibility that there is a flaw in the study method itself. As the study looks at self-reported health issues, you could also draw the conclusion that people in the US are more aware of health problems than the British.
I'm British and I haven't been to the doctors in about five years. I know several people who aren't even registered with doctors. No-one I know of my age (36) has had tests for prostate cancer, checked themselves for testicular cancer or even has regular annual check-ups.
There's a possibility, IMHO, that relying on self-reporting of illness would produce this kind of result in the older generation of Brits, as they're still following the "just get on with life and don't bother the doctors" mentality of those who grew up in the aftermath of WWII.
My mother had a lot of pain in her lower back for years - when I eventually persuaded her to go to the doctors he got her to go to hospital. They did a scan of her lower back - nothing wrong with it - but noticed something wrong with one of her kidneys (it had never grown from when she was a child). So they took another scan higher up to have a better look at that. Then noticed something wrong with her liver. So they took another scan higher up and saw that she had severe cancer of the liver (despite her being a non-smoker and a very light drinker). She died about 6 weeks later.
She would never have thought of getting either her kidneys or her liver checked out. If she had then maybe she would still be alive. But, like so many people from her (and her parents) generation going to the doctor was only something you avoided as you didn't like to bother him/her.
As usual, your views may vary.
--
silas
There are 200+ countries on this planet, many of which are home to several peoples and minorities, often with special political status. Many of these countries are part of difficult to understand supernational structures. Could you answer all possible trivia questions about all of these states? I bet you can't.
I for one don't expect anybody to know mundane political facts of my country and am certainly not going to call anybody ignorant because of that. If somebody is really pissed off for my lack of knowledge of such things, I will choose to talk to somebody else more fun and jovial.
Of course americans are sick. That's why the rest of the world hates them.
But the fact is that the NHS provides free treatment to ALL UK citizens, not just those who can afford it. In America you can be seen quickly as long as you're willing to pay.
Well spoken. As a Brit doing a year's study in the US, I had an accident which partially knocked out a couple of teeth at the beginning of a weekend. My insurance didn't cover the work, so I had it done as cheaply as I could by trainee dental students. Plus, if I wanted it done outside of normal working hours then there was a massive surcharge that I couldn't nearly afford. So I spent all weekend with two teeth dangling by their roots, in pain and unable to eat.
Now I know that's hardly the end of the world, but many people have it a lot tougher. It certainly makes the US appear less civilised to someone who's used to nationalised healthcare.
I should imagine that the reason so many americans are unhealthy is that they are told, repeatedly, by "official" sources, that they are sick.
If I lived in a hazy black and white world where colors might become unnaturally saturated, bright and vivid by taking a pill I might go get some. "If you think you might have any of these symptoms go see your doctor and ask about x... NOW!"
If you go to the doctor enough they will find something wrong with you and they will do something to cure it because you don't have to pay for it and therefore have no incentive to question their judgment. [Many] Doctors have become used car salesmen in white coats with fat wallets (remember Stanly Milgrams "Obedience to Authority"). It's no wonder that a doctors strike in Israel a few years ago caused havoc in the mortuary business after the strike had caused the mortality rate to drop fifty percent... would probably drop seventy-five percent in the states.
I wonder how many americans are sick compared to how many americans are actually sick.
In contrast, when my mother had breast cancer, whatever she needed, she got, and fast too. Surgery the day after tomorrow? No problem. Home care nurse? No problem. And no cash exchanged hands - my parents didn't have to sell their house to pay for it all. No system is perfect, but I have few complaints about Canada's public health care (now if only I could find a GP in this town who's taking patients...).
Freedom: "I won't!"
Guys n gals, we should also remember that here in the UK we have a free nationwide National Health Service, which i imagine makes a bit of difference too. granted, it's rubbish, but nevertheless it's better than nothing
I had that when I was younger. The cost of the injections was trivial, the nurse's time cost more.
Works like a charm. I didn't do the allergan free diet, mine was all tree pollen, and I don't eat trees.
What about survival rates?
x _Study_Compares_U_S__and_European_Survival_Rates.a sp
w ww.ntrac.org.uk/About/QA.aspx&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk& cd=11 (claiming that UK survival is on the average less than America or European)
A quick google turned up a study on cancer survival rates in America and Europe: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1
Here's an article on cancer survival in the UK: (google cache): http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:VZmy8v8wLdMJ:
BBC article on survival rates http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/546846.stm
For those that don't want to read--much higher survival rates in the US for most cancers (gastric cancer being a difference). No, it's not US and UK, so not directly comparable, but an interesting study nonetheless, especially for the countless posters coming out of the woodworks declaring the infinite superiority of socialized healthcare (though I still fail to see how socialized healthcare systems in and of themselves prevent cancer and diabetes..)
My point in posting this ISN'T to cast doubt on the article's study, or to deny that Americans are pretty damn unhealthy (we too often are). It's merely to respond to the people who seem to to place a great deal of their mental energy on the existence of government institutions, and when these institutions are absent blame all ills on their absence.
Europe is better of because of less work
:-)
Japan is better of because of the diet
Let us get it straight: we do not like ourselves
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
While poverty in America is certainly a problem, it's irrelavant to this study. TFA (and even the summary) note that the study results compensate for income, education, age, race and gender. Thus there is some other cause for Americans being sicker than the British.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
.. when you have a pharmaceutical-industrial complex running amok, inventing new problems for their pills to fix, left and right, up and down .. over and over ..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Contractually we can be sacked if we use more sick leave than we have owing to us. In practice, in the past, if we had 120 days and are struck by something serious the company used to try and figure something out. These days that might not be true - watch this space.
As to the taking sickies thing. It used to be that most hourly paid workers took their entire sick pay entitlement every year. That didn't happen so much with office workers. Where I work the average absentee rate across the entire sub-organisation (say 400-600 people) is ~2%, (ie 4 days off a year) which probably compares very well with anywhere except Japan.
Americans are more pushy with doctors than the British. They are less likely to accept a "it will go away by itself" or "there is nothing wrong with you" or "you don't have heart-disease, just take an aspirin" diagnosis from their GP. Also, if there is even the slightest chance of a missed diagnosis, the doctor risks a lawsuit. The patient of the laid back doctor is likely to go to another doctor who WILL eventually find something, anything wrong with the patient's health, and the more laid back doctor loses patients, can't afford the $200,000 a year legal insurance fee and goes out of business.
The stats in the article are for England, not the UK -- the topic header is wrong.
The UK is a union of nations, as the US is a union of states.
This is only a comparison of US vs UK in as much as a comparison of Delaware vs UK is a comparison of US vs UK.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
"Seriously.... is there anything which makes America a preferred place to live?"
Yeah, you don't live here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The fact that we democratically decided that it should be.
The fact that it's basic human decency to help those less fortunate than yourself, particularly those in potentially dire need.
The fact that when a single life is needlessly cut short, the whole society is affected in some way.
Failing all that, simple enlightened self interest. Even if you can afford to pay for your healthcare or insurance now, can you be sure of that in the future? Heaven help you if you fall on hard times, or require treatment that your insurance won't cover.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The average USAn in the same job as me gets into work at 8, has a looong cup of coffee in the canteen, checks ebay, has a long cup of cofee and a doughnut in the canteen, organises where to go out for lunch, goes out for lunch, has another looong cup of coffee in the canteen, and goes home at 430.
I work the same hours, and even if I'm hungover I'm not spending almost two hours a day sitting in the canteen or a restaurant.
And according to an apocryphal study, having a hangover is not detrimental to your performance in the office (well OK, barfing over the keyboard probably is).
Reported illness is a way to get out of work and have more days off in the US. Europeans get many more holidays and days off and therefore don't need to take sick days as vacation days as often as Americans have to.
They probably did not thell you... what you can read over here : http://www.wddty.co.uk/ Don't read the book Lynne Mc Taggart wrote, because your family may fall over you once you decide to skip your kids vaccinations.
Why it's the responsibility of healthy individuals to subsidize your illness?
You get sick, why aren't you solely responsible for paying for it?
- Started walking at least half a mile almost everyday, sometimes more, but not if it's raining.
- Stopped eating butter & drinking full cream milk.
- Gave up the petrol|gasoline habit.
- Started eating a least 1 orange & 1 apple every day.
- Started eating green veges of some sort almost every day.
- Cut back severely on the amount of meat I eat.
- Gave up drinking sugar-laden soft-drinks.
By doing that I have dropped 10 kilos without even trying, and feel so much better. Can't give up coffee though. Tried very hard and felt like death warmed up for three months so started supporting the Central Americans again. It really _is_ addictive, don't start youngsters. I've never smoked and drink only very lightly. A glass or three less often than weekly but more often than monthly.I am fortunate to live in a country with a caring social welfare system, and am very grateful indeed for it. It was when I was taken several hundred miles - at no expense whatsoever to me - by car and 'plane to the specialist hospital for a chest operation that the penny dropped. The point was reinforced when I read about Patrick (Slackware) Volkerding's strange illness and the ghastly tribulations attached. That tale was what made me truly realize how lucky I am. If a tiny country of only 4 million souls can do that, why can't the richest one in the world? It's time for a revolutionary rebellion on that point if nothing else.
I used to get sick at least twice a year especially during the winter with the usual cold/cough/flu. My eating habits were pretty crappy. Last January (2005)I decided to start eating healthy and ate a good balanced breakfast with multivitamin, big healthy salads for lunch (no dressing), and whatever i wanted for dinner (usually rice a and meat of some sort with various sauces). To date I have not gotten sick even once. This was no double blind study but im convinced its because i upped my veggies from once in a blue moon, to every day, and also because I exercise regularly.
Americans are seriously lacking in the eating healthy department. So many of us are obese its not even funny. Go into wallmart or something and just count how many fat people you see.. i mean REALLY fat people. This whole nation needs to be put on a diet and on a treadmill. Being obese increases the risk for so many other health problems, I cant see how anyone can do that to themselves.
Mom, and popeye, and Mr. T was right... eat those greens.
How government fixed the health problem:
http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html
Want a real weapon of mass destruction, look no further than the amazing amounts of junk food sold. the stuff is pure crap. It does nothing to better your health and in fact worsens it in many ways.
the stuff sold in supermarkets/convienence stores makes what fast food resturaunts sell look like health food.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Perhaps people who are poor are less likely to seek medical treatment for minor illness in a country with high taxes and no free health care?
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
enjoy your TWO YEAR WAIT for cataract surgery... hahahahahhaha
"The fact that when a single life is needlessly cut short, the whole society is affected in some way."
While I do not agree that this is necessarily true. The fact is, society is not an entity, but a collection of entities. And, sometimes when the worse of these entities is eliminated many of the remainder are affected positively.
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
This is because we are, literally, working ourselves to death.
... about 3 to 4 times that.
... I'm done with my rant ... for now. I'm going to eat my oatmeal.
Either we have low paying jobs that don't provide us any medical benefits or we have medium to high paying jobs that we work at constantly to maintain and we don't have time to go to the doctors or eat/exercise correctly.
It's a loose - loose battle for us.
In Europe, I believe that the job comes secondary to family and health. They take time to take care of themselves without the fear of not being "one of the team" and giving your job 110%; which I thought was mathematically impossible until I realised that a standard work day SHOULD be 8 hours but they want you to work 9, 10 hours plus (just because they do). We even have MUCH shorter vacation times than do our counterparts in Europe. Most people get, on average, about 2 weeks a year for vacation time. And you can forget about "sick days". I hear that in Europe they get much more than that
Okay
>> I believe health care is a right, not a privilege for the rich, and I'm proud to pay my taxes towards the NHS that provides top notch treatment to EVERYBODY.
Hear Hear! And don't forget food. What good is the right to health care without food? While we're at this, how about a right to guaranteed housing, a good job, and happiness!
I agree with you on the guaranteed food and housing, Mr sarcastic social darwinist. A good job and happiness are things that you can take at your own pace once you know you're not going to die of hunger or exposure.
http://www.dorway.com/symptoms.html
* List of doctor's writings on various illnesses!
* HOW MUCH IS THIS LIST COSTING THE AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD FOR HEALTH INSURANCE?
Now for Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. writings:
Excitotoxins -- The Taste That Kills
Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
Book Review by Reviewed by Lawrence R. Huntoon, MD, PhD
Jamestown, NY Dr. Huntoon, a board-certified neurologist with a Ph.D. in physiology (neurophysiology), practices in Jamestown, New York, and is a member of the AAPS Board of Directors.
http://www.haciendapub.com/excito.html
quote example:
"Dr. Blaylock is in private practice and is a board-certified neurosurgeon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and President of the Mississippi Chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)".
"The blood brain barrier, however, is not fully developed in the very young, and it can be damaged by a variety of brain insults that are common and often asymptomatic in older people. Those with neuro-degenerative conditions or those who are at risk for developing conditions such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's chorea, Alzheimer's disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), may be especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of glutamate and Aspartame (Nutrasweet). Those who have suffered strokes may also be at high risk because of disruption of the blood brain barrier. Various common metabolic conditions including hypoglycemia and hypoxia also place people at risk due to dysfunction of energy --- requiring, protective, cell transport mechanisms.
The damage produced by these excitotoxins seems to selectively involve areas of the brain which have a high density of glutamate receptors. This includes important structures like the hypothalamus and the hippocampus. The former structure is, in turn, involved in the regulation of many important endocrine functions in the body, and the latter structure is intimately involved in memory function. Nerve cells in the substantia nigra (Parkinson's disease) and anterior horn cells in the spinal cord (ALS) are also susceptible to damage via glutamate toxicity".
Excitotoxins, Neurodegeration and Neurodevelopment
by Russell L. Blaylock, M. D.
http://www.dorway.com/blayenn.txt
interesting quote:
"These toxins ( excitotoxins) are not present in just a few foods, but rather in almost all processed foods. In many cases they are being added in disguised forms, such as natural flavoring, spices, yeast extract, textured protein, soy protein extract, etc. Experimentally, we know that when subtoxic levels of excitotoxins are given to animals in divided doses, they experience full toxicity, i.e.they are synergistic. Also, liquid forms of excitotoxins, as occurs in soups, gravies and diet soft drinks are more toxic than that added to solid foods. This is because they are more rapidly absorbed and reach higher blood levels".
"So, what is an excitotoxin? These are substances, usually acidic amino acids, that react with specialized receptors in the brain in such a way as to lead to destruction of certain types of neurons. Glutamate is one of the more commonly known excitotoxins. MSG is the sodium salt of glutamate. This amino acid is a normal neurotransmitter in the brain. In fact, it is the most commonly used neurotransmitter by the brain.
Defenders of MSG and aspartame use, usually say: How could a substance that is used normally by the brain cause harm? This is because, glutamate, as a neurotransmitter, exists in the extracellular fluid only in very, very small concentrations - no more than 8 to 12uM. When the concentration of this transmitter rises above this level the neurons begin to fire abnormally. At higher concentrations, the cells undergo a specialized process of delayed cell death known as excitotoxicity, that is, they are excited to death.
This is America. This is a hedonistic society who's sight is not set on the future and living sustainably. Consumers are bombarded with advertisements to cure the ails that other products cause. It's a wheel and it goes round and round. Corporate America and their ad campaigns win. The little guy loses, mostly because the little guy is too lazy to gain an education and stop consuming those things he need not consume. There are holistic approaches to living life, and these are automatically labelled hippy by Fox News, and the peanut-heads that live and breathe Fox News are so outspoken that no one can refute them. Fox News tells us that the economy is good. And that Fox News is the only media that will tell you that the economy is good. Of course the economy is good to those who have investment capital. What about the little guy? There will eventually be a breaking point, and we will have a paradigm shift, much like the fall of Rome. The consumer machine will break.
Spending Resources on Defense leaves Less to defend.
here's how to fix everything. just pay the doctors and pharmacies less. if they really wanted to help people, they wouldn't mind hte salary drop.
This is true. In my experience, at least 60% of Americans host websites with pornography, of which at least 20% feature donkeys and agile mules.
Considering that the American media have spent the last 30 years belittling Britain's socialized health care program, this is good news indeed.
Apparently laughter really is the best medicine - particularly when it is the last laugh!
There may be laws that require insurance companies to provide group insurance to businesses in your state or offer insurance to otherwise uninsurable people. Colorado, for one, has laws that enable a self-employed person to get group insurance regardless of prior health history-- the only trick is that you can only get it in the month of your birthday. Colorado, for one, also maintains an insurance plan for high risk individuals who prove they can't get individual health insurance.
IANAL, but you might want to look more carefully at your state's insurance regulations before you give up on starting a business.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
You and Hitler would have gotten along quite well.
Seriously, I hope that you just trolling and don't really don't believe what you are saying. People like you with the inability to feel empathy or compassion scare the shit out of me.
So the problem isn't really that there's no public healthcare in the US. The problem is that there's no healthcare that people can afford.
That should be hardly surprising, given that for every little common sickness, you need to visit a highly paid expert controlled by the AMA cartel, and for everything they prescribe you expensive drugs that we didn't even have 50 years ago (and still people didn't die that much younger). Nevermind that drug companies and cartelized doctors have a huge interest to keep the current system which pays them large amounts of money.
I live in Germany where healthcare is pretty much public, but still I don't usually bother to go to the doctor anymore. I'm sick of expensive medicine that only cures symptoms, not the disease.
There used to be affordable healthcare for almost everybody (and the rest could have it, if there was a little welfare or charity), before government "fixed" it with lots of regulations.
About the UK I've only heard horror stories with loooong waiting lines and patients that aren't getting treated, because the centrally planned health economy doesn't really work *that* well. France reportedly also has those waiting lines, and here at home in Germany you're lucky if your doctor's visit takes less than two hours.
And no, I don't mean the subject the way you would think. I am saying Americans are TOO HYGENIC. Or to elaborate:
- Clean your kitchen? Antibacterial soap!
- Slight cough? Penicillin!
- Washing yourself? Every day a shower.
From a CONSUMER point of view it would make sense to try to keep as healthy as possible by eliminating all those evil bacteria. Kill them, use extra-strong cleaning products. Slightly sick? Use penicillin or whatever other 'industrial strenght' medicine.
And america is of course on the very bleeding edge of consumer-driven marketing where each soap is antibacterial by now, cause it sounds sensible.
