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.
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"
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
"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."
Be careful in the editing room! We don't want this one to backfire horribly and discredit him further.
Oh give it a rest. This is a site based in USA where the majority of the people havent got a clue where England is located anyway. They cant find Iraq nor Iran on a map and a whole freaking bunch of the youths havent got a clue where New York is. They think Sweden makes chocolate and is located in the Alps. They think that Hitlers first name was George.
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!"
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
Be careful in the editing room! We don't want this one to backfire horribly and discredit him further.
How could that happen? Moore, like Limbaugh on the right, preaches exclusively to his choir: there is nothing whatsoever he could say that would make him remotely credible to those who oppose him, there is no ridiculous extreme he could go to that would convince his fanatical followers that he's exaggerating one whit, and the majority of people care neither way, either find his work amusing or don't bother watching it at all, and know exactly how big a pinch of salt to take his claims with.
So he might as well go on being as inflammatory as he can, because that's what everyone wants: his supporters want to enjoy his hyperbole, and his opponents want to enjoy nitpicking him on factual errors. The more extreme the movie, the more money it makes. And that's what the American dream is all about, isn't it? Doing what you're good at, and making a fortune out of it.
Moore is the perfect American -- and making a fair and balanced documentary would be the worst possible mistake he could make.
"Hint: England spends nothing whatsoever on its citizens. The NHS in England is run by the UK government."
Um. Tell us how much you pay in taxes every year and then try to write these two sentences again.
>> 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.
Your points are well made, and mostly correct. I believe that the article *was* talking specifically about England. The NHS in England and Wales is run by Westminster, however NHS Scotland is run by the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Also seperate are the court and education system.
You will see a lot of statistics out there which are based on figures taken only from England and Wales, because Scotland does not have the same set of laws / conditions / spending. England and Wales are essentially a single administrative and legislative unit.
For example, there exists a smoking ban in Scotland, but not in England and Wales. Fox Hunting was banned in Scotland in 2002, but not until 2004 in England and Wales.
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.
And the USA is not America but English people say that all the time.
You may find my lack of faith in the power of statistical 'compensation' disturbing, but it seems to me that poverty is a bigger problem in a country with dramatically fewer government-provided support mechanisms for citizens. The NHS, for all its problems, offers vastly greater security - both physical and psychological - to impoverished British citizens than the level of security (or lack thereof) that poor Americans without healthcare have to endure. I have no doubt there may be other factors in the US environment (physical, chemical, biological, etc) that make Americans sicker than Brits. But I have no confidence from the information in TFA that this study was even remotely successful or comprehensive in isolating those factors from the overarching social and psychological factors at work which include, but are not limited to, poverty.
So, the claim that poverty is irrelevant is at the very least shortsighted and naive, though it is more probably just plain moronic.
A-Bomb
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.
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.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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)
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.
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
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.
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,
I'm surprised noone has mentioned that Michael Moore is probably not the best person to make a movie about proper diet and nutrition.
ENGLAND IS NOT BRITAIN, you idiots
I won't argue because I don't really know the difference. I do know this: Your point would have been better taken if you explained the difference. You might have thrown 'UK' in on your explanation as well. As it is, many American readers still don't know the difference and will continue to use 'England', 'Britain' and 'UK' interchangeably (mostly UK when writing because it's shorter). You don't think anyone read your post and subsequently bothered to go study up on their English history, do you? Or would they study up on their British history... UK history? See what I mean?
Don't take it personally. Most Americans also don't know the difference between Holland and the Netherlands. Hell, you might be surprised to find out how many don't know the difference between Switzerland and Sweden. At least misunderstandings about the identity of UK/Britain/England don't usually involve confusion with other countries. So... what IS the difference between England/UK/Britain? As far as we can tell from your post, you don't know either, just that England != Britain... and that we're all idiots for not knowing (or caring).
Mike: Hey look! A lion!
Tom: That's not a lion. That's a tiger.
Mike: Oh. I've never seen a lion. What does a lion look like?
Tom: Well,... a lion is not a tiger, you idiot!
Mike: Wow, you're so smart. Hey look! A lion!
Tom: That's not a lion. That's a Puma.
Mike: Oh. I've never seen a lion. What does a lion look like?
Tom: Well,... a lion is not a Puma, you idiot!
Mike: Wow, you're so smart. Hey look! A lion!
If you can't just be yourself, then be more like me, ok?
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
I've never understood the (frequently American) mindset that when things are obviously broken it's socially unacceptable to fix it if someone is making money out of the status quo.
It's not just the doctors/CEOs that suddenly change. I recently saw someone I know on a respirator, having her lungs sucked out, for two weeks because "going to see a doctor" was too expensive (she was currently unemployed).
ustr: Managed string API with ave. 44% overhead over strdup(), for 0-20B
The problem here is not that a person may die from a disease, but that someone could help, and won't, because it isn't profitable.
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.
