Computer Model Reveals Escape Plan From Poverty's Vicious Circle

KentuckyFC writes "Infectious disease condemns poor countries to an endless cycle of ill health and poverty. Now a powerful new model of the link between disease and economic growth has revealed why some escape plans work while others just make matters worse. The problem is that when workers suffer from poor health, economic output goes down. And if economic output goes down, there is less to spend on healthcare. And if spending on healthcare drops, workers become less healthy. And so on. So an obvious solution is for a country to spend more on healthcare. But the new model says governments must take care since the cost to a poor country can send the economy spiraling into long term decline. By contrast, an injection of capital from outside the country allows spending on healthcare to increase without any drop in economic output. 'We find that a large influx of capital is successful in escaping the poverty trap, but increasing health spending alone is not,' say the authors. And the amount required is relatively little. The model suggests that long-term investment needs only to be more than 15 per cent of the cost of healthcare. But anything less than this cannot prevent the vicious circle of decline."

Comments

Healthcare

[ledow]

Keep your people healthy and they'll live longer, work longer and pay more tax.

What kind of idiot hasn't realised this yet? (obviously, America)

Re:Healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

Throwing more money at it like the current admin wants to do, according to this study anyway seems to be a waste of money

It's not the money you spend, it's how you spend it.

The US healthcare system is mired in being a for-profit operation controlled by large multi-nationals and insurance companies.

They have no interest whatsoever in providing good health care, they care about maximizing corporate profits.

Basically, America's system can't ever work, and never really will except for the rich. Everybody else is expendable and 'surplus population'.

Re:Healthcare

[ledow]

Spending money on cosmetic surgery, and the amount of money you literally PISS AWAY into insurers and intermediaries is the cause of your problem.

You're not spending money on making people better. You're spending money on keeping huge pharmaceutical companies in their monopoly on ineffective treatments.

How much do you think it *really* costs to diagnose and treat a broken leg? Now find out how much your insurers pay (who aren't "insuring", because they only charge you for your own personal expense, at great "middle-man" profit).

Stop pissing about, through out this "private" medical practice with insurers and so many middle-men, and put in place a national health service who offer any treatment that is effective and extends life / quality of life, which everyone contributes to from taxation, and everything else you pay for out of your own pocket.

You'll pay less tax. You'll never pay health insurance again unless you want to for something cosmetic. And you'll be healthier.

Come join the rest of the fucking first- and third-world.

Re:Healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

In a for profit health care system like the US has profit is maximized by having sick people paying for care. Profit is mimimized by having a healthy population that does not need the care.
Guess where the economic factors are going to push the health of the population?

Re:Healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

The US healthcare system is mired in being a for-profit operation controlled by large multi-nationals and insurance companies.

I want to add "not-profit hospitals turning huge profits" and "chargemasters" to this list of reasons why healthcare is so screwed up. Time magazine again exposed this problem very well earlier this year. Total BS...

Re:Healthcare

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the U.S. already spends more public money per capita on health care (via Medicare/Medicaid) than Canada does. So the problem cannot be attributed entirely to private health insurance.

Sure it can.

Because likely around half (or more) of every dollar being spent is simply lining the pockets of the insurance companies and the middle-men. There's simply no room to get savings from economies of scale, and the vendors can just gouge for every piece as they go. Because if those vendors don't show a steady (and unrealistic) profit, they will be punished by the speculative investors running the stock markets.

As it exists, your system is hugely wasteful because every asshole in the middle is taking his cut and contributing absolutely NOTHING to patient care.

Everything in the middle is just mark-up and waste -- which is why your system as it stands can never actually work for everyone.

The US health-care system is the economic equivalent of trying to build a car by purchasing all of the parts directly from car dealers, and then paying a bunch of mechanics to do the assembly. All you're doing is throwing money into the gaping maws of the middle-men.

The cost of your procedures and case is so high because you need to offset the sheer quantity of money you've been bilked out of in the process. And then all of those other absurd line-items in the bill amount to "because we fucking can".

Essentially, your system is designed to be ineffective and wasteful, because that's how the private companies want it. When insurance companies decide on the 'appropriate' level of medical care, it's a sucker's game from there.

The fact that you spend more money per capita mostly means you are wasting more on the structural problems in your health care system.

sending aid doesn't help, stop raiding countries

[dutchwhizzman]

Most "poor" countries to which we send aid, are being plundered just as hard, or even harder. Every time we send food aid to some poor African or central American country, the local farmers get no money for the little food they produce and the local market is ruined, stopping local production of food instead of encouraging it.

Every time we demand the lowest price for all the stuff we import from those countries, we make them find ways to produce even cheaper, lowering the standard of life there. This results in pricing that is so low that our own economy can't compete and we put import taxes on these goods. This results in the foreign producers being forced to lower their prices even more, again ruining their economy and health.

Instead of "sending aid" every time a famine or natural disaster strikes one of these countries, we should stop plundering them. Micro credits for local businesses there have helped a lot, investing in farming for local food supply helps. These people are perfectly capable of helping themselves, given half a chance.