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California Study To Examine the Influence of a Healthy Diet On Patients (nytimes.com)
"According to The New York Times, the state of California is funding an experiment through The Ceres Community Project to test the influence of a healthy diet on the recovery of state Medicaid patients with long-term serious illnesses," writes Slashdot reader MonteCarloMethod. From the report: Over the next three years, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and Stanford will assess whether providing 1,000 patients who have congestive heart failure or Type 2 diabetes with a healthier diet and nutrition education affects hospital readmissions and referrals to long-term care, compared with 4,000 similar Medi-Cal patients who don't get the food.
The California study will build on more modest and less rigorous earlier research. A study in Philadelphia by the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance retroactively compared health insurance claims for 65 chronically ill Medicaid patients who received six months' of medically tailored meals with a control group. The patients who got the food racked up about $12,000 less a month in medical expenses. Another small study by researchers at U.C.S.F. tracked patients with H.I.V. and Type 2 diabetes who got special meals for six months to see if it would positively affect their health. The researchers found they were less depressed, less likely to make trade-offs between food and health care, and more likely to stick with their medications.
The California study will build on more modest and less rigorous earlier research. A study in Philadelphia by the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance retroactively compared health insurance claims for 65 chronically ill Medicaid patients who received six months' of medically tailored meals with a control group. The patients who got the food racked up about $12,000 less a month in medical expenses. Another small study by researchers at U.C.S.F. tracked patients with H.I.V. and Type 2 diabetes who got special meals for six months to see if it would positively affect their health. The researchers found they were less depressed, less likely to make trade-offs between food and health care, and more likely to stick with their medications.
Food is not an easy thing to get a handle on.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
so many to choose from...
There are primarily lifestyle diseases associated with poor food choices. The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet devoid of harmful cholesterol and refined carbohydrates.
and more to do with 6 months of not worrying whether you get to eat or not. The part that got me was this:
"less likely to make trade-offs between food and health care"
Seriously nuts that this is a thing, but that's America's healthcare system.
OTOH if I want to have a bit of libtard fun I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and heming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
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For the ones that reply that we ought to have a national healthcare system, do you ask them if they are prepared to pay more in taxes to fund it (with the assumption that, on average, the tax increase would be no more than the reduced national cost of health insurance).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The distinction between nutrient, drug, and poison is largely mythic. The fact that doctors haven't been considering treating patients with nutrients before now is alarming.
So, how long until politicians seize upon this study as justification for restricting the diets of those receiving food stamps? And how long until that diet changes from a medically prescribed selection of nutritious foods to an agreement hammered out by various agricultural lobbies and designed to boost consumption of profitable crops at government expense?
Isn't the idea of healthcare as a right more a left-wing idea? Do many of your right-leaning friends actually think healthcare should be a right?
I'm genuinely curious. I actually associate "healthcare as a right" to uninformed voters of all political stripes. On the right, they don't understand how it gets paid for, and on the left, they don't understand how to get doctors to accept socialized prices.
i live like that. it's not fun. eat or rent; do laundry this month or replace my shoes (mine have holes forming in the soles from literally wearing out). routine or preventative health care is absolutely out of the question, as is the office visits most take for granted when they're ill with routine and common things.
You mean as opposed to spending roughly $150,000 per US citizen on the last two wars?
(with the assumption that, on average, the tax increase would be no more than the reduced national cost of health insurance)
I love magic money tree math. Hospitals in the U.S. offer basic stabilization services to indigent walk-ins. The cost of those same people freely accessing the full range of services in the healthcare system would by definition be much higher.
OTOH if I want to have a bit of libtard fun I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and heming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
Well, that's easy: no, healthcare is not a right. No hemming and hawing required.
If you read the US Constitution and its amendments the only constitutionally guaranteed access to the labor and/or services of another individual is described in the sixth amendment: the right to assistance of defense counsel. (Some argue that by extension judges and others involved in the justice system as well.)