From a MEDICAL point of view however, this approach is not a good idea. It's all in the way diseases and bacteria propagate. Use some type of 'killer' on a colony of bacteria, they die.. until the time one lucky bacteria accidentally is resistent against the killer.. and that one lives, multiplies, spreads..
With the result that that strain of bacteria can not be killed by simple means anymore. Now if this would only apply to the common cold, then well sure. But you're in trouble when you (accidentally) hit the SERIOUS bacteria, and make those resistent too.
And so on.
The lesson is: 'Only fight what really NEEDS to be fought'
That must be why our groceries are so expensive and inaccessible. Or the total lack of improvement over time in our electronics. Or the constant increase in price in our clothing.
The truth is, there are only two markets in the US that consistently see greater than inflation price increases: medicine and education. Please note both markets are broken by government action. Every other market you care to point to either
a) Has seen declining prices and increasing quality.
b) Involves trade in a finite commodity (think land, even gas goes up and down with the commodity price, which goes up and down with supply and demand).
I'm sorry, Adam Smith's invisible hand works almost everywhere, and frequently when it doesn't, it's failure is because of government, not big business.
The NHS does not provide "top notch treatment to EVRYBODY". The standard is variable throughout the UK depending upon where you live and how generous your PCT is feeling. Apart from those internal differences the overall standard of health care in the UK is much lower than comparable European countries, none of which have a tax funded national health service.
You fall into the same false dichotomy trap that all misguided defenders of the NHS (the largest stalinist organisation in the world) fall into. The choice is not the NHS or the US system. The choice is the NHS or something better. Personally, I'm sick of pouring my taxes into Gordon Browns tax black hole for little return.
The National Health Service is NOT the envy of the world. If it was why is nobody copying it?
No but, yeah but, no but...
Oddly enough, up to good job, I was nodding my head in agreement. Eliminate the qualifier "good" and I pretty much agree with your sentiment. If happiness could be guaranteed, I'd be for that, too.
This is the reason why I believe in a limited federal government. People like me can have our "commie welfare state" in, say, Massachusetts, and you can have your "if you can't pay, you deserve to die" state in Texas. This way we will both be happy rather than one of us forcing the other to live by his desires.
Suggestions? Examples?
There's no system we could replace it with that would still provide care to people who can't afford to pay huge medical bills. Or would you like that?
Perhaps removing all the pointless, non-medical middle managers and getting rid of the PCTs (thanks Maggie) system, running it less like a business and more like a health system would help somewhat?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
"The American way of life is non-negotiable" said Dick Cheney. He should know he's already had four heart attacks.
Aspirin doesn't seem to have the same effect on people in England. If you haven't read Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, I highly suggest you do. It talks about how strong the mind is in regards to personal health and getting sick. From the book:
"The placebo effect may also be affecting is in far vaster ways then we realize, as is evidenced by a recent and extremely puzzling medical mystery. If you have watched any television at all in the last year or so, you have no doubt seen a blitzkreig of commercials promoting aspirin's ability to decrease the risk of heart attack. There is a good deal of convincing evidence to back this up, otherwise television censors, who are real sticklers for accuracy when it comes to medical claims in commercials, wouldn't allow such copy on the air. This is all well and good. The only problem is that aspirin doesn't seem to have the same affect on people in England. A six-year study of 5,139 British doctors revealed no evidence that aspirin reduces the risk of heart attack... Whatever the case, don't stop believing in the prophylactic benefits of aspirin. It still may save your life."
I'm not sure what this says directly about Americans, but using this data it seems very apparent to me how powerful beliefs can be when it comes to affecting personal health. Whether it be commericals showing us people sneezing and coughing because of allergy season, or someone not getting enough sleep, the mind can be very powerful in convincing the body it needs these medicines in order to get better.
I highly suggest anyone read more about the powerful effects of placebos. That will change your ideas about getting sick.
I gotta have more cowbell.
People might suffer more chronic illnesses in the U.S than the U.K but when you look at survival rates for cancer and other serious diseases, the U.S does much better than the U.K. Also many people live with chronic ailments that would have killed them much earlier without quick access to things like heart bypass surgery and transplants that we receive in the U.S.
Probably the best study I've found debunking the "utopia" of nationalized health care: 12 Popular Myths About National Health Insurance.
"You typically don't see packs of monkeys chasing down a water buffalo and tearing out its throat."
Actually I've seen packs of chimpanzees chase down monkeys, tear them apart and eat them damned near still alive. Chimps like us are omnivores, they eat meat if they can get it. That isn't to say that meat with every meal is healthy.
Deleted
We've developed a sedentary, couch-potato lifestyle. We eat fast food, restaurant food, junk food, food full of all kinds of preservatives. We eat foods that are significantly different from the foods our individual ancestors ate. We spend hours in our cars commuting. We work 50-60 hours a week and carry our pagers/pda's/notebooks on the few vacations we take. Our retirement funds are failing, businesses are off-shoring our work , etc...
Not only is there no mystery, its suprising that the suicide rate hasn't risen.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
noop
McDonalds, McDonalds, KFC and the Pizza Hut
It's a song they sing in Europe whenever Americans are around.... Guess now I know why....even comes with some interesting hand poses (not obscene).
What? You never heard of the Pubic Broadcasting Service?
Many of the things that have already been commented on which I agree:
Overweight;
Lack of sleep;
Not enough exercise (maybe related to using cars, maybe not).
However, perhaps there is something else at play that is not related in TFA. Perhaps many Americans studied have private insurance coverage? How would access to a private doctor (vs. more socialized systems such as those in Canada and much of Europe/the UK) alter how one feels about going to the doctor? Are people more likely to go to the doctor if it is cheap to do and is almost on-demand (vs. waiting longer periods of time before one "gets seen")?
A Passionate Independent Musician
It's:
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The NHS is a complete disgrace. If you ever had to use it you might know this. It is almost impossible to get a referral out of any doctor nowadays. It is just as difficult to get a dentist. Should you get sent to hospital, chances are you will be misdiagnosed and there's also a high probability you will catch MRSA.
The situation in the US is partly due to the incredibly unhealthy food there though. Gluttony of the most ridiculous extremes, everything contains masses of sugar and/or chemicals and virtually no nutrients.
kin242.net
First off, I agree that the "health care provider/health insurance company" game is rigged to the point that if you're not in the insurance system, you're boned. I.e., you cannot save the money you and your company are spending on insurance costs and use that to pay for medical costs because the billed costs are hyperinflated beyond all belief. (The insurance companies "negoatiate" the costs back down to saner levels, something you aren't likely to do, alone.)
That said, bullcrap! Canada's health "care" system is so overburdened and inefficient that it takes months, MONTHS to get to a dentist for a painful tooth problem. Contrast that to my experience in the USA when I had a stupid tooth-colored filling pop out of one of my teeth (not in pain, mind you, just anxious to get it fixed), and I was in the dentists' office in three days! They even offered to do it the next day, except I told them it wasn't an emergency (no pain).
A Navy friend of mine ripped his Achilles tendon, and a civilian UK co-worker of his happened to have the same thing happen to him at roughly the same time. Admittedly, the Navy guy got fixed up courtesy of the USN, but his co-worker wasn't able to see a doc for weeks... enough time for the leg to heal improperly, making him a gimp for life.
Keep your stinkin' broken socialistic health "care" system out of my USA!
(BTW, I am by no means "super rich".)
>I know that psychiatrists and psychologists in the US are very quick to diagnose and
> prescribe drugs
Unless they are in New Mexico, Louisiana or Guam, psychologists do not have the training or legal authority to prescribe drugs. As well, the training programs for psychologist prescribing in New Mexico and Louisiana are controversial, just starting and to my knowledge haven't graduated anyone. Psychologists are not medical doctors. Psychiatrists are medical doctors. Psychologists have much more training in psychotherapy and psychological testing and have much more training in psychopharmacology than in psychotherapy and testing. Frequently psychologists will refer patients to a psychiatrist for medications. Frequently psychiatrists will refer patients to a psychologist for psychotherapy.
-- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
"Only non-Hispanic whites were included in the study to eliminate the influence of racial disparities." What about the UK? Did they only include Whites? The UK is far from an all-white population.
Tea has much better health benefits than coffee (and in fact even helped keep illnesses down in grime filled cities in the Industrial Revolution). So Americans drink more coffee to keep them awake so they can work longer hours hence getting more stressed and more ill.
Betcha don't feel so clever about the Boston Tea Party now!!!
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
"The fact that we democratically decided that it should be."
Then it's not a right. Right's aren't granted by government, they are inherent.
"The fact that it's basic human decency to help those less fortunate than yourself, particularly those in potentially dire need."
It is illegal to turn away people in "dire need" from emergency rooms in the US. It has been that way for some time, and the law is adhered to very strictly.
"The fact that when a single life is needlessly cut short, the whole society is affected in some way."
What does that have to do with the discussion? This particular comment is topical how?
"Failing all that, simple enlightened self interest. Even if you can afford to pay for your healthcare or insurance now, can you be sure of that in the future?"
I can. I planned. Explain why others who don't plan, or aren't as diligent about dealing with their future should be allowed to use taxes as a way of mitigating that?
"Heaven help you if you fall on hard times, or require treatment that your insurance won't cover."
This argument applies to cars, homes, businesses, and any other thing that is a significant cost and could be insured.
So, you didn't make a single worthwhile argument in your entire post.
All you did was play to emotion.
>Psychologists have much more training in psychotherapy and psychological testing and have
>much more training in psychopharmacology than in psychotherapy and testing.
Should read:
Psychologists usually but not always have much more training in psychotherapy and psychological testing than Psychiatrists. Psychiatrists usually have much more training in psychopharmacology than in psychotherapy and testing.
-- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
Kids should really be made to be more active. Just as they may fail if they dont exercise their brain, they should fail, and not be allowed to move on to the next grade if they dont participate well in PE... PE should also be at least 3 times a week.
The way it is now (at least at my old hs) as long as you show up you get credit... what a load of crap. It makes it even worse for people who actually do want to play games cause your team is interlaced with people who just dont give a shit. One time we were playing volleyball and this girl just stood there and watch the ball fall literally a foot in front of her as she played with her hair... I would have failed that bitch on the spot.
Only 7% of cataract patients wait > 6 months. See this study in the BMJ, table 1.
"Despite widespread political and media attention little empirical evidence exists on the distribution of waiting and prolonged waiting in England. In most instances substantial numbers of patients waiting longer than six months in the main surgical specialties are restricted to a relatively small proportion of hospitals."
In other words, you'd be pretty unlucky to get a 2 year wait. And right now, there are no patients waiting more than 12 months. Zero. None. Nada.
Even before the waiting lists were cleared up a bit recently, the problem was overblown by the press. They pick up on individual anecdotes of long waiting times which were newsworthy *because* they are unusual, but constantly parading these cases gave the impression that long waiting periods were normal.
We lag in the lifespan department, there, chum. You are evidently not reading something correctly. We just caught up with India on lifespan not too long ago. Try again.
My book, podcast
For instance, the drinking water in most parts of the US are undrinkable, and contains various metals.
I don't know where you heard this, but I have never heard of a water system in the US that produced unpotable water. Just about the only metal you will find in water in some places is iron, which while making it taste not so hot, isn't dangerous at all. And that's only to be found if you are far from any urban area.
Isn't it possible the health differences may be food related, and that even the rather greasy English cuisine, if you could call it that, is better than the American junk culture of pizza, McDonald's and KFC? Not much bettter, perhaps, but on the whole less fatty, sugary and salty? It would be interesting to see a comparison with data from France, Spain and Italy. French and Mediterranean food is regarded as the healthiest in the world.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
americans work more and are richer too. I think asia (HK, singapore, japan etc etc) have a similar or even more intensive work culture. There is a reason why some countires are on top and others are stagnating.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
You could argue that this was emergency care, so that there counldn't be any delays. I had another daugher that needed tubes in her ears. We did have a wait of a couple of months, but this was largely because the probem started before we were in England, so getting the doctors to get the notes of the previous (French) doctors took a while. In short, I was quite pleased with the health care that I recieved in the UK. The really good health care was in France, but that is another story. So, go ahead and repete the stories about long waits. Just don't think that your apocrophal accounts will sway the minds of people with first hand experience.
Think global, act loco
Leave me alone! I'm trying to screw my sister...
Is that sick enough for you?
While I do not agree that this is necessarily true. The fact is, society is not an entity, but a collection of entities. And, sometimes when the worse of these entities is eliminated many of the remainder are affected positively.
Let's begin with you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
www dot dorway dot com/symptoms dot html
* 6 page list of doctor's writings on various illnesses caused by Excitotoxins!
* HOW MUCH IS THIS LIST COSTING THE AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD FOR HEALTH INSURANCE?
Now for Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. writings:
Excitotoxins -- The Taste That Kills
Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
Book Review by Reviewed by Lawrence R. Huntoon, MD, PhD
Jamestown, NY Dr. Huntoon, a board-certified neurologist with a Ph.D. in physiology (neurophysiology), practices in Jamestown, New York, and is a member of the AAPS Board of Directors.
www dot haciendapub dot com/excito dot html
quote example:
"Dr. Blaylock is in private practice and is a board-certified neurosurgeon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and President of the Mississippi Chapter of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)".
"The blood brain barrier, however, is not fully developed in the very young, and it can be damaged by a variety of brain insults that are common and often asymptomatic in older people. Those with neuro-degenerative conditions or those who are at risk for developing conditions such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's chorea, Alzheimer's disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), may be especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of glutamate and Aspartame (Nutrasweet). Those who have suffered strokes may also be at high risk because of disruption of the blood brain barrier. Various common metabolic conditions including hypoglycemia and hypoxia also place people at risk due to dysfunction of energy --- requiring, protective, cell transport mechanisms.
The damage produced by these excitotoxins seems to selectively involve areas of the brain which have a high density of glutamate receptors. This includes important structures like the hypothalamus and the hippocampus. The former structure is, in turn, involved in the regulation of many important endocrine functions in the body, and the latter structure is intimately involved in memory function. Nerve cells in the substantia nigra (Parkinson's disease) and anterior horn cells in the spinal cord (ALS) are also susceptible to damage via glutamate toxicity".
Excitotoxins, Neurodegeration and Neurodevelopment
by Russell L. Blaylock, M. D.
www dot dorway dot com/blayenn dot txt
interesting quote:
"These toxins ( excitotoxins) are not present in just a few foods, but rather in almost all processed foods. In many cases they are being added in disguised forms, such as natural flavoring, spices, yeast extract, textured protein, soy protein extract, etc. Experimentally, we know that when subtoxic levels of excitotoxins are given to animals in divided doses, they experience full toxicity, i.e.they are synergistic. Also, liquid forms of excitotoxins, as occurs in soups, gravies and diet soft drinks are more toxic than that added to solid foods. This is because they are more rapidly absorbed and reach higher blood levels".
"So, what is an excitotoxin? These are substances, usually acidic amino acids, that react with specialized receptors in the brain in such a way as to lead to destruction of certain types of neurons. Glutamate is one of the more commonly known excitotoxins. MSG is the sodium salt of glutamate. This amino acid is a normal neurotransmitter in the brain. In fact, it is the most commonly used neurotransmitter by the brain.
Defenders of MSG and aspartame use, usually say: How could a substance that is used normally by the brain cause harm? This is because, glutamate, as a neurotransmitter, exists in the extracellular fluid only in very, very small concentrations - no more than 8 to 12uM. When the concentration of this transmitter rises above this level the neurons begin to fire abnormally. At higher concentrations, the cells undergo a specialized process of delayed cell death known as excitotoxicity, that is, they are excited to death.
"I just know that without the NHS I'd would have died of that ear infection I had when I was 7"
In the US you would have gone to the emergency room. While I can gather from your post that you are ignorant of how that works, they can't turn you away. They aren't allowed to.
Cia world factbook puts the US at little less than a year shorter lifespan then britain, and nearly ten years longer lifespan then india
I've tended to work quite a bit over the past 10 years (even during two non-consecutive years working regular 60- to 70-hour work weeks without missing any days). I am almost never ill -- I've had one or two colds, and I got a very mild case of the flu about five years ago.
I agree that the stress of it all is taking a toll, but it's not the long hours, nor the unpaid overtime, nor the paucity of holidays -- it's the stress. The stress, anxiety, and depression are causing unnecessary strain on our bodies and minds and fostering the root causes of illness (not causing illnesses themselves, but creating conditions of susceptibility).
Studies (see excerpt from an abstract below) have shown such trends as well:
The problem isn't the long hours, nor the work schedule. It's definitely not the "burden of health care falling on individuals" (I, for one, am very glad it falls to us -- even though, by the way, I currently do not have health insurance because it is too expensive... but I don't want public health care to cover me for a wide variety of practical and principled reasons).
No, the problem is stress. Psychological stress, emotional stress, ... these require both a stimulus and a permission: when something happens "I'm getting laid off from work next week" there is an impetus to become stressed (a strain on the emotions or mind). But these are also a choice. With practice and with grace, one can choose not to worry, but to anticipate the future without worry.
The thing is, we have far fewer things to worry about than most people in the world (take Chad or N. Korea for examples of extremes, or just India for a middle-of-the-road example). Reducing causes of stress never reduces causes of stress -- people will just get stressed about smaller and smaller things unless the root is taken care of. As a post above pointed out, Japan has a similar work schedule and similar health care, but not the similar issues with health.
I'm a natural Tory, but I'm very much an advocate of the NHS and state-funded education - including university (although I believe in selection according to academic aptitude). Insurance schemes work best when they are paid for by and available to as wide and diverse a group of people as possible, the NHS is a brilliant case-in-point.
That was classic intercourse!
Happiness=money=buy more crap. America is so fixated on social climbing through salary that it's... sickening, really.
I'd bet that more Americans do social climbing through debt than salary. Conveniently, debt is more stress-inducing.
Americans burn the candle at both ends far too much, and don't get nearly enough sleep. One of the biggest contributors to all kinds of illness, disease, and the ability to properly recover from both is the lack of sleep.
...because you never know who you're dealing with.
This is the same reason Japan has the highest life expectancy in the world.
There are mountains of empirical evidence showing tea reduces risk of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer. Even the mechanisms are now fairly well-understood.
Anyone who has the least bit of concern for their health should either be drinking tea, taking a green tea supplement, or both.