You're asking a whole lot here, since we're talking about morality, a subject with no inherent underlying truth. I think it's difficult to justify why all society should pay to catch the person who murdered someone else's mother, without using emotional arguments, but that's standard practice in most countries, even when the murderer likely won't kill anyone else.
Here's a non-emotionally-charged argument, though. You don't know if you're going to get cancer in the future, nor do you know if your children or grandchildren will get cancer. When healthcare providers treat someone else for cancer, or spend research money on treatment, they get practice and knowledge, and are thus in a better position to treat you, or someone you love, in the (uncertain) future.
I understand your position that, if you don't care about your own possible future treatments, or the possible future treatments of those you love, you shouldn't be forced to pay for the current treatments of those you don't love, but I think that path leads to a governmental system close to anarchy (e.g., by analogy, if you don't know someone who was murdered, you shouldn't have pay for their capture, and if you don't use a road, you shouldn't pay for it's upkeep, and if you aren't worried about being attacked by another country, you shouldn't pay for defense, etc.).
Ultimately I feel you need to be making an argument not based on generalities like "I don't want to pay for your mother's cancer treatment!" which frankly makes you sound like an ass, but rather based on the idea that more people would be better off in the long run under the system you propose. I think that's a much harder case for you to make (and a harder case for someone else to take issue with).
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*?
Sorry, but descending into semantics and confusion over causality doesn't really help. If the reason I build a crosswalk at an intersection is to help pedestrians, and yet at least a couple of people are still killed by people running red lights... that does not convert my purpose for building the crosswalk into "a way to kill pedestrians."
The truth is that the vast majority of people who buy health insurance get exactly what they're buying: basic health care at tolerable prices, and the ability to undergo more substantial, rarer treatment (cancer, major car accident, etc) without automatically going bankrupt. Arguably insurance should only be about those more catastrophic situations, but the trend is to also use it more or less like a savings account... take a little out every week, and then only "pay" $10 when you visit the doctor for a checkup, etc. But that is "what they do." That's what they do for almost everyone that uses them. That is their purpose, and the people running those businesses make a living and pay back their investors while doing so. That's how it is on paper, and that's how it is in practice.
Of course, things are much more awkward now because everyone expects health care, as practiced by humans on humans, to be somehow perfect, and they're more than happy to take millions of dollars (with the help of a 30%-earning lawyer) from any practitioner or related institution under whose care things did not go perfectly. And, of course, we've now got million-dollar pieces of equipment that can do things no family doctor could ever have done a few years ago, and everyone just assumes that for a couple hundred a month for their entire family, that the machine that costs $1000/hour to operate should be at their disposal for every twisted ankle or playground bump on the head. Is it any wonder that insurance companies must play the heavy hand and try to reign it in... or, charge a fortune to actually cover the real costs.
Why people think that magically having the government provide all of these services will somehow make it cheaper is beyond me. It will just become another area of deficit spending... something insurance companies couldn't survive themselves.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
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Heck why stop there? why pay taxes? Let's privatize security, national defense, municipal services etc. I think there was a word for such a society. It was called hmmm F-E-U-D-A-L-I-S-M. Do you remember what that is moron?
This is what happens when illiterate boobs with no understanding of history are allowed to vote. They have no idea society has already struggled through all of these crises and realized working together is the better option. Privatized security whether from criminal action or from disease is not workable in the long run. If you want to see what privatized security looks like take a look at africa, without the concept of a nation state all you have are a series of private security/gangs running around looking out solely for themselves and only leads to the overall degradation of the standard of living in the majority of the african continent. This is why all successful countries have national militaries. A patient should be allowed to die if he/she so choses but there should never be a revocation of the social contract that we all stand together through thick and thin because we are americans. The biggest problem I think is that american public schools never teach simple morality tales to kids. Something as simple as aesop's fables would do. I remember a simple lesson I learned as a kid
United we stand, divided we fall.
It was simply taught, the teacher asked us to break some sticks individually then she tied another bundle together and asked us to take a shot.
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.
Actually, in many cases it does. Sure lots of people have strong morals that cause them to turn down money and advancement to do what they believe is right. Maybe even most of them do. But SOME of them don't. Naturally those are going to be the ones who tend to get more money and advancement than average, which tends to put them in charge. I've just watched it happen, with disastrous results.
Greed makes people compromise on their morals. It's an instinctual thing. The worst person to make dictator is usually the one who WANTS to be dictator.
At the same time, I doubt that greed is directly responsible via poor hospitals and doctors for the results of this study. More likely it's poor lifestyle coupled with lack of skills and inability to pay for both better lifestyle and health care.
How many US schools have mandatory home ec programs these days? How many US parents have the time to either cook for their families or teach their kids to cook?
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").
That's why smart people will buy insurance for the critical and expensive but unlikely medical needs. That's what insurance is for. Insurance isn't supposed to be used multiple times a year.
I don't read AC A human right