There is a reason for that. One of the founding ideals of the United States of America is rugged individualism. While the main text of the Constitution is focused on the structure and functioning of the governmnet, the amendments 1-9 are all about protecting indivudual liberties, while the 10th is partially about individual liberties and partially about states' rights.
Now, there is freedom of association in the USA. So if you prefer a collectivist approach to healthcare, you are more than welcome form your own coop, insurance company, charity hospital, or whatever, and get busy with convincing others to join you.
But, keep in mind that a national healthcare system with compulsory participation flies in the face of the principles upon which the Republic was founded. At a minimum for such a thing to be implemented, I think it would require a constitutional amendment. That is how fundamentally it affects the fabric of our society.
That study is being initiated by the state of california, i.e. a governement, which half the population of the U.S. hate.
It will be conducted by scientists, which half the population of the U.S. distrust.
All these people believe in is a book written thousands of years ago.
Civilization. It was good while it lasted.
i live like that. it's not fun. eat or rent; do laundry this month or replace my shoes (mine have holes forming in the soles from literally wearing out). routine or preventative health care is absolutely out of the question, as is the office visits most take for granted when they're ill with routine and common things.
My doctor wants me to have a blood panel drawn and a CT scan but I won't be doing either. Between the shitty insurance coders and the scattered nature of insurance coverage I will end up being billed for many hundreds of dollars that I cannot pay. It will then be sent to collection agencies and reported to credit agencies making it nearly impossible to rent housing when there are people lined up around the block for any rental property available. Landlords have the luxury of being very selective and a bad credit score is tossed aside regardless of underlying reasons.
The hospitals/clinics/etc all insist you sign an agreement along with the permission to treat that you sign up front to agree to pay for anything at all they do or provide that may not be covered by insurance.
They literally hold hostage the medical treatment I am insured for under condition that I agree to pay for anything else not covered that they might decide to do/provide/etc without my further consent.
If somebody blows up a US hospital or a major insurance company's HQ it won't be ISIS it'll be Americans tired of being essentially blackmailed with death threats.
"what's wrong ronald?" said the morbidly obese purple triangle
"i dont know, people just arent coming like they used to"
"why not?" said the prison-stripes wearing fugitive, incarcerated for non violent crimes related to medical cannabis
"these goddamn fucking liberals and their fucking health food."
"i have an answer for that" said an anthropomorphic bird
"really?" said ronald?
"maybe your profit margin shouldn't be the only metric by which you value your self worth" said the little birdy
"blam" said ronald's shoe, as he crushed the filthy hippy under the jackboot of capitalist righteousness
"you, you there" ronald pointed to the cashier
"yeh?"
"get me a fucking slab of bacon, a tub of butter, and some fry batter. im going to make these libs
sorry they ever came for old clowny mcclownface"
"do you want fries with that.."
"no, fuckhead, im a vegan. just get me what i asked for. we are going to make a Star Wars
Bantha Burger and im going to make a billion fucking dollars"
"I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no"
No, it is a service paid that is paid for, otherwise doctors would be slaves.
Those receiving the extra benefits liked them and were willing to say whatever the study people wanted to hear in order to keep them coming. Tell me, did they compare against another group that got the same extra benefit amount in cash?
Patients are generally easy to catch. Many are pre-fattened for flavor...what? 'ON' patients?
Never mind.
Nice. So, supporting the US Constitution and trying to find solutions to problems where those solutions also respect the Constitution is now flamebait? Bravo!
I can give you a simple answer....
No.
Healthcare paid for by others to you, is not a right.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You think they spent $50 trillion on two wars?
Someone's been hitting the medical marijuana.
Err....maybe you need to move to somewhere that is more affordable for you to live?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Of course we have the right to it. We also have the right to take from everyone that has more than they need in order to pay for it.
You pay one way or another.
You can pay for emergency treatment when people can't afford to visit a doctor for anything less than life-threatening emergencies, by which time a condition that could have been treated cheaply and with a better patient outcome is now an expensive, risk laden venture with poor prognosis. Worse, it's tying up a system that would be better serving emergencies that couldn't be anticipated or treated.