This analogy is (IMHO) the #1 reason why healthcare should be public. Doctors should not be on a commission.
The great thing about this discussion is that there's no stereotyping nor unsubstantiated claims of fact going on here.
And don't forget food. What good is the right to health care without food? While we're at this, how about a right to guaranteed housing, a good job, and happiness!
Why should only the rich be allowed to have sex with supermodels? I believe that each supermodel should pay a tax in the form of letting some slobbering geek (like me) paw them for a while.
Oh, and here's the kicker - lack of sleep causes people to eat more. Can you say "really really nasty positive feedback loop a.k.a. vicious circle" ?
(1) Obesity -> Sleep Apnea -> Lack of restful sleep -> increased food intake -> (1)
Repeat until heart attack or fatal road accident after falling asleep behind the steering wheel.
If you're not sick, you wouldn't NEED more health care, and you were, you would. So of course the U.S. spends more: because Americans are more sick! We shouldn't expect that spending money to treat sickness would prevent us from becoming sick in the first place.
Also, are they being diagnosed the same way? Based on what I hear from Londoners and their disgust with NHS (to the point some of them come here for treatment because NHS refuses to believe they have a chronic disease or puts them on a six-month waiting list), I suspect not.
But more than anything, I go back to the prevalence of tea drinking. It explains a lot, especially when you take Japan into account.
In America you can be seen quickly as long as you're willing to pay. Fine if you can afford it or if your employer gives you health insurance, but if not you're screwed.
O RLY
No, I'm not talking pollution and such.
The UK has a generally cooler temperature than a large portion of the US. Typically bacteria and viruses like to be at around body temperature, which is a rather warm 98.6F/37C. If I remember correctly, London has a record high of 96F. London is forcasted to reach a high of 21C/70F today, where I live is slated to be 79F. The hot, humid weather of the American southeast is much more condusive to diseases than any place in England.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
I've maybe been through ten various NHS proceedures / departments over the years. In only one case can I fault the treatment and/or level of care, and that was only because the ingrown toenail (full on surgery, was a bad one) which managed to retain some root and grow back. Even the nurses that came to my house to change the dressings were great, considering I was a whining teenager in pain.
Bitching about the NHS just seems to be the thing to do these days. From your experience, it sounds as though you've maybe been in and out hospital way more times than someone might choose to be. Without knowing more detail, I can't say whether or not you genuinely have been treated badly, or are perhaps just a little pissed off with the whole healthcare thing and are transfering those feelings onto the NHS.
Please don't take this as an insult or anything, but how do you treat people yourself? The phrase you used "The incompetence of our NHS, the apathy of their "professionals" and utterly abysmal levels of customer service" suggests to me that you yourself don't treat the staff very well. At the very least, you have no respect for them. What I'm trying to say here (without pissing you off) is that perhaps your own attitude might be part of the problem. I know that if I were a doctor or a nurse and had a patient that used quotations around the word professional when refering to my colleagues, that patient would get the minimum required treatment, while other, more deserving, patients get my help. Stands to reason.
Europe has much better environmental and consumer protection laws and regulations than the US.
Consumer protection is especially stringent in the area of food.
Thus, in Europe, substances whose long-term effects are now well known are usually forbidden in the food chain.
These kind of regulations affect not only processed food but also things like how farm animals destined for human consumption or which make food products such as eggs or milk are bred.
Thus for example, use of growth hormones in cattle is forbiden and the kinds and amounts of additives that can be added to processed food are highly regulated.
Similarly, environmental regulations are stricter in Europe, and things like car emissions are very thightly controlled all across Europe.
My personal pet theory is that this kind of regulations in Europe has decreased the incidence of the health problems related with long term exposure to chemicals which, unknowingly to the science community, cause those health problems which, such as cancer, are very difficult to track back to their source.
In other words, food and air around here are less likelly to make us sick in the long term.
I reckon that this is another important factor in explaining the difference in health between Americans and British.
there are good managers and bad managers and the ratio of one to the other is about the same as the ratio of good programmers to bad ones.
That view is totally false, and results from the basic difference in subject matters.
The programmer's job is largely objective and structural, and hence programmer quality is largely measureable. Not perfectly of course, but largely. So it's easy to determine with confidence whether a programmer is good or bad.
In contrast, management entirely lacks that level of measureability. At best, partially-consequent outcomes (like company profits say) can be measured, but they do not tie back in any specific way to individual actions of individual managers. As a result, management quality is purely self-assessed, and what's more, that assessment is inevitably done either by other managers or by themselves. Small wonder then that it's a sham.
The parent was right. Management is, by and large, utter crap and a complete waste of space, and I mean everywhere.
As a long-standing freelancer I've had many decades in which to observe management (and techies) in their respective roles, and that experience leaves no room for doubt. With an exception rate of far less than 1%, managers (in the UK) are entirely clueless, useless, pointless, worthless, and harmful to the success of their enterprise. This even applies to managers who were once techies, and thus you'd think would know what works and what doesn't. It seems they forget, except for that magic 1% exception.
Techies in contrast have less than a 5% "total waste of space" rate, not 99% like management. Most have something to offer, even the dumbest ones, and easily 50% of them qualify as "fairly useful" although that rate seems to be dropping in recent years. And expert-level techies are commonly in double figures (maybe 15%) across the board in technology. Hell, even guru-level ones are fairly common, maybe 3%.
So you're completely wrong. Management is in a class by itself, as utter crap.
Isn't that what welfare / the dole are for? Granted, I think we don't have food stamps here, but what you've said essentially exists in both countries.
What would make a difference would be access to healthy food (not even paid for, just access). Right now, in both countries, being poor meaning eating badly. Healthy food is generally more expensive than junk.
Well, alot of American's do anyway. Sometimes punctuated by pizza and beer. Exersize? Right. So is this really a suprise?
I refuse to allow such "food" into my home. Well, beer every now and again. It really appalls me when I look at the diet of many of my fellow Americans. I am by no means a strident vegan, and I generally keep my views about diet to myself - however I do note that I am in shape, rarely sick, and according to my doctor in great health. I just maintain a healthy and varied diet of lean meats and veggies. I eat one portion per meal, no seconds. No snacks after 8 PM. Work out three times a week. That is it.
I find that my wife and I are exceptional this way.
As has probably been noted - Europeans walk much more - to the train, to work, to the store. Americans drive. I don't know of their diet is better over there - they certainly have alot of the same junk foods on the shelves in London. Maybe they just eat two or three Oreos at a sitting rather than quaffing the hole damn package.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I'm sorry but a private medical care system will never be effective. Why? Because sick people don't really have choices. Let's say that tomorrow everybody had exactly what you described. You, as a healthy consumer shop around for insurance and get amazing rates because you're healthy. Now, a few years later, you get sick. Your insurance company doesn't want you anymore because you're costing them way more than you're bringing in. So they up your premiums, or drop you all together.
There is no such thing as competition for the insurance dollars of the sick and that's why private health care will never be effective. Universal single payer health care is the best option because:
1) It provides a large pool of people paying into the system, thus making sure sick people get covered but that healthy people don't pay too much
2) It makes everybody overall healthier because poor people can get treatment for communicable diseases quickly rather than avoiding a doctor and spreading it to everybody
3) It's a national security benefit, see also, #2 plus the communicable disease being something suitable horrible like weaponized ebola (doesn't exist so far as I know, but theoretically it'd be bad)
4) It reduces the waste that's a fundamental part of private health care. That is, eliminating profits and the need to pay lots of people to try to weasel out of paying your bill. A publically heald insurance company was recently getting grief for paying out 80% of it's intake because it wasn't profitable enough. 80% efficient and it's getting grief for it.
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Water Flouridation. The biggest conspiracy of all time.
Please explain to me how the NHS has anything to do with the policies of Stalin. I am genuinely interested in whether a) you have some interesting political insight, or b) are just another person who thinks socialism / stalinism and communinism are essentially the same thing.
Hear, hear. European public health care systems not only cover people comprehensively, they do so very efficiently as well -- check out Finland/Sweden for example, which have VERY efficient health care systems by purely bang for euro measures (although some specific improvements can of course always be made).
This of course doesn't stop our ideologically-driven, reality- and ethics-challenged Conservatives from trying to destroy the system by first creating bogeymen about it "being inefficient", then trying to starve it, and when it doesn't run on thin air it needs to be taken down because it's not delivering -- the typical "drown it in the bathtub" strategy.
To add insult to injury, while in opposition, they willingly support motions of no confidence teamed up with a left-fringe party that criticizes the lack of nurses in old people's homes -- a mostly funding issue at its core, and which would be the LAST thing they'd be interested in, should they be in power.
A comprehensive health-care system can be made efficient simply because of economies of scale, and because good care standards are, in my opinion, quite easy to agree upon. You may not get the bells and whistles if you are pragmatic, but the outcome of treatment on a person is objectively measurable so the argument on "choice" in care essentially boils down to one axis, saying that some people need to get better care than others, according to ability to pay.
The reason why American-style costs so much is, IMO, two-fold. In health-care the market is skewed because first of all, at extreme, it can be a choice between dying and getting care, so it's a seller's market (unless buyers organize in a big buying force such as a public non-drug-company-aligned health-care provider). Second, exposing one's health to competitive pressure encourages ignoring preventive care and thinking in the short term, making it ever more likely that when issues do become crippling enough to require intervetion, they are advanced and need expensive treatment. An example of this is diabetes, which is easily treatable by insulin, but can result in amputations othewise.
I tend to see health-care as a societal infrastructure issue like roads and utilities that can and should be planned for the long term, produced in bulk and managed objectively and transparently, as this just simply is a very efficient way of providing a good that nearly all people need during their lives and removes a lot of the shit from life that prematurely and unneccessarily destroys people and keeps them from doing more productive things than being sick and struggling with the consequences.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Actually, a vegetarian diet combined with eating fish is probaly the best route to go. Eating lots of sushi and non-deepfried sea food will usually cover this. It is why people in Iceland, Norway, and Japan are so healthy... The massive amounts of fish in their diet.
Eating cow, pig, and chicken is tasty but the amount of fats, hormones, and various anti-biotics (plus bad feeding practices) tend to make mass farmed animals unhealthy to constantly eat.
If you do want the occasional steak, you should really put up the extra money and buy organic or range raised. You know... The ones that aren't fed other cows and live on open ranges and they can eat grass and not be in unsanitary farm factories.
Heck... They even taste better.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Geez, so don't go to the fast food joints. You're totally into hyperboleland here. There's millions of nice little restaurants in the US. Where the hell did you visit? TacoBell City?
The health insurance industry is a parasite the purpose of which is to interfere with your patient-doctor relationship and to deny your treatment.
Oh yes, no doubt that millions of people invest their money in companies that are formed specifically to deny people health care treatments. There is this enormous camp of people out there that find it essential to make sure that patients receive no care. Good for you, finally exposing that fact! I'll be curious, though, if you'll let us know when you post anything like actual evidence that the countless people that fund and work for health coverage providers are doing so expressly to make sure that people don't get health care. It's amazing that so many people have been able to keep that conspiracy so quiet until you came along.
Hmmm. Or maybe you're lying, mischaracterizing the entire situation, know it, and are hoping that making emotionally charged, irrational Moore-like rants will rhetorically resonate with at least a couple of other reason-challenged readers.
The debate isn't about insurance companies actively trying to prevent people from getting health care. It's about striking a balance in how the money they pay out (which they collect from their own customers, under circumstances dictated by both the millions of people that invest in the ownership of the companies and an incredibly vast body of government regulation) does or does not land on the spectrum of people that pay the money in.
I pay a fair amount for coverage. I can see my doctor any time I want, have never felt that relationship to be in any way limited, and can get referals to specialists if needed. The amount my wife and I consume (in terms of health care dollars) is a pale shadow of the amount we spend (in payroll deduction premiums). That money is being redistributed among the larger group of my co-workers, and if I don't like that miniature little bit of socialized medicine, I can opt out of it, or get a different paycheck. It's risk management, and I'm willing to forgo an additional $150 a month for a plan that removes the risk that I'll have limited choices in my healthcare. If I want to save that $150, I'll still get the care, but it will be under a more generic plan... but in no way will I be without health care if I actually get sick... I'll just be $1800 ahead at the end of the year, and could consider investing that money towards future, age-related medical expenses (instead of telling YOU that you have to pay for me).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"The NHS is a complete disgrace. If you ever had to use it you might know this. It is almost impossible to get a referral out of any doctor nowadays. It is just as difficult to get a dentist. Should you get sent to hospital, chances are you will be misdiagnosed and there's also a high probability you will catch MRSA."
That really is nonsense. Impossible to get a referral - what? My GP gave me a wide choice. I have an NHS dentist. I've been hospitalised six times in the last 4 years and have never been infected with MRSA. In fact, the NHS is no worse than any other large organisation when it comes to administrative inefficiency or general incompetence.
Where I do agree with you is on American food, it is quite abominable, and most products are barely more than GM soya by-products and corn syrup held together with hydrogenated palm oil.
That was classic intercourse!
However, Britain's universal health-care system shouldn't get credit for better health, Marmot and Blendon agreed.
Both said it might explain better health for low-income citizens, but can't account for better health of Britain's more affluent residents.
Marmot cautioned against looking for explanations in the two countries' health-care systems.
"It's not just how we treat people when they get ill, but why they get ill in the first place," Marmot said.
Seriously, why compare with the UK? The UK is one of the countries in Europe with the worst food, least exercise etc. Id like to see the US compared to countries like Spain, Norway or France. Those differences would even be bigger.
:)
Ps: love the title
Why, that's the TLC you give your girlfriend's "evergreen shrub" in that strategic area...
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
What your mind becomes is a result of social environment, experiences and introspection. Barring serious deficiencies in your diet, food does NOT enter the equation.
Plus, I will echo another poster in saying: if you need pills to supplement your vegan lifestyle, it is NOT healthy or natural.
And i enjoy the occasionnal bloody steak and I am fully equipped to ingest it.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Yeah, but the people who empty your bins would all be dead. Here's a shovel and a plot of land, start burying!
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Yes, the above poster has the right answer. Longer work hours might play a role, but the real factor is the difference in environmental laws. For example, our FDA sees no problem in US food producers putting drugs in our food.
Take dairy alone: Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) is injected into most US cattle. It's been repeatedly stated here that there's no scientific study showing this hormone affects the humans that eat it; but a little more digging reveals that's because scientists view such a study as silly, as it seems almost impossible to anyone in the field that it would not affect the human consumer. So the same drug meant to fatten and tenderize our cows is tenderizing us. That can't be healthy. rBGH is banned throughout Europe.
The way livestock are raised here makes them prone to disease (sound familiar?) so antibiotics are fed to them as a daily supplement. These antibiotics inevitably remain when we then consume them. Further, this daily regimen ensures that any bacteria surviving in that beef are immune to those same antibiotics, reducing our ability to cure ourselves with medicine when we actually get sick.
The list of differences in our food and water laws between the US and Europe goes on and on. US firms consistently state a long list of risk factors are safe, yet in Europe these things are banned and surprise! Europeans are healthier. Could it be these obvious risks are what they are?
The comparitive study was done between the White populations of both countries. Perhaps most of the posters here are white, but as a person of color I am a little dismayed at the lack of reflection on ht enon-white populations.
Suggest you re-read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations; oligopolies, monopolies and cartels are as much an outcome of the market system as are competetive markets - Smith boy even warned against them and thought very poorly of them.
I stopped eating man-made food on in January, when I weighed 215 pounds. I now weigh 185 pounds, and feel like I'm 35 instead off 75 (I'm actually 45). The relentless drive of market forces has caused food manufactures to squeeze every last penny out of their operations - replacing "real" ingredients with chemicals for cost reasons as they go.
You're not eating what you ate 20 years ago - that's no longer available. And that's why America is getting fatter and sicker faster than any other nation.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
With the socialized medicine in the UK, they're all afraid of getting sick.
The truth is, there are only two markets in the US that consistently see greater than inflation price increases: medicine and education. Please note both markets are broken by government action.
The US government-run health care institutions and programs are the most efficient in the nation, handily beating private health care systems in terms of cost, overhead, and at least equalling it in quality. And I believe if you looked into it, you'd find the same for education. Both health care and education have been broken by the market.
I'm sorry, Adam Smith's invisible hand works almost everywhere, and frequently when it doesn't, it's failure is because of government, not big business
Adam Smith's invisible hand has a long list of preconditions to work, preconditions on the numbers and sizes of competitors, on information available to competitors and buyers, on the kinds of goods being exchanged, etc. Claiming that it "works almost everywhere" is just completely wrong and demonstrates an utter unfamiliarity with economic principles.
For health care and education, several of the preconditions are violated and therefore a free market approach doesn't work; the current failures of the US health care and educational system are a direct consequence of that (however, aspects of both health care and education can be left to the market--it just requires careful planning and design).
The free market works wonderfully when its preconditions are satisfied. It's the purpose of our government to ensure that free markets exist in as many goods and services as possible. It is also the purpose of our government to ensure that the small subset of goods and services the free market cannot supply efficiently are provided in some other way.
People like you, who have an irrational and factually wrong belief in the universal applicability of free market economics are at the source of a lot of our economic ills. It's adding insult to injury that after wrecking our health care and educational systems, you then turn around and blame the government for the mess you made through deregulation and privatization.
"If she gets cancer again she is on her own. This is wrong!"
Why? Why is it wrong that a person dies from a disease?
What's wrong is people like yourself who continually insist that others bear the burden for her. People get sick. They die. There is not an inherent right to have your illnesses cured because they are heartbreaking.
So justify it. And do so without emotionally charged arguments, because we all know it is a terrible thing when a loved one gets cancer. That fact has nothing whatsoever to do with forcing me to pay for her care.
Giving the working population cash (and letting them decide whether to put it into health insurance or not) only works if we as a society are prepared to let people regularly die or be permanently maimed by treatable conditions like cavities or broken arms or pneumonia. As long as there is the emergency care "safety net" paid for by society -- and, honestly, there always will be because emergency workers can't be the insurance police, checking if you have enough cash or insurance before treating you -- then people have insufficient motivation to buy sufficient insurance for uncommon but expensive treatment.