You can try to make emergency services a user pays proposition, but then you risk increasing the wealth inequality even further, increasing crime and you pay for police, a slower legal system and increased prisons, not to mention having a growing population that are in poor health creating a pool for infectious disease.
Maybe the math doesn't perfectly balance. It's hard to put a dollar value on quality of life and engagement with the social contract, but most other first world/OECD countries achieve better health outcomes for more people, for less money and lower cost to most citizens than the US. Using some flavour of nationalised health care.
There are some things that are terrible when government run, just as there are some things you don't want to let people profit from. Health care is one of the latter.
"Doctors have free range to impose unnecessary procedures and run up the consultations count in order to maximize charges to the health insurers/patient. Because healthcare is a life-or-death issue first, the only solution is for health insurers to race to raise premiums. This cycle is why healthcare is so expensive and the services are so lacking."
If you think the free market is at work in the healthcare field in any meaningful sense, you're insane. People make a lot of bad life decisions leading to obesity leading to horribly expensive medical procedures. People aren't cut off when they can't afford a procedure but at the point where they can no longer borrow and pay off the creditors enough that they refuse further treatment. At that point, hospitals being required to engage in emergency care regardless of ability to pay--due to Medicare/Medicaid requirements--will kick in and the cost will be distributed on everyone else.
Get rid of a requirement for hospitals to treat people and you may solve the problem. You'll also see a lot more people in the US dying each year out in the gutter--something already happening in plenty of cities where hospitals are effectively violating the law and not treating people by pushing them out the door and trying to avoid responsibility. If you think this fact will suddenly result in people making better life decisions, again you're insane. If you making bankruptcy law more willing to forgive medical debt and hence make people less willing to let people borrow for medical debt, you're crazy--cheap loans and massive debt are the foundation of the inertia that is the US economy with little evidence that those that loan care because they sell off the debt to others and need not worry about actual collection.
You want to get at the heart of it? The US economy is in a horrible state and getting worse by the day. The sort of fiscally conservative stuff that's necessary--raise taxes and slash spending--would cripple the US economy for a decade at least and do little to directly solve the healthcare mess. In the long-term, it might help by starving people in the same way Venezuela's dictatorship is starving people. That's not a rightist answer. But it would take a dictatorship to actual push that sort of policy.
Your argument looks good on paper. Yet the US has worse outcomes for most people, at a higher cost than most first world countries - who are running some flavour of socialised healthcare.
Of course, they can distinguish between idealised 'pure' socialism of knee jerk rhetoric and practical, regulated socialised policies designed to try and prevent the abuses you cite.
Seriously. Take a look outside the US for other models and for examples of limited and regulated soclialism especially with respect to healthcare.
Did you forget to use sarcasm font, or are you actually serious? The US has the most expensive health care in the world. All countries with universal health plans (i.e. every developed country except the US), have cheaper health care and almost all have better health outcomes for their citizens. And yes, some of these countries are ... socialist.
Most societies consider providing universal health care to its citizens as the right thing to do from a moral perspective.
OTOH if I want to have a bit of libtard fun I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and heming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
While I do believe we should have a national healthcare system because it makes economic sense, healthcare cannot possibly be considered a right: what if people decided being a doctor sucks and they didn't want to be doctors anymore? If healthcare is a right, then the government should force them to go into the profession and provide service... but that would violate the 13th amendment's ban on slavery. And the right of people to not be forced to provide healthcare must trump any alleged right to receive healthcare.
In the end we are all dead. Health and nutrition are an extremely complex matter. It's largely a matter of culture.
Since we're all dead in the end, the trip along the way is much more important than the inevitable destination.
And really, initiatives like this are about flexing power over others. Those 'poor dumb fools' who we can help by imposing our rules over.
It's the same as it ever was. Information can be valuable in helping others make beneficial choices. Imposition, on the other hand, is mostly negative.
Isn't the idea of healthcare as a right more a left-wing idea?