In a simple but extreme example, economically it doesn't make sense for me to set aside enough cash to save myself if I get into a bad car accident or my house burns with me in it. I could never afford it and anyway, I don't have to -- emergency care will be provided regardless. Another poster noted that Americans seem to have too much respect for human life to let me die at the emergency room door.
Less obvious but, I suspect, also true: there is insufficient economic motivation to invest in preventive care. Getting a regular checkup and a prescription for $100 might avoid a $1000 emergency room visit, but that $100 pays for a lot of food and clothing and shelter that are clearly needed today, and society isn't willing to let me die at the door of the emergency room anyway, so my motivation to pay the $100 now isn't enough, and I end up costing everyone 10 times more.
Relying on that emergency system is not an efficient way to pay for health care, but as long as that system is in place, just giving workers cash means people _will_ rely on it. There are just a lot more obvious needs for that cash in many people's lives. Preventive care that might avoid the emergency room visit, and insurance to cover that visit if it happens, definitely look like luxuries in a lot of budgets.
Having employers automatically enroll employees in a health care plan takes many workers out of this wildly inefficient emergency care system and puts them into the slightly less inefficient semi-privatized insurance system. Also really not a great system for the reasons you mentioned, among others. Time to consider alternatives like a national single-payer system.
-Scot
101010, 222, 52,
Rubbish - we'd just import cheap labour from elsewhere in the world to take their place. Morality aside there is basically no limit to supply of unskilled labour. Admittedly there's a long lead time for each unit but producing them requires no skill and no capital. Compare that to the manufacture of industrial robots which requires large amounts of expensive material, a hugely expensive production centre and a relatively rare skillset.
You are right.
I work in long-term healthcare (retirement homes), and the incentive is to diagnose as soon as possible. We get paid by the ailments, with the more serious problems paying more money. If you come in with no problems, you mean less money for us, which is a bad thing for the bottom line.
Yes, this is seriously fucked up. In any system which has low margins, and there is predictable government payout, you will have a fucked up situation. We make more money when you are in more pain.
My advise is to start saving your money right now, so that when the time comes you can stay away from spending the last years of your life in a government-funded institution.
The main problem with your pollution data is that it does not concern itself with concentration.
You see, the USA is a big place. In a manner of speaking, it can absorb a greater amount of pollution before becoming polluted.
The UK is roughly 1/40th the size of the USA. So, if the UK puts out 1/40th the pollution as the US, then they can be thought of as being equally polluted.
I think this simple fact explains most of the contrary views between much of Europe's view on pollution and much of the USA's view on pollution - a little goes a long way in the high-population density parts of the world.
Still, it is a funny picture. It is also funny to see businesses housed in distinctive buildings - I've seen sushi places in what obviously used to be an IHOP and other restaurants in ex-Wienerschnitzel buildings. I haven't seen any of those fried-check "barn" buildings lately, but they were around long after the chicken was gone.
Maybe the escalator pictured used to go to a "Home Country Buffet"!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
If you like In Praise of Idleness, you might like The Abolition of Work by Bob Black.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Fortunately, I've only been "in hospital" a few times, once for a routine but necessary operation as a child, once when my eye was injured, once when I was assaulted in public and injured quite badly, and twice for sporting injuries (both minor).
The operation left me with unsightly scarring (luckily not visible when wearing clothing you would wear for a job) due to incompetence on the part of the surgeon/finisher.
The time my eye was injured I actually received excellent help - though I did have to wait two hours to be seen despite freaking out over blood leaking from my eyeball - apparently it didn't count as a "head injury" - though the person with a nail hanging loose, and someone with a bad back were seen before me... go triage.
When I was assaulted in public the medical treatment I received was OK - but again left two small scars on my face (not their fault, but the second opinion of a private surgeon was that had they been done professionally, there would be no scarring) as apparently they were heavy handed when doing it, and their treatment of me was abysmal. I was attacked while out for a meal for a friends birthday by a drunken guy who thought I looked at his girl... I was treated as a drunken lout by the NHS despite barely having had anything to drink, and as it was a "friday night" and I'd "had a beer" it was clearly my own fault that my face was split open in two parts.
When I was 16 I was involved in a clash in a sporting match which left two heavy people lying on my right leg and wrenched it further sideways than it should go, this tore some muscle and a tendon in my groin. I was twice rejected from having any treatment (or even a decent inspection) by staff at an NHS hospital, which left me with a bad injury. After six weeks of treatment from a private clinic (paid for by my mother) including heat therapy, massage and a course of exercise designed to build strength up in that area, I was able to walk without pain again, though any stress with my right leg turned outwards today leaves me in pain for a couple of days.
Finally, when 17 I received a terrible tackle at a soccer match that damaged my Anterior Talofibular Ligament (outside the ankle bone). At the time the doctor AND the emergency room told me it was nothing serious despite swelling to a truly enormous size and me being unable to walk. Ten years and nine recursions later I have discovered due to a private physiotherapist and good scanning equipment that the ligament is now almost entirely composed of scar tissue - for several months until I received private treatment I was unable to walk properly, but the NHS didn't want to know because "old sporting injuries can be hard to pin down" and I just got fobbed off with "put an ice pack on it and relax it for a few days" - despite the fact it would reoccur approximately twice weekly and prevent me from walking or driving without extreme pain.
As mentioned in my grandparent post I was also given a dose of antibiotics 10x the adult dose at the age of 12 for a sore throat by someone who could barely speak English - and nearly died. I've also had other, more minor, misdiagnosis and issues at the hands of GPs, but they do not have any lasting effects like the above problems (the over prescription has left me with a dangerous allergy to an antibiotic I previously had no issues with).
This is my tale of the NHS, I hope it has been instructive. For those who replied to my post saying I "support the positions of letting the proles die out" or similar, I do not - I believe emergency medical treatment should be available for all - but for more minor issues a privatised system with genuine market forces would ensure better standards of care for less.
And finally, I have several friends who work INSIDE the NHS in a variety of capacities - and almost all of them believe the current system is a mess and needs a huge change.
Yeah, and I know this vegetarian guy who was hit by a bus!
Healthy? Pah!
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Ha ha. Look at the funny man.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I'm responding to the grandparent post that has been modded into oblivion, not yours. The one where some fool said:
I know you'll shake your head at it like everybody does, but the typical vegetarian gets no cancer, never gets influenza (yes your flu last year could be avoided if you dumped meat) and will never have the depression, bowel disease, heart problems and overweight that inflict meat eaters!
I would like to point out that I was vegan for three years and vegetarian for ten, and that I enjoyed the flu a half-dozen times in that stretch. People making claims like this are idiots.
I eat a little fish now, on advice from several doctors who were kind enough to point to well-done studies that argued for the health benefits. There is no reason that eating some meat is bad for you. There are, however, problems with getting an excess of iron (in men), too much fat from the wrong meats in excess, and so forth-- but the same downsides are true of anything with a lot of bioavailable iron or fat.
Meat does not magically cause the flu.
No, you don't get it! The additives are actually preserving your body for science. It's really just inappropriately named. Instead of "overeating" or "binging", it should be called the "pre-death embalming process"!
;).
But on a serious (sorta) note, how long does milk typically last over on your side of the pond, compared to here? I grew up over here, so don't know any better
just an analog boy living in a digital age.
I was in Cuba a couple years ago and although they are very poor (everyone makes about $13 US per month) they were very very friendly and looked happy and healthy. They have highly trained doctors and other professionals.
So, I get myself on Google and discover that Cubans have a longer life expectancy than Americans. Well, that shocked me.
This is a place where I can't drink the water, and the beef looked pretty scary. It's certainly possible that the more expensive stuff we have available to us (more food, more highly processed food), the worse our health could be. I read once that in Rome the rich people had plumbing with lead pipes (it was a luxury) but it ended up killing them faster from lead poisoning. It's possible something similar is happening to us in industrialized nations right now.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Go look in the mouth of a gorilla. Then look at what they eat. Those teeth mean nothing.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I take sick leave because I have it. Not because I'm sick. Did everyone miss the message? How many people do you know that only take sick days when they have to compared to the number of people that take sick leave because they are sick of work?
From the first +5 post in the thread:
Statutory minimum annual leave plus public holidays
UK: 28 days (four weeks + public holidays)
US: 10 days (0 weeks + public holidays)
Maybe the reason why us folks in the US report so many sick days is that we're simply telling the boss we're sick and can't come in because there is no other way of getting the hell out of the office.
I've done it. I'll bet everyone here who lives in the US has done it too. Unfortunately with my current job I can't even do that, because the US has a new scourge: PTO. Paid time off. It's a pool of vacation and sick leave. You get sick, the days come out of the pool and your vacation time dries up. It's horrible.
In fact, I'll take it a step further. Americans get a lot of flak about how we're not very worldly. I think one of the reasons why is that we're not allowed to travel.
Honestly, it's true. We're not.
I'm a college graduate with a BSEE working what most people here would call a pretty darn good job in a good company. I have relatively high pay and what folks around here would call good benefits, leave time, etc.
I get 15 days of PTO a year. How the hell can you own a home, take care of your mundane living details and see the world on fifteen lousy days a year?
I've had entire years where I haven't even left the state I live in. No time to do so.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...but there's two observations I've made. The first is that Americans have shitty healthcare but are much more alert and aware when it comes to self-treatment.
The second observation is that regardless of the level of "free" dental care you provide in Great Britain you still can't teach brits to brush their teeth.
-This man is going for the jackpot! A few comments, a little sarcasm, some wit - and he COULD be the winner of a FREE molestation by the regular Slashdot crowd.
You must not be from Texas. They would laugh at the tiny steaks your coworkers eat.
(1 kilo = 35 ounces)
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
Speaking as a liberal, you're dead right.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My uncle nearly died from eating McDonald's once. Back when they had their nastification called the Arch Deluxe, he had eaten one, but unfortunately they forgot to tell him that the mayonnaise/special sauce had been baking on an unrefrigerated truck for its entire trip. Soon, he was in a hospital with tubes going every which way fighting for his life.
Somehow, "i'm lovin' it" just doesn't seem accurate.
US citizens are bombarded with media "crisis" reports on their health, alleged health risks, conflicting medical research, and drug marketing. The perpetual "you are not safe" media message results in hyper sensitivity to any health issues. In the US, a springtime runny nose is considered sick.
Combine that with long days, overtime, and only 10 days off a year, and you get people who are frequently ill and think they are.
Ooooh don't listen to them! Here, have a cookie!
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Also, making sure the poor get health care is a good way to reduce the chances YOU will get sick because of some disease they are culturing. Even a selfish, inconsiderate asshole has good reason to support some level of universal health care.
Personally, I think the US should require and pay for basic medical care for all citizens. Even if that means visiting nurse practitioners instead of physicians. But I don't think it is economically possible to make every type of health care available to every citizen... Just the basics.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
So what you're saying is that you'd rather be treated for cancer in the US than not having cancer in the first place?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Cash prices are higher for one major reason: collectibility. As doctors move over to automated systems, finally, it'll improve. Right now, the level of collections for cash customers for medical services is terrible. I don't remember the exact rate, but it's brought up often in the arguement over pushing towards electronic medical records. Insurance is reliable, you'll get it every time. Cash, you have to ask for up front or pretty much write it off, and asking for money up front is something many doctors aren't comfortable with doing once you get up into larger figures.
Medicine is horribly out of date in this way, and I'm not saying this to excuse them, because it really needs to change.
That doesn't count for pharmacy, obviously. I assume that probably has to do with some kind of price negotiation between the companies, but I don't really know.
It wasn't being argued that poor diet and exercise in the case of Americans is definately a factor, but when you compare to a country with equally unhealthy dietary habits the Americans are still coming out on the bottom.
What I'd like to know though, is -as a Canadian - how do I compare with my US and EU cousins? Here we have a similar to US lifestyle and/or environment with a few subtle differences.
how it is that the USA can have a 60% obesity rate.
Small nit, but "obese" != "overweight." According to this table (admittedly out of date, but clearly shows the trend), 64.5% of Americans are "overweight." Only 30.5% are "obese." There's a difference.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
It is official; the WHO now confirms: the USA is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered US population when the WHO confirmed that the USA quality of life has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent UN survey which plainly states that the USA has lost more quality-of-life, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent WHO comprehensive assessment.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the USA because the USA is dying. Things are looking very bad for the USA. As many of us are already aware, the USA continues to lose quality-of-life. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
The employer-subsidized health plan is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its corporate members. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long-time employer-subsidy providers Bechtel and Citibank only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: the employer-subsidized health plan is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
National association AHIP states that there are 70,000 000 holders of Individual Policies. How many users of Medicaid are there? Let's see. The number of Individual Policies versus Medicaid payouts is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 70, 000 000/5 = 14, 000 000 state health plan users. Other health-plan costs are about half of the volume of Medicaid costs. Therefore there are about 7, 000 000 users of other health plans. A recent article put joint employer/employee health plans at about 80 percent of the USA market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Group Policies holders. This is consistent with the total payouts for Group Policies costs.
Due to the troubles of abysmal sales and so on, many Group Policies providers went out of business and were taken over by the Federal government, who administer another troubled health plan. Now Medicare is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that USA has steadily declined in quality-of-life. The USA is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If US healthcare is to survive at all it will be due to custom from foreign elites. The USA continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save the USA from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the USA is dead.
Fact: USA is dying
The Department of Agriculture occupies the largest federal building complex in Washington, DC and has a perennial habit of writing a great number of entitlement checks. Hardly an invisible hand. //Okay, the Pentagon is a bit bigger, but it isn't in Washington...
The truth is, there are only two markets in the US that consistently see greater than inflation price increases: medicine and education.
Oil? Housing? Energy?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I am saying Americans are TOO HYGENIC. Or to elaborate:
- Washing yourself? Every day a shower.
Look, I know this is Slashdot, but you can't criticise people for not exercising, and say they shower too much. If you want them to exercise more, then trust me, one shower every 2 or 3 days is not going to cut it. I shower daily even if I haven't exercised on that day. Days on which I do exercise, I shower twice (the usual one in the morning to start the day, and again after exercising).
Heck, sometimes in the summer, I occassionally even shower 3 times in a single day (the morning shower, after an afternoon workout, and one more right before bed if it's hot and muggy).
Showering doesn't make a person unhealthy. It makes them less stinky.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I doubt that. The countries are too diverse within themselves. Typically German, typically French, what does that mean (leaving aside clichés)? The differences are more along the lines of social classes and origin (immigrants or not, which part of the country exactly a person comes from, and so on).
Sounds good to me. Just sign me up for one of those useful jobs. So long as it's not licking stamps to promote the need for something non-essential, I couldn't possibly mind. Almost everyone needs left shoes, and for those that don't, left tires.
The more people there are, the more jobs that need doing, though the latter increases at a slower rate due to aristocratic politics on social networking. In healthcare most of all as the health care industry is only lately going through industrial specialization. A collective is part of a "market", it just has a central information processing plasystem that pushes against the upleasant consequences to a small but helpful degree. Innevitably it responds to any market failure and adapts. It certainly doesn't inherently create additional paperwork any more than private accounting systems do.
You can't really insure health. It doesn't fit the definition of "insurance" at any rate. All insurance is an agreement between a wide number of people to pool money in case any particular few of them run into bad problems. This is why companies that offer flood or earthquake or wide disaster insurance, but only handle it locally are usually scams. Insurance isn't a contract between an individual and a company. It's a contract between all of the subscribers to the policy managing company. If a situation arises where all have to make a claim, the system folds, the money goes off to the sister organization and the appendage declares bankruptcy.
In health, everyone still dies. Every hour injures us until the last one. The only thing you can do is make a social campaign against poor disease prevention measures. It become teleologically independent of finance then. Markets become subservient, classically liberal assessments of obligations, clauses on the public good, and freedoms all become subvenient.
It's less a question of how much of GDP is subverted to push the collective lifespan, as that becomes a mere game, but how much of the national energy policy is directed towards supplying the campaign against diminishing returns.
In an ideal world paperwork would exist for accountablity, but unfortunately people have found paperwork useful for creating delays and making the process of doing something hard enough to not be able to do, the concept of ability varying somewhat.
The show was fine and great when they stuck to just busting paranormal crap... but then they started doing all the political shows. Made be lose all respect for the show and I can't watch it anymore.
Meh.
"we all know it is a terrible thing when a loved one gets cancer" is not a very good argument for not using emotionally charged arguments.
Once upon a time, the theory of HMOs was that they would have better incentives and would give people blood pressure tests, run stop-smoking programs, and closely track blood sugar levels in diabetics.
The last survey I saw (wish I remembered were so you could get a proper citation) indicated that HMOs did much better on basic, necessary followup and monitoring than did the fee-for-service sector.
Which does not contradict you because the performance of HMOs next to medical standards for followup and prevention was still pathetic.
but for more minor issues a privatised system with genuine market forces would ensure better standards of care for less.
I know your ideology tells you this must be so, but we have a free market for health care here in the US, and it sucks. Market forces don't work for health care. What are you going to do, not get sick if the price is too high?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
you have the unions to thank for the 5 day work week you insensitive, white-collar clod.
But, the observation that the US of Alien idea of associating the cost of health care with employment being at least partly to blame is spot on.
When the relationship between the HC Insuarance provider and the patient is temporary, as it is when provided as a benefit of employment, there is an incentive to defer treatment. Every other ascpect of out lives we buy into the concept that preventative maintenance and early detection reduces costs. What do we say about computer programs; when it works it should say nothing but when it fails it should do so noisily and early. Your health care provider is going to treat you within the terms of the agreement that they have with the insurance carrier, he who pays the piper calls the tunes. You may think that the little black spot is a matter for concern, but if the provider is only going to treat the things that the carrier pays for, and what you pay the provider for is covered under the agreement between the provider and the carrier as well.
If the insurance carriers were concerned about the cost of medical care over the life of the patient rather than the cost over the length of the contract (employers tend to switch from time to time) there would be a much greater emphasis on nipping it in the bud.
Of course there is another concept popular in this modern USofA, it's generally cheaper to replace it than it is to repair it. Which again takes us back to the lack of incentive for the employer to pay for medical treatment of the worker.
Insurance is designed to mitigate risk by distributing the cost across a group. Kinda like a simple machine distributes the load across a greater distance. Grouping the insured by the company that they work for makes less sense the longer I look at it. Before long people with certain genes won't be able to get jobs, regardless of their skills, training, attitude, etc.
My boss has only a limited interest in my health. He has a wholely different perspective on it than I do. Why does he have so much control over my health care and I have so little. (yes, that's a period)
Oh yeah, I pay way more than the deductible every year, I think a lot of people do - otherwise there wouldn't be Flexible Spending Accounts. Or people would only fund their FSA to the deductioble.
No more Soda will be in Elementry and Middle Schools.
America's largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all sales of sodas to public schools -- a step that will remove the sugary, caloric drinks from vending machines and cafeterias around the country.
I guess America is serious about not being the sickest.
\
The only people who understood that reference already knew he was talking out of his propagandized ass.
Maybe that's one of the causes, I don't know how it's like in the UK, but here in France whenever you go to the doctor you pay 20 euros but you get refunded. Same for drugs, well at least the refundable ones, which are the generic ones that one really needs to improve one's health.
You just got troll'd!
Damm spot on! That's what pisses me off about our medical system in the US. It's the fucking lawers that are making the profits, not the docs. It's all about litigation at the expense of your health. I sware, it's so fucking evil. Worse yet, the public ignores this fact.
Life is not for the lazy.
Looking objectively at coffee prices historically we see the 1975 coffee price in the US was $1.2940 ($4.7194 in 2004 dollars) per pound, in 2004 if was $2.8920 per pound. So the real price of coffee has declined.
I remeber paying $50 for my nintendo games in the 1980s... and today video games are about... $50. Please note though, $50 1985 is about $88.73 in 2005 dollars. So yes, video games have gotten cheaper in real dollars.
Books... hmm... pulling a pocketbook with a printing date of 1996 off my shelf... it was selling for $6.99 ($8.48 in 2005 dollars). Today I pay about $7.50 for a pocketbook. So I'd say books are declining in price as well.
Please try again
>>The health insurance industry is a parasite the purpose of which is to interfere with your patient-doctor relationship and to deny your treatment.
>Oh yes, no doubt that millions of people invest their money in companies that are formed specifically to deny people health care treatments.
"Obscure" can mean "not well known". It can also mean "cryptically written". There is an obscure book called Have Fun At Work. It's about learning how to use complex systems by shedding your dysfunctional beliefs about them. Honest, I'm going somewhere with this.
"The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" ("POSIWID") is the first amoung the author's insights. For example, stop driving yourself crazy by thinking the government is here to protect national security. Regard it as a machine for sending money to contractors in the districts of key Congressmen and you can begin to get things accomplished, for example by siting $VITAL_FACILITY in $HOME_STATE_OF_APPROPRIATIONS_COMMITTEE_CHAIRMAN. That's why we have so many NASA centers: Kennedy and Johnson knew the way to land on the Moon was to put jobs in all the right districts.
Fast forward to today. What's the purpose of health insurance companies? On paper it's to collect premiums and rationally allocate them to health care while paying the employees and investors. But what do they *do*?
Are you really arguing that we are in a health care and education bubble?
Study was commissioned by the National Institute of Health, an org. with absolutely no motive in hiring a PR agency to slant and push stories about the alarming American health crisis. Come on. Overweight and bad food eaters, sure, generally, but this study relied on government statistics provided from two countries comparing different service delivery systems with articial cost structures and differing levels of accessiblity, based on a narrow demographic sliver ("white people" in their 50's and 60's) and relying on the diagnosis of doctors functioning under who knows how many different motives. This is transparent wire-service propanganda. And to all the bashers of the obese, fast-fooding Americans: even with gas prices to match our waistlines, our economic productivity and efficiency flat out kick every other economy in the world's ass. Europeans lecturing about the efficacy of the workplace - now that's funny. And just wait until we start eating healthier.
In the root canal example you cited, I as a dentist can charge you both a lower or a higher fee than the negotiated fee with your insurance company. For instance, the cash fee for a root canal for the region I'm in is about $700 (depending on what tooth). The insurance company in order to offer you a "steal of a deal" forces us to agree to do root canals for $500 (they pay $250, you're responsible for only $250 more) or they won't send patients to us. That means we have to resort to volumes to make up for the difference. On top of the cheaper negotiated fees, we have to spend hours doing paperwork, preauthorizations, billing, etc. My office hours per day is listed as 8, but in truth I have to stay there for an additional 2 hours a day for paperwork. Doctors are the ones who get squeezed here.
Doctors can elect to do one of two things:
1) Bite the bullet, do volumes with the insurance companies at the cheaper fee, but keeping the cash fee that they think is fair the same, or
2) Bite the bullet v2.0, lower the cash fee a bit to make it more attractive to patients so they won't go buy their own insurance and because we don't have to do the paperwork.
In regards to the communist health care system some of the other posts mentioned, that would mean we're compensated even lower than what we get now. There would be more paperwork/bureaucracies to jump through. We would be squeezed even more. No wonder dentists are ranked near the top of the suicidal professionals list every year.
I truly advise everyone to just pay for your services in cash. You would be treated faster (no paperwork to jump through), cheaper (the insurance companies are the middle men), and live longer (you're being treated faster!).
Another related point: There should be some sort of same-as-cash health care money so that if your company offers you money instead of insurance, you can't just use it to buy a new car.
Please enumerate the market preconditions you feel are missing in education and health care. Bonus points if those preconditions aren't missing due to government policies ;)
It took me over an hour on the phone to determine how it worked. If they took the cyst out and it turned out to be an abcess, it would be considered dental, and my medical would not cover it.
If they took the cyst out and it turned out to actually be a cyst or tumor, then it would be considered medical, and my dental would not cover it.
So then I had to take a long arduous journey trying to find someone who was on both my medical AND dental insurance (tough, considering dentists != doctors).
I finally got it out, but it took almost a month from discovery, and I almost got screwed over financially.
I'm lucky in that my family takes in $100K a year. Many other people would simply suffer, or be financially screwed, or medically screwed.
You seem to lack any imagination whatsoever to visualize how things could possible be worse than anyone else. I am a govt employee with a security clearance and had problems getting what could have been a cancer removed in a timely manner. And I'm an in-your-face flex-your-rights kinda guy. Someone timid, poor, and uneducated probably would not have been able to get it done in a timely OR costly manner.
It's no wonder there are millions of Americans not using any health care at all. The system is poised to make getting anything done as painful as possible.
And yea, my $1250 annual dental benefit? Gone in one day. I wont be going to the dentist til 2007.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Well, the study that was linked by this /. article stated that the United States spends twice as much per person than England's socialized medicine, so it's clear that our survival rates should be higher--and they are. So as much as the nanny state supporters and detracters would want to spin this as an issue of socialized medicine, it's not.
This is a lifestyle thing, not a medicine thing.
Personally I suspect our country's culture of individuality--including individual competition in the free market, and our puritan upbringing has created a more stressful environment here in the United States than in England. We keep longer hours, we don't take a break in the afternoon for tea, we get less sleep, and we eat an endless stream of junk food vended from vending machines inbetween fatty foods and a morning breakfast that was ideal for farm hands who worked back-breaking labor every day but is about a thousand calories too much for an office worker stuck in front of a desk.
What few of us are in good shape squeeze in a workout at a crowded gym or run in circles around a crowded track, and even when we relax we are constantly on the go, going somewhere, doing something, buying reminders of our trip. We've become a nation of ADDs, and the stress is killing us.
I heard that stress and a lack of sleep along with bad diet contributes to chronic health problems. This strikes me as more evidence that our collective nation-wide stress and lack of sleep is contributing to nation-wide chronic health problems.
The only thing we need now is a follow-up study to study lifestyle factors such as hours of sleep, relative stress, and quality of food eaten by both nations to see if this is in fact the problem.
I'm no fan of the telecoms, or the way they are regulated, or the way they buy politicians. It sucks. But you can't honestly be suggesting that telecommunications hasn't become both cheaper and better in the last decade can you?
"Why have schools?"
Good question, they didn't help you one bit.
"Why have hospitals?"
If it stops people like you from being born, I'm in.
"Why have motorways?"
So I can easily drive away from any city or town that contains a large population of imbeciles like you.
"Why have laws?"
To protect idiots like you from people like me, who would slap the fuck out of you if you acted as stupid in person as you did in your post.
"Why have taxes?"
To pay people to protect you from getting the fuck slapped out of you.
"Why have civilisation?"
Why indeed, especially since it prevents people from ridding the world of half-wits like you.
Now, stop being a twat and answer the question.
Or you could simply admit that you can't answer the question instead of doing another idiot dance.
It's ultrapasteurized and in a drygoods aisle of the market. You can find "boutique" refrigerated milk, but by no means everywhere.
Man, you really need that seminar!
You're right, but for different reasons -- the twisted economics of private health care in the U.S. are such that insurance companies run like hell away from anyone who is sick.
When you see health plans marketed here in the States, it's done by showing healthy, happy people, not showing sick people receiving good health care. That's because insurers want to recruit customers who are in good health and leave those with diabetes or other chronic conditions for some other company. It's like a game of hot potato: who gets stuck with all of the diabetics and their lifelong health problems?
As for health care being a societal issue, that's right on. Some people can take action to be healthy and remain that way, and others may take action but still wind up getting heart disease or diabetes because of family history, etc. The people who live healthy lives and stay healthy, as well as the people who live less healthy lifestyles but still wind up not getting diseases -- these are the people who "pay" for the people unfortunate enough to get sick. The healthy peoples' low costs subsidize the costs of those who wind up getting sick. In a nationalized health care system, those costs are spread out over the entire society, and it's a wash overall.
In a private system, it's in the interests of insurers to seek out only the people who don't get sick -- also known as people without pre-existing conditions (those who haven't already been sick). Those with pre-existing conditions (diabetics) or those at risk for health problems (smokers, older people, etc.) are passed up, or charged far higher premiums, essentially locking them out of health care coverage if they aren't covered through their employer.
Here's an interesting factor that would be very, very difficult to isolate, but that may be having an effect on health in the U.S. vs. the U.K. -- how many Americans are staying in stressful, underpaid, overworked jobs because they don't want to lose their health coverage? Seriously, that's one of the top priorities for basically anyone here, whether they can keep their health coverage or not. If big employers like General Motors or Ford or Boeing start to phase out health coverage because of the cost it adds to their products, it's going to start to get even worse for us.
Not that it isn't already bad -- this is National Cover the Uninsured Week here, which is a good time to remind everyone of the following:
* There are 46 million people in the U.S. without insurance (about 20 percent of the population).
* The country spends more than 20 percent of its GDP on health expenditures.
* We spend more per person on health care than most industrialized nations, and despite our "top of the line" care and technology, we have significantly lower indicators or health than most of those nations.
* Hospitals (emergency rooms in particular) that provide charity care are becoming the first point of contact for many people who are uninsured, which is making it hard for some hospitals to stay financially solvent.
It's not at all an exaggeration to say our health care system is in a crisis right now.
I've lived in Japan for 15 years, and can say that vacation time is actually used now in almost all cases. Not in the case of workaholics, company owners or people who don't like their families, of course, but by and large employees take their time off all the time in Japan.
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
It's not clear, but while the study appears well-constructed in terms of controlling for different demographic factors, but did they control for environmental disparities? Could different levels of environmental pollution between the US and UK explain at least some of the results?
-- Cerebus
The insurance companies are an unnecessary middleman, a bureaucracy that that eats money like a black hole. Money that could be spent on providing the actual healthcare.
Condition number one: That the consumer has a choice. If you are run over by a car and are bleeding to death, do you shop around to find the cheapest surplier of health-care?
Condition number two: That health is a commodety that only has value for the individual consumer. Since disease are contaguous other people has vested interest in keeping people around them healthy. The free market fails to address this.
Condition number three: That the service is evaluable. Can you tell who good a service you get in a hospital? Or are you more likely to look at how nice it looks, forcing hospitals to waste money one other things that their primary service?
Conditions.... Well, I am just getting started, please continue yourself. Like highways and other infrastructure, healthcare just doesn't fit a free market model in any way.
Another interesting look at declining consumer prices comes from looking at the 1975 Sears catalog, both in terms of real dollars and in terms of how long someone would have to work to be able to afford items then and now.
The reason why is two-fold. On one hand we have a horrible medicine company who refuses to look towards any cures they themselves did not develop and towards any long term health care that will bolster the immune system. Khemotherapy, antibiotics and other treatments do more damage then good in a long term basis since they do destroy our immune system or the 5 pounds of bacteria we SHOULD have in our stomach that leads to yeast infections, which leads to retardation and a lower immune system.
Our other problem is our crops. Besides irradiation, which thanks to Bill Clinton can be done to fruit and vegatables without consumer knowledge, that destroys the enzymes in fruits and vegatables (/makes them unusable by our bodies) we also have nitrate in our soil instead of naturally grown fertizilier (i.e. feecees and dead animals) which has been sold to the american public for fucking lawns (the devil! rebel against your suburban conformity! Your lawn serves no uses unless your a mansion dwelling farmer in England!) and un-edible druit bearing plants (like roses and flowers). The nitrate does not put the stuff back into the food that we need (minerals, etc...). Plus I believe the UK more openely accepts natural medicine.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Because it is a right. A civilised society is one which looks after its members.
So let's turn the question around. What gives you the impression that healthcare is a privilege?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This is hilarious! How could this possibly be modded as a troll????
You may actually mean two things here. One is the choice of whether to seek a service or not. The other is the choice of where to seek that service. Clearly we have markets in things that are non-optional (food). So that can't be what you mean. The other is the choice of where to seek service. Clearly there are some examples in health care where the consumer is in no condition to make a choice (as the severe car accident you posit). But in the vast majority of health consumption, the consumer has a lot of choice. Even with acute things, like heart attacks, the consumers has a lot of choice. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but local to where I am hospitals are advertising their heart emergency centers in a play to pursuade people having cardiac emergencies (heart attacks) to come to them, rather than other hospitals in the area. I would say that patients could have quite substantial choice in a market health care system.
To this I counter: sanitation and plumbing. There is a fairly good case to be made that modern sanitation and plumbing contribute more to public health than modern health care. Yet we amazingly have a market in plumbers and plumbing supplies. True, I am required to have a working toilet in my business or domicile, and forbidden from having an outhouse, but that is not accomplished through government sponsored plumbing, nor can I get my plumbing done with tax free dollars through my employer. True, setting policy and standards for certain kinds of medical treatment may be a public health issue, but the market has proven perfectly capable of providing for those standards in other areas.
Again, I must appeal to advertising. I have actually been hearing adds for the local emergency cardio center that tout research on health outcomes, etc. If you wander into the public health realm you discover there is good hard data on error rates, hospital infection rates, etc. Would the creature comforts also get better, possibly. But I think you would also see increased data to help people evaluate the services rendered. Would it be perfect, no. But it would be a lot better than it is now. If the service is evaluable at all, it should be evaluable to consumers. If it's not, then providers will compete on other factors (patient comforts, price, etc).
Finally, look at eye surgery as an example of markets in medicine working very well. The proceedures keep getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper (exactly as one would expect in a health market).The insurance companies are an unnecessary middleman, a bureaucracy that that eats money like a black hole. Money that could be spent on providing the actual healthcare.
OK, so we cut out the middleman. No middleman allowed, including any government agency playing the same role. Now: you take the same dollars you'd normally use to pay your healthcare premium at work (don't forget the larger portion that your employer pays!), and use that money instead directly for healthcare, right? Great! No middleman!
Oops, you just put your head through the windshield of your car. You'll be needing three weeks in the hospital, and you'll be paying for the attentive services of a couple dozen people for three weeks, many drugs, supplies, and the maintained floorspace and services of the hospital. Total tab in the many thousands of dollars. Congratulatios: with no middleman managing a larger group of similar accounts and taking the financial risks for you, you're now bankrupt. Yes, it's much better not to have those pesky, deep-pocketed insurance companies around.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
from the post:
>> but it had been assumed that minorities
yeah, it must be those dirty minorities.
do the reporters think that only caucasians are reading their report?
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Just as I wouldn't buy sled dogs at a car dealership, I wouldn't look for diabetes prevention at a hospital. Try a gym.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
But you run into the same fundamental problem. Healthy people can afford to get the limited medical care that they need. Sick people cannot afford to get the large amount of medical care that they need. If you look at the cost of health care, what is charged to insurance companies and what is charged to the uninsured, you get a sense of what the real prices are.
Let's say you need a kidney transplant. This is an expensive procedure no matter how competitive a doctor is willing to be. It requires multiple doctors and nurses, hospital facilities, pharmaceuticals, etc. It is something that an average person cannot afford no matter how much the doctors are competing for your dollar. So then wealthy people will be able to get those procedures as they can now, and the poor will get screwed, as they do now.
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If you look at medicare, about 2% of expenditures are on overhead. If you look at private health care it's about 20-25%. Now granted medicare has less people in it at a higher outlay per person (because it's old people). So that skews the value of that statistic a bit.
But if you think about it, it makes sense that medicare would be more efficient in the long run if it was the only game in town. You'd have one set of paperwork to do for the one insurer that exists. You'd have less bureaucracy overall because, lacking a profit motive, they aren't as fixated on cutting costs and rejecting claims. Being that we'd all be in the same boat, we'd all have motivation to make sure it was being run right by our government.
In the end, all countries that have single payer systems pay less per person for their healthcare and the outcomes are better. So why is it even debatable? We seem to have this fixation in this country that private solutions are always better than government solutions, but there are certain things that are not readily solved by private companies. In a market that is innately competitive, private management is best. But health care is innately uncompetitive.
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You 'tard, we know a LOT about where cancer comes from. We know that some habits (exercise, good diet, etc) are better than others (smoking, eating your way to obesity, etc).
We sure as hell can say "don't smoke and you will dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease, emphysema, lung cancer, peripheral vascular disease, etc." We do say it, and we have objective, oft-repeated, peer-reviewed science to back up those assertions. It's just pathetic that there are imbeciles out there like you who are smart enough to type (slowly, I suspect) but still think (also slowly) that cancer strikes randomly because Lance Armstrong has one nut.
Some kinds of cancer strike more or less randomly, but the vast overwhelming huge majority of disease in the US is self-inflicted. Even most trauma is a result of behavior or decisions with room for improvement, to say the least.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't help those people, but it does mean they should pay higher insurance premiums to help compensate for the societal burden their stupid decisions bring.