Maybe you should check your history. Maybe not as a right, but universal, affordable health care has long been a thing that Republicans wanted to do. At least up to the point where Breitbart and the Koch brothers took over.
Just sayin'
The "more affordable" areas often lack paying jobs or access to education (unless you're majoring in football).
But paying taxes for military homicide sprees in the Middle East and to lock up 1% of the American population obviously is a right. Got to love the good 'ol US of Ay!
Doubt it will happen -- a lot of people want to become doctors even if doesn't always pay great. It gives a lot of opportunity to do good. What the government might need to do is subsidize medical school in exchange for working for a public health system.
Or maybe you should learn to ask why you need those procedures, and if you think you don't need them and can't afford them, say no.
Do you have a conversation with the doctor and tell him or her that you're paying out of pocket?
You Conservatards keep trying to sell us on the idea that everyone should be responsible for themselves and take ownership. But every time we turn around we find you trying to pin the blame for your own failings on everyone else.
No, you don't pay 'one way or the other.' The limited service the poor can afford means they don't survive to the age of 74 where they cost an astronomical amount for their last two years of life. That sort of expensive care is reserved for the more prosperous.
Low cost preventive care is sort of a myth. People avoid medical treatment for many other reasons than the cost. Extremely indulgent free medical services would transform into a habitat for the idle if made unconditionally free. The people who needed it would still avoid treatment.
The people advocating for universally free non-critical care (i.e 'free checkups') are generally the vendors of said services. Which is okay. Just be honest. The hot dog seller in the street is honest about his advocacy, and you can be too.
Yes it is. We have the right to take more from people that have more than they need to buy things for those of us that need them. If what you say was true, then welfare, food stamps, and section 8 housing would be illegal. They're obviously legal, and all thinking people support those things.
Hospitals in the US charge substantial large amounts to the indigent walk-ins, whether they can afford it or not. Meanwhile, those covered under health insurance are charged substantial less through negotiations with health insurers. The fact that people have health insurance, though, should have the exact opposite effect and spur more spending at higher rates because clearly health insurers can afford to pay out and hospitals can push whatever costs the insurers refuse onto the patient.
The point is, the underlying property of how much services cost vs their price and how much they're used has a lot more to do with how much control is expressed and how on people using services and where/how/if the hospital will be reimbursed. It doesn't stand to reason that government spending will increase the effect amount of money hospitals have or how many doctors they have to treat people. The people who want to use more services will simply not get a lot of them because they'll be in a waiting listing and higher priority people will get them.
On the balance, this likely means a few less very expensive quadruple bypasses (with patients who die) and a few more check-ups and pushes for patients to be healthier (which will save a few lives). Judging by most other countries, that works out on the balance to save more lives and at about half the total cost of the US's spending.
Other countries haven't had decades of a War on Fats to deal with. Yes, extremely bad ideas implemented by the government can have poor outcomes across the entirety of the population they serve.
To think that people would believe that the US could even remotely keep up with health care costs with the rest of the world when they are this busy inflicting themselves with inflammatory diseases is completely ridiculous. Where's the logic?
Since you can't just operate away inflammatory disease, at least not today, we are now *decades* behind these other countries in getting our per-capita health expenditures down. Can't help it. Tighten up fellas, it's going to be a long haul.
amazon says we can have whole foods do EBT.
that's the final estimated bill for Iraq & Afghanistan (after we pay all the interest). I'm gonna guess it's more than that, so let's round it to an even $10 trillion. There are 350 million americans (give or take) so about $28k per person.
So yeah, he exaggerated. You've only got $28k on your credit card for the sake of two pointless wars. But let me remind you we're fighting another 6 wars and working on #s 9 and 10 (Iran & North Korea, though I think NK is gonna be the one that got away). Cheaper wars I suppose, so I'll give 'em to you at price. That's $84k per person, so I'm at $112k per person. Add in Iran and I can get us to $125k easy.
So you tell me, when's it all gonna stop? So far as I can tell we've got Orwell's 1984 "Always been at war" but it's the middle east instead of Eurasia.