You're a loser, and I'll bet you're loose, too.
Their, stick that in you're pipe and smoke it alot.
Well, insurance companies charge smokers higher rates for life and health insurance
I will go so far as to agree with you that insurance rates should not be stratified based on factors out of a person's control - ie, genetics. I'm a white guy, but I don't think a black guy should pay a higher premium because he's more likely to have a sickle cell crisis or wind up in renal failure because of hypertension than me.
Some Facts
US Population: 298,444,215. UK Population: 60,609,153. Actual proportionality k used to accomodate for increased error rates based on population size: None. I thumbed through a copy of JAMA at the library, and this study is horrible horrible horrible in terms of methodologies. And while the conclusions might be true, they might very well not be true; this study isn't a good indicator either way.
Doctor: Are you an alcoholic?
Me: No, I'm English!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Check the facts
& pagesize=20&sort=Country
http://www.os-connect.com/pop/p4.asp?whichpage=11
"You'd have a hard time making an argument that health care in the USA is better than Cuba, if you used normal markers of health, like life expectancy, infant mortality, sick days, etc."
Yeah, it's stunningly difficult to look at numbers and tell which is larger. Apparently that's why you didn't bother before posting.
Cuba's life expectancy- Lower than the US
Cuba's unfant mortality- higher than the US
Sick days simply do not enter the argument, unless you can accurately track who is really sick and who is playing hooky.
So, tell us please, why it's so hard to look at facts and read them? Tell us how you arrived at conclusions that are demonstrably wrong?
Canada and US deliberately don't label genetically modified organisims that pass as tomatos, potatoes, canola, corn etc. in the supermarkets. Transfat is only recently labeled on some Canadian foods. Farms in North America are Bio-hazarous wasteland with hormone abuse, pesticide abuse, antibiotic abuse, waste disposal abuse, and freak species abuse in the name of profit. I don't blame the farmers because they are also abused. The cycle is complete because even the wealthy have to eat.
I know a few people whose entire choice of career has been dictated by the fact that they live in the US, and have a health condition which means that they must work for a large company or they simply can't get health coverage. I can only begin to explain how medieval that seems to the rest of the Western world.
Try living on the povery line and making a choice between getting that lump looked at or eating for a month. I know what most people are forced to choose in your so called land of the free...
That lump is generally just a bit of haggis stuck to your throat.
Oh wait, the other land of the free?
"The Ad Hominem argument.
The last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt."
BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA. Oh the delicious irony. I bet you don't even realize why that statement makes you look stupid.
"Usually a sure sign someone's lost a debate."
No, a sure sign someone has lost the debate is when they resort to pointing out logical fallacies in order to avoid answering. Like you did there. It's even better when they use that very same logical fallcy in the next fucking sentence. Like you did there.
And lastly
"hold my breath...."
Three points, not four. Cunt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I maintain that Americans are not actually more sick than residents of other countries, but that routine conditions that are regular and normal (colds in the winter, allergies in the spring, headaches, etc) are paperworked into being 'sick' and treated medically, because there is more profit in doing so.
Some of the people who did the study thought the same thing, so they switched from self-reporting to biological things that could be measured and found that americans are actually more sick... At least that is what they said on NPR this morning...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
in the same way as in they are in the UK, or other countries with universal healthcare.
In the UK, several people get sick, they go to the doctor right away, get their medicine, and kill off the germs. A few people pass on the sickness before they go, a few may hesitate to go in right away, but in most cases it gets stopped before it gets passed on very far.
In the US, several people get sick. Many of them hesitate to the doctor right away. Some pass on the cold while they fret about whether they can afford the medical bills or prescriptions, and only go in if it gets 'really bad'. Some decide they can't afford to go in at all. The germs get passed on to a much wider community when this happens, and the odds of the germs dying out completely are much, much lower. Sometimes the germs even mutate and get nastier, because people think they can't afford to finish a second course of antibiotics, so the germs get an immunity, and then re-infect the community over again.
It's not just the health care that's different. It's the germs, too.
--
AC
There's a lot of comments on this story, and my comments will probably get buried under the load of other comments... but I feel I have to comment as a British citizen living in the US for the last 11 years.
My unscientific view is that there may be something in upbringing, or there may be something genetic that's not being taken into account in this study. Despite the fact that the study made a point of the fact that it excluded certain races the simple fact that the US is a literal melting pot of cultures throws a variable into the mix that I don't think has been considered. We don't know historically how healthy the Native American people were. Today's native Americans aren't "pure", but neither are the "White" Americans. Almost everyone I know (this is living in the midwest) can trace some native American heritage in their genetic makeup, whereas I'd hazard to guess that most British people wouldn't. This does throw in a genetic possibility in the occurrences of cancer for example. We don't know how prevalent cancer was in old native populations... we just don't have that data.
I know my example is not very scientific, but I have lived in America for 11 years now. That means that I've had enough time now to "go native" and live a lifestyle that isn't very different from that of my peers (though does sometimes seem a little different in subtle ways because of ingrained ideals that I can trace to my childhood). I don't think I eat significantly differently from my peers, though I do often eat less. I don't drink any more or less than most of my peers, and I live in the same areas, drive the same roads... hell I even eat the same Mississippi river catfish that we catch on a Saturday afternoon on occasion.
What do I observe? Despite living a very similar lifestyle, I am a lot healthier than my peers. Most people my age are overweight. While I'm not thin either, I have only once in my life gotten to the point I considered myself obese (but my doctor said I was just overweight)... and I put myself on a strict diet. A cultural thing? Perhaps. Most of my peers also are losing their hair (I'm 33 and still have a full head of hair) or going grey. Is this a symptom of a diet/exercise problem... or something different in their genetic makeup? I noted when I returned to England last year for a vacation, my friends I met up with were mostly in much the same condition as me. Compared to my American friends we would all have been considered significantly healthier.
Now, please note that I don't make any special efforts to stay fit. Oh, I go out to the gym once or twice a week but sometimes it will be weeks between visits because of my work or home life. I eat at the same places as my peers and colleagues, and don't necessarily order anything different. I probably do cook at home on the weekends more than most of my peers, but that's just because I enjoy making good dinners completely from scratch (something few people do; they usually buy pre-packaged goods at the store and call that "home cooking").
To extend my unscientific viewpoint further I have two children. My eldest is my step-daughter... her parents are both American. I also have a son who's mine. The health differences between my two children couldn't be greater. While they both eat the same, and my daughter is not fat (actually she's very slim), she has bad teeth and frequent health problems she's had her entire life. Maybe she was just unlucky, but my son couldn't be more different. He's healthy as a horse... strong and active. The only time I can remember ever having to take him to the emergency room was when he decided that since he had managed to lock himself in his room and couldn't open the door, a second floor window would make an appropriate exit. Now again, there's no difference in diet between both kids... and they do share at least 50% of the genes (my wife), but something in there is very different which results in both of them having significantly different health.
I know none of this is very scientific, but I feel th
How can this study have any validity when England is a tiny island compared to the US.
Our population is far greater in numbers. I know I know, statistics, sampling blah blah blah...
Take it with a grain of salt.
It is illegal to turn away people in "dire need" from emergency rooms in the US. It has been that way for some time, and the law is adhered to very strictly.
This is not a good thing, for two reasons.
1. There is no accompanying law to pick up the tab for the poor who use this service, and no collection agency can collect when there is no money to start with. It is NOT an equivalent to the UK system-- it is in fact forcing a private industry to subsidize public healthcare.
2. There is no nationwide system (private or otherwise) to give the poor general care. Without family doctors, guess where they take their sniffles, scrapes, and headaches? Sometimes, they even call an ambulance for these trifles because they don't have their own transportation.
The way our system is set up forces ERs to operate at a loss, drives the poor and uninsured to waste ER time. Sure, they're getting treated, but at dramatic cost to the efficacy of our emergency rooms for treating actual emergencies, including those of both the wealthy AND the poor.
It would cost us less to pay for their checkups than it does to pay for similar services rendered by an ER, and it would free the ER to treat genuine emergencies.
The main crux of your anecdote is that Americans outside of major cities assume that someone walking down the street is a bum, because otherwise they would be driving. This is essentially the most interesting part of the story and the most surprising part. And where did you get this entire portion of information? You either read the minds of those driving by, or they honked "bum" to you in morse code.
I think a more reasonable hypothesis would be that people were either honking at you for another reason, they weren't honking at you at all. I think you believed what you wanted to believe.
Americans could stand to do a lot more walking around, this is absolutely true. But, and pardon my french, it is fucking laughable to think anyone in ANY city would assume a given person was a bum, regardless of what they looked like, only because they weren't in a car. Let alone that they would then honk at said bum.
We should consider the preventative side when we look at how sick America is. We are one of the few industrialized countries whose policy says "first put the product on the market, then remove it only if proven damaging to public health." In most other countries, if there are concerns for health, products are kept off the market until proven safe. A few examples: (1) new-car smell sprays are still legal here - they use toluene (the source of actual new car smell), a known carcinogen. (2) our "wrinkle free low maintenance" fabrices encorporate Teflon, whose production byproducts (specifically, PFOA) are water soluble and suspected carcinogens. This cautious attitude towards chemical exposure isn't hyper sensitivity -- it's common sense that other countries follow and America misses.
After a bout of this years upper respiratory virus lasting for 3 weeks, left me sicker and with many additional symptoms of things having gone awry, I landed in a hospital ER with a massive hypertensive event (thought by admitting physicians to suggest I was stroking out), and four more days of treatment which I would NOT countenance for my cats, I was informed by a Dr. whom I had never met, let alone been treated by, that the GOOD NEWS was that I had a four centimeter brain tumor. When I had the temerity to ask if I dared inquire what the bad news was, he simply continued his scripted next thoughts which were the itemization of the drugs he was prescribing, while edging toward the door and disappearing down the hall to his next victim...oops! I meant patient.
/. Journal(this is an excerpt from an entry I've been to embarrassd too post cuz ..well I DO GO On... like a teenie bopper diary. But what the hay! This is where I've hung out nearly every day for pushing 10 years now and the worst you all can do is think I'm a crazy old woman, which I've already coped to. So... What the hell? I have an excuse! I have a brain Tumor! Laff! It's my version of a joke.
/. For keeping me informed thru articles, links, who's who, what's up and where to find what I need, when I need it!
Exit stage left (the patient)! Upon arrival home, I had several good boo hoo, poor pity me episodes and then HIT GOOGLE and the INTERNET! Had I not been educated by 25 years of exposure to the birth of the Internet and Information Technology by some pretty bright and frankly ornery and testosterone driven young hackers, crackers, coders, developers, early adaptors etc., I would probably still be sniveling and making arrangements with the local mortuary for my immediate demise. As it stands to date, I obviously will be meeting up with said folks sooner or later but it won't be from being scared to death over this event and I may not know all the answers necessary to deal with this issue yet but sure know a hell of a lot more about it then the fools who informed me of the condition. Furthermore, I know a hell of a lot more of how to get the accurate information, which does not rely on being educated by Drug Company Reps IE SALESMEN, unlike the damn fool Doctors I have had to deal with the last few years.
End Rant! Begin apology: For using my
One more time! Thanks to all you unknowing teachers out there in cyberspace and Thank you
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It simply wastes your time and truely annoys the pig"
Jeez, I'm not reading all these, though a lot of you seem spot-on, with the fact that Americans don't get as much vacation time. However, I have another speculation which a) may have been mentioned by someone already, and b) is entirely speculation based on my place as an American, and I have no clue how this relates to countries in Europe, so argue about it all you want but don't pick on me for acting like I know something about countries I have never even visited, b/c I'm so not.
Do you think we try to live in a more sterile environment than other nations? We sterilize every damn thing that even comes close to us or our children, we hardly let our kids play outside anymore (at least not as much as we used to - kids don't even get recess anymore, right?) I've seen my cousins freak out that their kids touched a worm or mud or something (and not just b/c they'd bring it into the house), but b/c it's "full of germs". Moms may also say the same things about why they won't let their kids have pets. Isn't this how people become allergic to things (generally?) By not being exposed to it in childhood? We take those stupid pills that are supposed to keep us from getting a cold, b/c God forbid we miss a day of work. For a nation that gets sick all the damn time, we sure think that getting a little cold is a horrible thing.
I had also read that there are cancer-causing agents in everything we have - from our sheets, clothes, anything plastic, not to mention housecleaners and those horrible sprays that people spray in every room of the house (jeez that drives me nuts.) We want a sterile, artificial environment in which to live, but b/c this is impossible, we are lowering our ability to fight sickness (but not necessarily cancer) when we do get sick. I wonder how large the housecleaner aisle has gotten in recent years. They have a spray for everything.
Yes, it is a diacritic. More specifically it is also a diaresis.
In America you can be seen quickly as long as you're willing to pay.
You don't actually live here do you? I have health insurance, and it's good health insurance too. It still takes 6 to 8 weeks to get in to see anybody other than the general practicioner.
For example, many people fondly remember the days during the 1950s when you could purchase a car for ~$1,000, versus a $21,000 average selling price today. However the $1,000 figure from 1955 is not quality-adjusted. Cars back then needed repair several times per year and lasted about 90,000 miles; cars today need repair about once every 4 years and last about 180,000 miles. So, quality-adjusted, the price of a car in 1955 was probably ~$3000 which is more than $21,000 in y2006 dollars.
The Sam's Club 2% milk in gallon jugs I buy in Arizona lasts 2 weeks easily. The doorstep delivered, non-homogenized milk I used to get in UK would last 3 days, at which point the fat at the top was yellow cream. On the fourth day, sour.
Note that having for profit entitys in the market does'nt prevent non-profits from playing. They should be at an competative advantage. But somehow they always seem to become bloated inefficent featherbeds staffed by powerfull peoples nieces/nephews.
What we should do is require American drug companies give the best deal they give to overseas socialized medical systems to American consumers. That will prevent them from selling to the likes of Canada at marginal cost because all their fixed costs are paid by Americans. If the Canadians move forward with their threat to invalidate medical patents because their sweatheart deals are over we just take them to the WTO.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Someone was refused treatment by a Muslim NHS doctor because he drank (forbidden by Islam), the patient was NOT Muslim and was NOT allowed to change doctors.
What's that guy got against the letter L, anyway?
In one meal?!? And that didn't agree with you. I'm shocked. Shocked!
And people think that Americans overeat...geesh.
I thought one of the more interesting cultural disconnects was the fact that city/suburb dwellers in both the North and the South acted this way, while it was typically the rural folk (aka, redneck, hick, and so forth...) who were perfectly nice and helpful. In rural Appalachia, people offered me rides without me asking. In the North, you could see the look of horror on their faces as they swerved to avoid my deadly, stinky hitchiker thumb. Oh yeah, and in the North, hitchhiking is illegal. WTF?! (Disclaimer: I am a northerner living in Boston)
I attempted to find a route to ride my bike a measly four miles to work. Forget about it. I would die under the wheels of some irritated middle-aged woman who is drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and talking on her cellphone. Not to mention the tunnels, highway overpasses, etc. Pedestrians aren't even an afterthought.
Well, I didn't do any research, I just pulled up some random guesses myself of prices I've personally observed to be rising and not be in decline, as you claim. Although I may not have adjusted for inflation in my head properly. ;)
For coffee, I wasn't thinking of buying it in bulk since I don't drink coffee. I was thinking of the exorbitant prices that places like starbucks and borders charge for a cup. Admittedly, though, that growth might also have to do with trendiness.
The second google result for "average book prices" is a link to the school library journal, which seems a reasonable source:
"This year's increases reflect a 25-year trend of escalating book prices. Case in point: from 1990 to 1995, average book prices jumped by 9.5 percent; from 1995 to 2000, they increased by 12.3 percent; and from 2000 to 2005, the increase was even steeper, 14.4 percent. Overall, we have seen book prices increase by more than 35 percent in the last 20 years."
Although these price increases are a lot higher than your anecdotal example, it actually doesn't look too far from the inflation rate.
I can't find data on video games. Maybe games themselves haven't gone up so much, but the consoles themselves have certainly shot up. The xbox 360 costs what? $400? and your nintendo in 90s cost what? $100?
Shouldn't there be a few dozen libertarians here right now to tell us that no one "needs" or "deserves" health care, especially on someone else's dime, and that in a true capitalist system without government interference, everything would be taken care of?
Or are they all stuck in low-rated comments?
So justify it. And do so without emotionally charged arguments, because we all know it is a terrible thing when a loved one gets cancer. That fact has nothing whatsoever to do with forcing me to pay for her care.
Alright. You really want the cold, hard, rational argument for altruism. Fortunately, you've handed us one of the best cases for such an argument.
The costs for treating and curing cancer are enormous. Chemo costs literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to extend your life for a few years. Chances are really good that you can't afford those drugs as a sudden expense if you found out you had cancer today. This is true for many medical conditions. I had to have my gallbladder removed, and the total bill was $15,000 to my insurance company. An expense like that (due within a few months of it being incurred) would have killed me financially at the time.
So, it is in your best interest to pay a small fee every month to cover the costs of everyone else who is sick with the agreement that if you get sick, everyone else will cover your costs. This is the selfishly rational argument for altruism at its finest. You act as part of a group to help individuals face burdens that they cannot bear alone because they will be there for you should you face a burden that you cannot bear alone. It's why you help friends move; it's why you do weight lifting with a spotter; and it's why you pay for insurance right now.
That's right -- that's what insurance is at its core. You pay a monthy premium that amortizes the predicted average health costs you are likely to incur in your life which goes straight into paying for the care of others. Chances are that right now you aren't sick, but you're paying for the welfare of others. You do this because when your time comes around, others will pay for your well-being.
The average person will end up paying more into insurance than they will get back even with non-profit insurance. Many of us will die in a manner that is swift and incurable; we will not recoup the loss of money that went to pay for people put on life-support and expensive drugs. However, it's to our benefit to take the risk and put the money into the fund because there's always the chance that it will be we who are saved by a procedure we can't afford.
That's it: The rational argument for paying for others is at core that they will pay for you in a time when you cannot cover it yourself.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you have a pre-diabetic condition (read you are a fat ass) and need someone to tell you that you will have better health if you lose some weight and get some exercise you are too stupid to live. Please die sooner rather then later.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Interestingly, not an uncommon typo. Or should that be a freudian slip of the fingers? Google reports about 504,000 for "pubic healthcare". Here's their first search result for example:
In the old days of newspaper typesetting, you'd suspect the compositors of having a bit of fun.