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inb4 healthy diet may cause cancer
I assume they will go lower carbs. But will it include sugar? grains? low fat?
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
shall be the whole of the law. As long as you're willing to admit you're in favor of Dog eat Dog capitalism that's something I can work with. Very, very few people are willing to admit it because, well, it's been shown repeatably that it ends horribly for all but a lucky few (the .01%, the robber barrons, monarchs, facists, whatever you want to call them they're the same all throughout history).
I actually prefer guys like you. Because 95% of us know your ideas are just plain wrong. Which is exactly why so few right wingers will admit to them. Especially in person. After all, it's easy to say "Let 'em die" on the internet. Not so much when you're face to face with somebody actually dying.
And if you want to know why you're wrong (and you're open to figuring things out) start by googling "Wallet Biopsy".
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Another thing is that the value proposition, in time and money, isn't as good cooking for one person as it is cooking for a family. If I get a hankering for a sandwich, I need to buy a LOAF of bread, a HEAD of lettuce, a package of cheese, etc. The bottle of mayo will go bad before I use 1/4 of it. Then take the time cutting the vegetables and such. All for one sandwich. Subway starts to look like a reasonable option.
If a family of four wants sandwiches, it's still a loaf of bread, a head of lettuce, etc to feed all four people. That's a better value proposition.
I probably could plan out different meals a week ahead to use up that whole red onion, which I got to put 1/16th of it on my sandwich. It's a bit of a hassle, though.
I'm glad to see that restaurants, even fast food places, are slowly starting to offer healthier options.
To the degree that other countries are influenced by the US (directly and indirectly), there has been some 'overflow' from that war. Australia's obesity levels aren't far behind the US for all of our idealisation of 'ourselves' as a nation of sportspeople.
That's on us, btw.
Even so, it's still better to treat it early. Get people in for regular, subsidised or low cost health checks. Get doctors involved in providing lifestyle advice and warnings. Catching type II diabetes when it's still early makes it a lot easier to treat than having to amputate gangrenous limbs.
It won't fix it overnight. Hell, it's going to take generations, and as you say the cost is going to be enormous. But it's still going to cost less, overall, if it's handled by a single, regulated body or organisation that isn't looking to make a profit from it. Or multiple, state based organisations that are loosely affiliated or federated. I'm not sure what would work best in the US, and it's probably going to take a bunch of false starts to find out what does. But private and privatised health care has been failing for a long time and it's not getting any better.
Err....maybe you need to move to somewhere that is more affordable for you to live?
Maybe hospitals and doctors should provide the services/medications/etc covered by insurance and not blackmail patients to essentially hand them a blank check first in order to be allowed to receive the services/medications/etc that are covered.
BTW I'm already living in one of the 5 States with the lowest average cost of living and housing prices.
In the short term one often loses weight on a diet simply because changing the pattern your body is used to puts it into minor shock. But in the longer run it adjusts and things go back to "normal" (overweight). Longer-term studies almost always confirm this. For one, if your food intake decreases, your metabolism also slows down to match, making it an uphill battle.
Exercise is a better route, but is time-consuming. Countries that rely heavily on walking too and from public transportation instead of cars often have notably healthier populations. One would have to exercise roughly an hour a day to match that, and split it into roughly 2 sessions. That's a lot of time to sacrifice. You may live 5 years longer, but lose that total difference exercising.
Table-ized A.I.
Healthcare paid for by others to you, is not a right
It may not be a right for you, but it is for me, and I live in the USA. You see, I'm a retired 'Nam vet, 30% disabled, all Service Connected. That means that all of my healthcare that's related to my conditions is free for life, and because of my low income, so's the rest. Of course, unlike most people who want or expect free healthcare, I actually did something to earn it. However, for all of those precious snowflakes who only want to know what their country will do for them, I agree with you.
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Right now, the US pays more per capita than any other OECD country.
Your outcomes are worse.
Low cost preventive care is sort of a myth
The evidence suggests otherwise.
There's a bunch of other articles with lower standards of rigor that all say much the same thing if you google 'cost of preventative care vs emergency care', for example. I'd be fascinated to see evidence to the contrary.
Extremely indulgent free medical services
Straw man. I'm arguing that socialised medical care as used by other OECD countries costs less and has better outcomes. You're arguing some fantastic exaggeration you're calling 'extremely indulgent free medical services'.
You're not even consistent. You argue first that people don't just avoid medical care because of cost, but then argue that were it free, people would use it too much.
The people advocating for universally free non-critical care (i.e 'free checkups') are generally the vendors of said services
Ad hominem.
Just be honest. The hot dog seller in the street is honest about his advocacy, and you can be too.
When you can back up your statement with something resembling facts, and avoid some fairly basic logical fallacies, your adoption of a patronising tone will probably ring less false.
Caveat. I'm from Australia, and while there are problems with our health care, I consider myself damn lucky to be able to live in country and period in history with access to the levels of civilisation that I enjoy. I'm more than happy to pay taxes to fund these services, both for myself and my fellow citizens and recognise that probably makes me a 'socialist' in the eyes of some. I consider the plight of those in the US who cannot afford medical care to be a tragedy. I've nothing to sell, and your assumption that this can be the only motivation for someone to advocate equitable access to the wealth of society says more about your motivations than anything else.
...but, but....freedom!
I feel so sig.
The researchers found they were less depressed, less likely to make trade-offs between food and health care, and more likely to stick with their medications.
Who? The researchers?
I feel so sig.
"Let them die" would amount to criminal neglect.
So while the state is not required to provide universal healthcare, it might be advisable to come up with an idea how to make it easy for the citizens to provide help to people in danger (e.g. provide a statewide emergency service which they can call), or to avoid to have too many people in dire need for help.
do you ask them if they are prepared to pay more in taxes
Why bother? The answer is no. Humans in general object to paying taxes in any form for any reason. They hate taxes, the taxation system and the notion that someone should take their hard earned money. The only part of the system they can get behind is that they feel entitled to benefits. This isn't even a left vs right issue, though the extreme right takes this to the logical extremes where I even heard one person say the government should not be building roads but that all infrastructure should be privately funded on a user pays basis, ignoring that the resulting infrastructure would collapse.
Queen missed the mark:
"I want it all,
I want it all,
I want it all,
And I want it now!"
but they forgot the part about "But I don't want to pay for it".
Socialized doctors have free range to impose unnecessary procedures and run up the consultations count in order to maximize charges to the government.
Ironically the only place where I've heard this happening is the USA.
Not having healthcare is expensive. Dying people will stop at nothing to get treatment, even if it means threatening doctors or breaking down your hospital.
And offering preventive health care is orders of magnitude cheaper than letting people get so sick that they become medical emergencies.
er.....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
California study finds cancer links during healthy diet, places warning labels on all healthy foods.
Yeah I do pretty much the same thing. Whip up a big batch of chili, portion out into individual servings in Tupperware, freeze it, and I've got lunch or dinner for a couple weeks. Make a batch of egg salad and that's breakfast for 4 days. Tuna salad, same thing but for lunch. It's not hard, it just limits your options a little bit. The biggest pain is trying to get enough fresh fruit and vegetables.
OTOH if I want to have a bit of libtard fun I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and heming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
That means they are centrist at most. A rightwinger goes straight for the "no, lol, nothing EVER gives you the "right" to another person's labor".
Well, that's easy: no, healthcare is not a right. No hemming and hawing required.
If you read the US Constitution and its amendments the only constitutionally guaranteed access to the labor and/or services of another individual is described in the sixth amendment: the right to assistance of defense counsel. (Some argue that by extension judges and others involved in the justice system as well.)
Not even that. The right to a legal counsel isn't *your* right per se. You can't just show up at a court and demand a lawyer. It's something that *the government* is obligated to provide *if* they want to put you in prison. It's a part of the legal procedure, not a service that the government has to provide to anyone any time.
I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and hemming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
Your right wing friends are really that unable to express their own views? You should get some better right wing friends... oh, but then they might be able to successfully challenge your views, so I can see why you avoid them.