Truely private healthcare would be doctors competeing for cash paying customers having to match their rates to what people can actualy afford rather than what they can get out of insurance companies.
I think you misunderstand the free market. Insurance companies are a free market institution. They are customers pooling their resources and hedging their bets against having to personally pay for healthcare costs instanaeously and without sufficient savings which could take nearly a lifetime to build up (if possible) for some procedures. Insurance companies are like a reverse lottery -- you pay in in the hopes of not having to get a pay out. They're a risk mitigation strategy, kind of like putting money into bonds or commodities just in case the stock market tanks.
A free market would not eliminate insurance in the slightest. You'd have to outlaw it, and then that regulation would make it hardly a free market at the point.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Still even Heffis are better then Vegimite.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What are you smoking? Why do you call the US system government-broken? Is Europe's better system more market-oriented than America's? I don't think so.
How do you explain the fact that the government-run systems of Europe and Canada are more efficient and effective than your corporate insurance model? Sure, the wait may be longer at times, but you get more people insured and treated for less cost.
I'm guessing the persons who modded "insightful" are heavily indoctrinated American Slashdotters living in their own little fantasy world. I'd be willing to bet few of them have much economics education.
Here's a free economics lesson:
Private health care is expensive in part because you are paying the compensation for executives, marketing, and sales people that you wouldn't pay for in a single-payer system. Instead, overhead would be lower and more of your money would go to actual *healthcare*. Talk of "government inefficiency" is mostly just talk.
Much of "market" healthcare is actually waste production that keeps office workers busy. The "free market" is efficient all right. It's efficient at keeping white collar types off my lawn and gainfully employed.
Your claims of "broken by government action" just don't match reality. Furthermore, you offer zero factual evidence to support your claim. You simply state the claim as if we all somehow magically know it to be true. Well, I for one don't know that "government action" broke various markets. Did "government action" break the Pentagon defense subsidy system too? What about our heavily subsidized farm industry? You know, the one that provides our increasingly cheaper food and textiles (i.e. clothing) that you mentioned. I think you'll find that there is no such thing as the "free market" inside the United States, outside of the black market for some drugs.
In a single-payer system, there would be no need for several competing, redundant corporations employing hordes of people who are neither physicians nor nurses. What one might do to employ scores of suddenly layed-off healthcare industry desk jockeys is up for grabs admittedly. But that is a separate question.
As an aside, neoliberal market economics ( as opposed to real-world government assisted private enterprise, which you are discussing whether you know it or not) has less to do with actual effeciency and more to do with doctrine. Any economic system is "efficient". The question becomes "efficient for whom or what?" Propping up the Party? Propping up a monarch? Maximizing profits? Providing a minimal standard of living for everyone? Minimizing costs? Externalizing costs (making the taxpayer pay for private research, wherin the private sector keeps the profits if it works out and the taxpayer is left holding the bag if it doesn't work out)? In that regard market economics is no different than any other economic doctrine. It will have weaknesses and strengths. There is no economic holy fucking grail.
Incidentally, Adam Smith's invisible hand is claimed to work when labor more mobile than capital. Offshoring, speculative investment, and electronic banking systems turn this upside down. Adam's theories are about as beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists as are Karl's theories.
If you don't believe me when I say government systems are cheaper, look at the data. We pay more for less compared to the single-payer systems in the rest of the industrialized world. You can talk about invisible hands all you like, but the numbers just don't back up your claims.
Government subsidy and intervention in the market have always been and still are facts of life in the US. The only near term question is whom do you wish to subsidize more: the corporations (those heavily subsidized entities that you call "free market" entities lol) or the people who need health care? I'm not stating my preference but I am asking you to explicitly state yours. And don't say "neither, I like the free market". You might as well say you prefer the Easter Bunny.
Don't sweat it if you don't do the inflation properly in your head, neither do I :) I use this calculator.
So, using this, what costs $100 in 1985 cost $177.47 in 2005. Or in other words, if nominal book prices have gone up 35% in that last 20 years, they have declined in real price.
Consoles very well may be more expensive, I don't honestly remember what the nintendo cost, but $100 sounds about right. The point is, a great many things that you *perceive* to be more expensive are actually less expensive in real terms. Even with the consoles, you get a far better product.
I recomend a 22 (for target practice), a 12 guage (for home defense), a high power rifle (for hunting and if the shit hits the fan) and a quality handgun in the calibur of your choice (target practice and shit hitting fan). You could do worse then selecting an AR-7, a remington 12 guage pump, a M1 rifle and a SIG in .40 cal.
Also consider black powder as the seasons are much longer (for hunting outside the no doubt overhunted ancestral area).
BTW an unlimited supply of food and no preditors is heaven to a cow, pig or chicken (ummm pig).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
To this I counter: sanitation and plumbing.
Find us a sewer system built entirely without government intervention. That means no privatized, pre-existing, municipal systems, no government loans, no use of governmet force to acquire rights to lay pipe through private property without compensation, etc.
Also, explain how to give coverage to the poor sectors of society, maintain the system, and earn a profit for investors. Please provide numbers.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I know your ideology tells you this must be so, but we have a free market for health care here in the US, and it sucks.
It does? If the other poster had been in the US, and had health insurance, he would have received much better care in every one of those cases. Medical care here is expensive, but quick and generally of very high quality.
Both systems have their problems. The free market approach provides fast and excellent care for the majority, and for those who have acute and severe conditions, but leaves the poor without much in the way of preventive care, or care for chronic conditions. Actually, thanks to medicaid, the very poor get good care as well. It's the working lower class that gets shafted. The tax-funded approach provides mediocre care for everyone, including most of those who would could afford good care in the US.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Keep that flashlight away from the tuna, you'll ruin it.
Based on you cannines comment you certainly do like to participate in ignorance. Just the kind of ignorance that prevails in your social circle.
BTW vegetarians universally stink to heaven.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Both of my parents are teachers, and my sister is a teacher. You are absolutely correct.
The problem with education is the what passes for parenting today and the willingness of parents to fight to destroy teachers' careers rather than face up to the fact that their kid might be a little monster. My mom has to deal with this sort of nonsense ALL THE TIME from my her school's worthless community. Oh, and the petty interpersonal politics between teachers and the little martinets that aim to be school administrators doesn't help either.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
We are much less homogenious then the 'rest of the world'.
I'd add that europes culture is no more diverse then the USAs. (Bleeding 'Watney's Red Barrel'.) Europeans don't understand just how fricking big the USA is.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is happening right now to about tens of millions of Americans.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The solution: socialized, single-payer healthcare.
I've also travelled quite a bit through Europe with tour groups and I have always noticed that while people from other countries embraced the cultural differences and wanted to sample new foods, the Americans generally couldn't wait to go trotting off to the McDonalds or KFC.
...Up until the bland facelessness of Starbucks screwed me out of that goal.
Damnation, that drove me completely crazy when I spent 3 weeks in Japan back for a class back in 2000! I had an explicit goal when I was there to never eat anything that I could easily get in America. I was essentially forced when hanging out with some classmates to go to places like McDonald's, KFC, and Starbucks and had to change my goal to always getting something that I couldn't get in America at everyplace.
(That said, KFC makes a delicious curry side dish, the Teriyaki Burger is kind of neat, and I really loved McDonald's "Shakashaka Poteto" which was french fries with a flavor packet, available in curry and umeboshi, and a bag to shake it all up in.)
Meanwhile, after a single week, some of the other students were whining about how they couldn't wait to get back to America and go to Pizza Hut. I just couldn't believe it. What's the point in going to a foreign country where you don't like the food?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
OK let me tell you a story of my last experience with the NHS, last year (July) I had an accident in a lane and came off my motorcycle, and drove into a hedge luckily the soft hedge took most of the 40-60mph impact and so all i ended up with were bruises and a completely and utterly mangled wrist. After getting help and going to my nearest A&E, I was assessed and sent straight through as an emergency patient (apparently your wrist should not look like a hump backed bridge) after sitting down for ten minutes i was seen given a pain killer x rayed and asked to wait (total time on a Sunday night 2 hours waiting) the sent up to a ward. Next day seen by a new doctor reassessed and placed on a waiting list, it took two days for my non emergency operation to happen, yes that's right two days but since I had no school or work to do I was happy to wait, probably saying that to the surgeon wasn't the best of ideas. The surgeon (head surgeon there) decided rather than give me a cheap fix, being a young man he would go to excessive lengths to make sure I could use my hand quickly and would gain maximum mobility out of my hand. The result was a 5 inch flexible bar. Within two weeks I was back at work using my wrist booking in physical therapy sessions if and when I needed them. My dad was seen, operated and in a ward 3 hours after going in A&E with a swollen appendix. The NHS does work and it works well but there are two problems to it, firstly waste of time patients, while i was waiting for my Xrays a work colleague turned up with sun burnt legs, she was worried she had skin cancer all she had was sun burn, but that's time hospitals don't need to waste. Secondly the inability to financially organise themselves, a while back when Labour first came to power a very old friend of mine who happened to work at the local hospital told me that since the hospital couldn't work out what to spend the extra money on, they bought laptops for staff to use for work related activities. This is pure and simple waste and happens a lot in the NHS. The really sad thing is the private hospital opposite now delivers low quality of service when compared to my local NHS go figure.
So because you cannot measure its usefulness, management is useless?
You must be one of the bad programmers, then.
Listen, I'm not fond of management as a class either, but a good manager (of which there are more than a few, though not nearly enough) can find ways to get groups of people working together much better and more efficiently. The problem, as you have so eloquently stated, is that it's nearly impossible to judge management by an objective standard, so there's really no way to tell if someone's going to be a good manager or not before you hire them.
It's largely a talent, which, like art, can be honed, but is hard to instill without a lot of hard work. And that's assuming that the person you're trying to instill it in realizes they don't have it in the first place, which most don't.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
"So please feel free to take two sentences from different paragraphs in my previous post, mash them together into 'quote', and demonstrate how completely illogical I am."
So I forgot to put a few line breaks between the sentences, what's your point? What does that have to do with the actual content of my reply? Or were you conveniently avoiding my 4 points by complaining about my poor quotation style?
"If you don't believe obesity is a precusor to a plethora of "diseases", please go talk to Any Medical Professional On Earth - traditional or otherwise."
Of course obesity leads to some diseases, but that has nothing to do with "organic" versus "man-made" foods, or the magic word "chemicals" to which you repeatedly refer. Skinny people get diseases that obese people don't, and vice versa. Everyone is susceptible to diseases, so stop kidding yourself. Your body mass index has little to do with how healthy you actually are (only in the 2 extremes).
What I said about GMO food bears repeating... you are what you eat.
Because private hospitals, as a general rule, don't have intensive care / high dependency units.
So if something goes really wrong with your appendectomy (for example) - like they sever a major blood vessel by accident - then what the private hospital will do is put you in an ambulance and take you to the nearest NHS hostpital - that does have an intensive care / HDU.
Do you want to run the risk of dying in the Ambulance? Just so that you can have tea and cakes when you come round from the anasthetic?
Hrmm... I don't usually feed the trolls, but you expose an important point of ignorance among people in general, so I'll respond.
If you have a pre-diabetic condition (read you are a fat ass)
The prediabetic condition is usally defined in terms of elevated blood glucose levels, either via a fasting blood glucose test, a two hour glucose sensitivity test. An FBS test (the easiest and most common) result of between 100 and 120 mg glucose/ dl blood is said to be prediabetic, while results of 120 are normal and diabetic respectivly. The idea is the same for the glucose sensitivity test, though I don't have the exact numbers in my head. Notice that prediabetes is not in any way clinically indicated by being as you say 'a fat ass'. People need to be taught how to monitor blood glucose, have A1C tests done every quarter, and ideally have access to nutrition education if they need it.
The point I was trying to make is that there is something fundamentally flawed about a healthcare system that would rather pay $7,500 to amputate a person's leg than a couple of hundred to prevent it. The US would be far down the road towards the best healthcare in the world if we had a system that emphasised prevention over catastrophic care. It makes sense from an economic point of view in that it's cheaper in the long run and from a human point of view since fewer people have to suffer.
In fact, the US already has within its own government the perfect model for this sort of healthcare system. The VHA really stresses prevention and early detection of problems among its patients (/. IT types would be amazed at how advanced the VA's patient information system is) and has consistently provided better outcomes for less money than the private payer system it competes with.
Kind of a side point, but since I was specifically citing the case of NYC I'll throw this in too: When I lived in NYC I walked about five miles a day, all told. And if I wasn't careful I tended to eat a lot of 'street food' on the run. Under these conditions a person could appear quite fit and still be prediabetic (though the condition wouldn't manifest untill later in life probably).
A good healthcare system keeps sick people alive longer. This is why you see a greater % of people in America with these conditions. The British simply die sooner as a result of not getting the same quality healthcare. So much for "science"...
Please cite the study linking vacation time to incidence rate of cancer.
That is possibly the most Insightful quote I have read in a long time.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The English have a higher rate of heavy drinking. Drink up!!
What you do to the least of my brothers, that you do to me.
Hospitals in the U.S. are notorious for having rampant incompetence, apathetic "proffessionals", and abysmal customer service, too.
So, even if this guy's right, you're no worse of than we are, and you're paying less for it. Congrats.
No one gets to use the "US Healthcare is so effin' great" argument EVER AGAIN. It's not great, it costs twice as much and does less to keep us healthy, that's what TFA is saying. Someone needs a refresher course in reading comprehension.
Based on scientific research, socialised medicine has been proven to be better, so you can go lick the Free Market's bunghole someplace else. Anecdotal evidence does not mean shit, and I would be willing to wager that most people who come up with these "Oh I live in a country with teh socialised medicine and I could not even get my hangnail fixed" stories in fact live in the US and are merely spreading FUD because they can't fact that "Their Team" is losing. For every one of these stories, I have heard two of the opposite, and now we have scientific evidence to back it up.
The free market works great, for some things, if no one is actively fucking with it, but for other things it does not work well at all.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
When a guy who's sick of the flue [sic] hijacks a plane and flies it into a building.
Since when has a guy blowing himself and a building up ever led to his grievances being addressed?
Honestly, if someone did that, you'd see the mass arrest of sick people as a threat to the nation before you'd see national healthcare.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I told the bitch-ass receptionist (a real cunt) that. It was easier for her to tell my doctor to call me than for her to put stuff in the mail and deal with invoicing me 50 cents per page. She's a lazy cunt anyway and I got great satisfaction getting her to hang up on me.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
This is the reason why I believe in a limited federal government. People like me can have our "commie welfare state" in, say, Massachusetts, and you can have your "if you can't pay, you deserve to die" state in Texas. This way we will both be happy rather than one of us forcing the other to live by his desires.
YES.
It forms a marketplace of ideas in government. The states with the best policies will thrive, the others will be forced to adopt superior policies to survive. In cases where two or more ideas are about equally beneficial, it's likely that not every state will pick the same one, so citizens can move to another state if they don't like the way that one state does it.
Oh, and we need to stop this silly electing of Senators by popular election. Drop that amendment, go back to letting the state legislatures do it. They are supposed to be the *state government*'s representatives in the federal government, looking out for the states' interests, NOT looking out for the people in general (thought the two may often coincide). They should answer to the state legislature, which answers to the people of the state. We might as well make our federal legislature unicameral if we're going to do it the way we do now. Ridiculous.
It's a shame that so many people immediately think you're a pro-slaver loon if you start talking about increased independence for states.
/ end rant
If you fry some potatoes in non-hydrogenated vegetable oil, it's a perfectly healthy side dish.
No, it's not. It's just empty calories. The insides of potatoes are almost completely free of vitamins and minerals to begin with before you destroy any vitamins in the frier. That's just nothing but starch and fat -- admittedly unsaturated fat, but fat nonetheless. That adds a significant amount of calories to your food.
100g of plain baked potato is 136 kCal with 0.2g fat.
100g of french fries / chips from KFC is 294 kCal with 14.8 g fat.
Your comparison against highly processed foods is silly. Eat some steamed broccoli instead, dangit.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
had anyone compared dental plans?
It's a shame that so many people immediately think you're a pro-slaver loon if you start talking about increased independence for states.
Or even worse, a conservative (I kid!).
I'm pretty far to the left (On the political compass, [-8, -7]), but I'm also a deontologist. For instance, I'm pro choice, but for the overturning of Roe v. Wade since it is a state issue.
Basically, if Kansas and Mississippi want to drive their states into the ground, that is fine with me. Just don't force the rest of us to do it via nationalization of state laws based on an overly broad reading of the commerce clause.
Viewing from Australias perspective, the whole USA healthcare system seems screwed. It will be interesting to see Michael Moores new movie (as spin doctored as it will be).
I'll briefly describe Australias health care system.
A. There is a basic public system that is free and my experience of a very high standard. Have an accident and you get a free (in Qld at least) ride to the neareast public or public/private hospital by chopper or road, and then 100% free treatment to make sure you don't die. It also includes rehab.
B. If you have a category 1 type illness (life threataning) you get FREE medical/surgical treatment promptly (ie before you die)
C. If you want something non urgent done you can wait anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 years (ie 20 years for breast reduction, 3-6 months for a knee replacement).
D. Then if you pay about $700 - $1200 per annum, you can have private health cover. This will usually cover the hospital bed fee but not quite the doctors fees (known as the GAP). It also covers lots of other stuff like fitness, well being services etc. In the private system you can choose your own doctor and hospital. In the public system you who you get.
E. For general day to day health you normally go see a private doctor which costs $50 of which the govt will normally refund 2/3 of.
F. Need medicine. The govt has the PBS (Pharmacutical Benefits Scheme). If you drug is expensive and the govt deems its payback to society is good, it negotiates hard with a drug supplier then supplies to the community at a subsidised rate. (The USA big pharmas don't like this)
Also if you spend more than about $500 on drungs in a year the govt will kick in and support you.
Its not perfect and you will always find whingers, but in my and my extended friends experience, it has been a fantastic system.
46137
A study I read about on Wired stated that when there was less work among doctors, they "created" it, by making more cesarean births for instance in places with lower birthrates for instance.
I'm not certain if it was conscious though.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Actually, there *are* health studies and nutrition surveys that concern that question -- Is a diet full of meat, animal products and fried food good or bad for you? -- and some of them go back to the 1950s! One such study concluded that a diet rich in fiber carried enormous health benefits ....in other words, load up on breads and cereals, get plenty of fruits and vegetables, but ease off on the meat and dairy products (which have NO fiber).
Unfortunately, the meat and dairy industry doesn't like it when busybody scientists and medical researchers publish findings like that, so they rarely enter the mainstream attention of the public. Kind of like the smoking studies that kept getting badmouthed or buried by the tobacco industry....
At one point, though, the ills of the meat-and-dairy diet got major exposure when Howard Lyman appeared on Oprah to warn of the possibility of Mad Cow disease occurring in the US (this was the famous episode when Oprah publicly announced that she would never eat another hamburger). Whereupon the meat industry promptly slapped both Oprah and Lyman with their notorious "food disparagement" lawsuit.
Happily, Oprah beat the lawsuit. On a darker note, Lyman's prediction was proved devastatingly accurate when the first appearance of Mad Cow disease in America was confirmed:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/23/mad.cow/
However, Lyman isn't just the "Mad Cowboy" who's trying to stop us all from catching this deadly disease -- he's also committed to warning us that perfectly clean meat and animal products are still a poor source of food....
> I'd seen countless friends suffer from heart disease. I'd seen the cancer rate in America increase dramatically. My own health was hardly exemplary: I weighed 350 pounds, my cholesterol topped 300, my blood pressure was off the charts, and I was getting nosebleeds.
>
> Suddenly the circle came together for me. We were, as a civilization, making one big mistake. This mistake was killing us as individuals.... We were eating animals, and it wasn't working. If those animals had set out to take their revenge on us, they couldn't have done a better job.
>
> And I became, right then and there, something I never dreamed I'd become: a vegetarian.
>
> Within a year of eating no meat, my health problems all started to go away. Not only did I feel better physically, but I felt better knowing that there was one answer to many of the different ills afflicting both ourselves and our environment.
>
> Everything revolves around the fork.
(Excerpt from "Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from The Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat!")
So, to use the old X-Files slogan, "The truth is out there." You just have to dig for it, and bear in mind that some people want very much to keep you from digging.
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
make sure you use good water for coffee/tea/food (i.e. boiled vegetables) and for preparing dinner only use food and ingredients which are direct from its source. So no pre-cooked sauces or sort alike, only use genuine spices like pepper, salt, sugar etc. Eat bread, eggs, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, beans, potatoes, rice. Don't buy already sliced up food. Carve your fresh food inside the kitchen with a knife. It indeed will take more time to prepare that proper meal, just like your grandma was doing, but if your health is improving, no one should complain.
Robert
Look no further than our food industry. The Beef and Diary assiciaions in particlar are almost pathelogical in thier drive to kill as many people as possible if it will save half a cent.
you were walking on the wrong side of the stree?
Seriously though, some younger people do that just to be annoying. Highschoolers especially. They didn't think you were a bum.
I'd like to see a reference to that please, specifically stating that it was on religious grounds. People are legitmately refused treatment because of drinking all the time, and your statement sounds like xenophobic claptrap.
Let's take cancer. People don't know where cancer comes from and think that some habits are better than others. Yet we all can get cancer, regardless if you excercise, etc. We think that certain habits will increase the liklihood, but we cannot say, "Excercise and you will not get cancer".
Sounds exactly like auto insurance to me. We know what causes wrecks, but can't really predict them with certainty on a micro-scale. We think that some habits are safer than others (not speeding, not drinking, etc.). We think that certain habits will increase the liklihood of driving without getting killed, but we cannot say "Drive the speed limit and you will not die in a car crash".
Let me give you an example; Lance Armstrong, incredibly healthy and a great athlete, yet he was on the brink of death due to cancer. Or how about Andres Galarraga? Or how about Scott Hamilton? How about Mario Lemieux?
And a guy who tests racecars for a living could get clipped by a semi on the way to the grocery store one day. There are no certainties in life, for anybody. We can't prevent cancer, and we can't prevent car crashes (unless you avoid driving and public roads altogether, which isn't feasible for most people).
This is why I say healthcare is a societal issue because healthcare saps money and is a money looser! With a spin on the car insurance ananlogy. When a driver has an accident we as a society don't mind charging that driver more or not giving him car insurance. If a person gets cancer can we say, "No you can't get coverage, you are on your own?"
Improper use of the analogy. When you have *any* event that causes the insurance company to believe you're not being as safe as possible, your rates go up. If you get a bunch of speeding tickets, they'll increase your rates, even if you didn't get in a wreck.
Same thing with health insurance: anything that causes the insurance company to believe you're not being as safe as possible, and they'll raise your rates. Do you smoke? Rates go up. Same thing.
This is exactly what private healthcare providers do. I know, my mother survived breast cancer, but the private healthcare providers are refusing to cover her for cancer. If she gets cancer again she is on her own. This is wrong! But it is business because she is a "problematic" person.
Without being insensitive, the same thing can happen in any kind of insurance. It sounds like what we need is something like no-fault health insurance.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but high-fructose corn syrup could be a major cause of this health discrepancy. According to Wikipedia, HFCS has "been linked to health problems such as obesity and diabetes."
Most interestingly (and I assume this is talking about Britain as well): "Currently HFCS remains an almost uniquely American phenomenon as, although it is not actually banned in Europe (and other markets), the relative greater availibilty of cane sugar against maize in these markets (coupled with generally negative consumer attitudes towards it [particularly in Europe]) has made it uneconomical to produce it there." Wikipedia.
HFCS is mostly consumed through soda, but that "healthy" fruit juice parents give their kids can contain even more.
Yes, because forty stupid people can do anything a genius can. Especially when they're all talking at once.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Read this. Still think it is superior?
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
Or even worse, a conservative (I kid!).
ewwww.
I'm pretty far to the left (On the political compass, [-8, -7]), but I'm also a deontologist. For instance, I'm pro choice, but for the overturning of Roe v. Wade since it is a state issue.
Holy crap, I'm not alone after all!
Some choice quotes:
Now, consider that the US Government conducted more than 2000 nuclear tests in the roughly 40 years following WWII, 500 of which were above ground tests. Thats roughly one nuke every two weeks, one above ground every two months, for 40 years.
I think we all know where cancer comes from.
It's not that I don't feel empathy or compassion, it's that I resent the government forcing me to feel either.
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
As far as I'm concerned, Americans spend WAY too much time looking at themselves, thinking about themselves, and drawing attention to themselves. If they don't get enough attention, they get sick. If they're rich and depressed, they get sick. If they feel like someone has treated them badly, they get sick.
Most (~75%) of the USA needs to shut up, quit whining, and live their lives a bit. They'd be a lot less "sick" if they did that.
"I'm a liberal person by nature and thus have very liberal beliefs in human rights. I believe all humans have a right ... to live healthily"
Tell this to the kid who will never see puberty because he's dieing of Leukemia.
The mark of a mature person is not creating arbitrary criteria for considering others mature.
There is a large percentage of doctors, most of whome got their degrees in third world cesspools. dodging either tuition costs, or admission requirments in the first world. They have substandard education and it shows. My grandmothers doctor retired and passed her on to another doctor from said third world hellhole. A particularly vile woman, who had been nicknamed dr death at the local emergency. Anyway, this doctor decided to take my grandmother off of her thyroid medication. Her thyroid basically does nothing, and she has been on serious meds for decades for it. so after a few weeks off of her medication my grandmother was hallucinating, and basically crazy. She had such nervous energy that she was literally vibrating. I was scared to death, I was alone with her and didn't know what to do.... So I go to google. Which basicaly confirms that dr death is basically a duck in a pond, and that we had to get some thyroid medication into her. I started her on half of the pills she had been taking before the quack got to her. She started to normalize after about 12 hours. Lovely time. Not exactly on topic for the main thrust of this thread, but relevent to the comment I replied to.
7 weeks anually, in Denmark - but then noisy brats can be a real stress *g*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Our problems do not come from a "failure" to socialize medicine. When I was up in Canada, the news was that brain scanners were mostly going to places with powerful politicians. Quebec got an unfair share. Money was disappearing for political reasons. Over in the UK, people are being sent to France for surgery because they'd die on the waiting lists if they didn't go. Here in the USA we install brain scanners (lots of them too) where there will be patients and we don't die on waiting lists for anything other than an organ transplant -- and that only because we made it illegal to pay the dead person's estate.
Our real problems are:
Some of these problems are not really solvable. Economics is what it is, people like new technology, and nobody wants to see their little children die. The lawyers have some mighty lobbiests, but a change would at least be theoretically possible. The same goes for the co-pay insurance system, which could be replaced by a sliding scale or percentage system. (example insurance fix: the patient's payment must increase by at least 10 cents for every dollar of the treatment cost up to "$200 for $2000", then by 1 cent per dollar thereafter)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You sure have thought of everything. Thank god everyone is a smug well-invested middle class worker with perfect job security, like you. Except those who are not, but hey, screw them right?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Health Economics 101
By PAUL KRUGMAN; (NYT) 803 words Published: November 14, 2005
Several readers have asked me a good question: we rely on free markets to deliver most goods and services, so why shouldn't we do the same thing for health care? Some correspondents were belligerent, others honestly curious. Either way, they deserve an answer.
It comes down to three things: risk, selection and social justice.
First, about risk: in any given year, a small fraction of the population accounts for the bulk of medical expenses. In 2002 a mere 5 percent of Americans incurred almost half of U.S. medical costs. If you find yourself one of the unlucky 5 percent, your medical expenses will be crushing, unless you're very wealthy -- or you have good insurance.
But good insurance is hard to come by, because private markets for health insurance suffer from a severe case of the economic problem known as ''adverse selection,'' in which bad risks drive out good.
To understand adverse selection, imagine what would happen if there were only one health insurance company, and everyone was required to buy the same insurance policy. In that case, the insurance company could charge a price reflecting the medical costs of the average American, plus a small extra charge for administrative expenses.
But in the real insurance market, a company that offered such a policy to anyone who wanted it would lose money hand over fist. Healthy people, who don't expect to face high medical bills, would go elsewhere, or go without insurance. Meanwhile, those who bought the policy would be a self-selected group of people likely to have high medical costs. And if the company responded to this selection bias by charging a higher price for insurance, it would drive away even more healthy people.
That's why insurance companies don't offer a standard health insurance policy, available to anyone willing to buy it. Instead, they devote a lot of effort and money to screening applicants, selling insurance only to those considered unlikely to have high costs, while rejecting those with pre-existing conditions or other indicators of high future expenses.
This screening process is the main reason private health insurers spend a much higher share of their revenue on administrative costs than do government insurance programs like Medicare, which doesn't try to screen anyone out. That is, private insurance companies spend large sums not on providing medical care, but on denying insurance to those who need it most.
What happens to those denied coverage? Citizens of advanced countries -- the United States included -- don't believe that their fellow citizens should be denied essential health care because they can't afford it. And this belief in social justice gets translated into action, however imperfectly. Some of those unable to get private health insurance are covered by Medicaid. Others receive ''uncompensated'' treatment, which ends up being paid for either by the government or by higher medical bills for the insured. So we have a huge private health care bureaucracy whose main purpose is, in effect, to pass the buck to taxpayers.
At this point some readers may object that I'm painting too dark a picture. After all, most Americans too young to receive Medicare do have private health insurance. So does the free market work better than I've suggested? No: to the extent that we do have a working system of private health insurance, it's the result of huge though hidden subsidies.
Private health insurance in America comes almost entirely
I've been living in Kentucky for a few years now.. let me tell you, it's practically a different country. You are treated different if you aren't Kentuckian. People aren't generally rude or mean if you aren't from here. But it makes one hell of a difference. Even in big cities (Louisville) people still have country attitudes. I've traveled quite a bit and found "urban culture" cold and inhuman. People are less hell bent on physical possessions, popularity, and dollar signs here. It's about achievements and who you are.
I can visit most any grave yard and find someone who died during the civil war and look him up. Then drive down to the battlefield where he fell and read about his unit's last actions before his death. My town was shelled by southern troops early in the civil war and a cannon ball lodged into a building can still be seen to this day from the town square. There are huge nature preserves and geological formations unique to only a few places in the world, such as the moon bow. All this is far off topic, but i just wanted to say that uniqueness is everywhere. There were probably fantastic places to see and people to meet just ten minutes from your Denver home. I think big cities have mostly imported culture. They can't create culture, only attract it. What culture does exist in a city, has always been there since the beginning. You don't see cowboys walking in downtown everyday. There's no ranch in the city to manage.
I just think twelve hours in any direction is MORE than far enough to tell a difference. You just have to get off the highway. Hell, if you were in Germany, it wouldn't matter where you were, you'd probably drive out of Germany and all the way through another country in twelve hours (though the autobahn does help:) .
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Nations with government control of health care routinely off patients who will not contribute sufficient taxes in the future to pay for their health care. Holland being the most notorious example
Not that that doesn't happen quite a bit here, too.
Then there is the lack of medical care in such countries. The father of a friend is nearly comatose because the UK health system would not provide him therapy after his stroke. Things could have been much different, but he was a pensioner and wouldn't pay it back in taxes in his remaining calculated lifespan.
Canadians come to America for health care rather than waiting in on the list until they die before they can see a doctor.
There's nothing wrong with calories, though! You just don't want to eat more than you're burning is all. I'm just saying that if you're going to eat 300 calories, I think you're better off eating fried potatoes than many processed foods, some which may initially seem healthier... like artificial "diet" foods . Of course 300 calories of simple meats and green veggies would be even better, but I stand by my statement that simple natural foods are not so bad.
Cheers.
I just want to comment on this post, as it is a major problem in most american cities. I live in Topeka, KS, the state capitol of Kansas, I live less than a mile from the grocery store, shopping mall, and several schools. I never walk to any of them, because there ARE NO SIDEWALKS, and you have to walk on busy roads to any of those places (bridges over small streams, etc, that force you to walk on the roadway). It's a problem in several cities I've lived in, no sidewalks, or any pedestrian friendly parts of a city. Walking is extremely discouraged in America, vs. Germany and the UK.
From Dr. Ruwart:
"Actually, such [socialist] systems only "seem" to work. Thousands of Canadians cross the U.S. border each year to pay for heart surgery and other treatments. The "free" health care in their native land is available only after months, sometimes years of waiting, even if you die before your number is called.
In Britain and over 55, you'll probably be denied expensive treatments such as kidney dialysis. It's sad enough to watch loved ones die when a disease is incurable, but it's much worse to watch them die just because the line is too long.
The secret to lowering health care costs is to do away with the excessive regulation which drives up prices by 70-90% with no added benefit. "
You can read more about this in her book posted online:
http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/chap5.html
http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/chap6.html
Libertas in infinitum
drives down wages, drives down incentives to give any vacation when you can hire people that work like slaves. wonderful is illegal immigration.
The average japanese citizen eats a lot more fish than the average american. This has a strong health-effect.
That an insurance based healt care system would be ineffcient, have high cost and partial coverage was predicted by the an economic model by Nobel prize winners Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz. The problem is related to assymetric information. Contrary to popular belief European health care is not socialized. Some of it is, but in Europe the whole spectra exist. The difference between Europe and the US is that every European system has a full coverage scheme and most systems with private health insurance prevent insurance companies from doing risk assesments on you or deny you coverage for a basic package. The result of this is that insurance companies don't spend huge amount of money and paper work trying to assess your risk. Another myth is that places with socialized medicine does not use the free market at all. E.g. hospitalization is basically free in Norway. But going to the physician cost money although the prices are subsidized. But that still means they have to compete for customers. People will go wheree they get better quality and service. You are also allowed to choose hospital and the hospitals get payed for how many patiants they treat. So there can be competition among hospitals and an incentive to become more efficient even in a socialized system. I think people forget that the principles of the free market can be used within government, just as the priciples of planned economy can be used by private enterprise (monopolies e.g.). The American sceptism towards government and government intervention is hurting the American health care system. You should allow government to regulate the health care market in a such a way that it actually becomes a free market. The way it is now, the market is not free.
Do you have information about deaths in British hospitals? Without anything to compare to, the number of American deaths isn't very useful.
actually, this is based on a report that was posted in an internation medical journal that showed the results of 13 countries. I remember reading the whole report a while ago so I googled for it and found this article that referenced it. Sadly, the link back to the report is missing.
- Leading-Cause-of-Death-in-the-US.htm
Here is another article that references this year 2000 report, which may have more complete data:
http://www.healingdaily.com/Doctors-Are-The-Third
The message of this original report that I found surprising is that this was measuring the success rate of only people who DID receive medical attention in the hostpital and DID pay their medical bill. So poor people could not have been a cause of the US stats. This article was only compairing people who went to the hospital with illness, so the life expectancy of the whole US public doesn't play into it. The fact is, if you have the cash to pay for the medical treatment, you are less likely to be cured in a US hospital than one in another country. You'd be much better off to go to Cuba, for instance, which has one the best medical systems in the world. Japan is rated number 1.
It's to make up for everyone calling in sick all the time.
If a person were inclined to get a bunch of people sick with a dangerous, communicable disease, and knew where to catch it himself, this is all it would require:
1. Get a job at the concession stand at the local stadium, or at a food booth at the county fair, or anywhere else with a lot of customers doing a lot of other things (so authorities will have a much harder time figuring out the common thread -- though this doesn't much matter if the incubation period is long enough).
2. Get infected. If unsure, go on to step 3 anyhow. It won't hurt.
3. While hopefully incubating but not visibly sick, lick all the paper cups around the rim and put them back. Not only will this directly infect people he sell sto, but cow-orkers will be inadvertently doing it for him, and likely to themselves -- how many people in that position don't drink the soda? (If it's required that they bring their own cups, he just licks those too, directly or indirectly.)
4. If it turns out the self-appointed Typhoid Carny is not infected, GOTO 2.
5. He survives, or not.
The real downside (from the perp's perspective) it is that dying of Ebola is probably a lot more unpleasant than just blowing himself up in a crowd. It also doesn't raise the same type of fear as a suicide bomber or suicide hijacker or a bomb on a train. These cause immediate panic, like kicking an anthill, and better suit a lot of possible agendas.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.