FWIW, no healthcare is not a "right". Positive rights are a very, very bad idea. Education is also not a "right".
OTOH, it's probably better for society to provide free education, and free basic healthcare. Not because they're rights but because providing them solves a lot of problems.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Seriously, way to waste money.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25198208
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19339401
At my local store
Boneless chicken breast $1.99
Asparagus $1.50 for enough for three people.
Olive oil $5
For one person, that's four meals. The olive oil lasts for at least 20 meals.
So a single individual could eat for 4 days on less than it takes for get a burger from Carl's Junior. And, BTW, each meal would add up to about 450 calories.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I was in the ER during a rare slow day and I got to talk to a nurse who had been there for 20+ years. They said they have many regulars who can't afford a $500 yearly doctor's exam with full labs and what-not, so they go to the ER once a year claiming they have every pain, and the ER by law has to look them over. Then it turns into a $10,000 ER bill, which gets written off because they can't afford it.
The hospital workers know these people are faking it, they even get told after the fact. But the hospital is not only legally bound to make sure that anyone complaining about an issue is completely looked over, but they are ethically bound to do so and not doing so would cost the workers their licenses.
The nurses don't care. They think it's sad that a person is forced to stoop to such levels for basic healthcare and gladly help.
I do the same thing too, frozen veggies are a great way to deal with the veggie part, just make sure not to buy anything that lists ingredients other then $veggie and water.
"Noodle bowls and cans of chili" and frozen food is about what I do. Which better than fast food or restaurants. It's not what I think of when people say "cooking". Just the way I was raised, cooking involves ingredients. Things like eggs, milk, flour, etc.
I do sometimes enjoy a hybrid, combining fresh and frozen. Things like putting some fresh cilantro and diced tomatoes or onions on top of a frozen burrito.
1 - the rights of the people are not limited to those listed in the constitution. See the ninth amendment.
2 - the general welfare clause alone is sufficient constitutional justification for universal health care.
3 - the militia (the whole body of the people) must be healthy to defend the country and could be provided health care just as the full time military personnel are as part of defense spending.
Collectivist? Dude, put down the Ayn Rand books. She lived in a rent controlled apartment. Your right wing political spruikers lie to you just as much as the left wing political spruikers. There's some things you do yourself. There's some things you do as a family. There's some things you do as a local community. There's some things you do as a nation. It's no more "collectivist" to have universal health care than it is to have a national military.
You can't just look at the money "costs", but you need to include the actual values, like opportunity costs from what would have been a perfectly good worker now unable to work because they're sick. Most people are not paid their true value because money cannot represent true value. A company may make a gross profit of $100k while paying someone $50k, but the economy may gain $150k. Numbers out of the air but the idea is correct.
I consider hamburgers to be healthier than fruit.
"The bottle of mayo will go bad before I use 1/4 of it."
No. It really won't. Usually even if you don't refrigerate it, but especially won't if you DO refrigerate it. That stuff can last for months in the fridge.
I make four or five sandwiches a year, so yeah, it will.
... after a while they will be more healthy.
*Tadum* *crash* *thud*
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Actually it is closer to $75,000 per American citizen.
And that is taking into account the years and years and years of VA medical benefits for all the fucked up vets who took part in those wars.
We're going to be paying for the Iraq invasion for a lonnnnggg time.
Bringing food to one group and doing nothing with the control group is not enough. You also need a group who simply gets a daily visit from someone the same duration as it would take to deliver the food.
Old sick people are often isolated, and the social interaction might have a health benefit.
Right now, the US pays more per capita than any other OECD country.
What's funny is all the libtards painting the failure of US health system as a failure of the capitalism. Well, here's a hint: capitalism doesn't run on government handouts. What you have there is a statist operation, EVEN MORE SO than in the rest of OECD, that's also badly run. And, ends up being even more of a fail than the less statist systems.
Well, colour my libertarian ass suprised.
Your outcomes are worse [healthsystemtracker.org].
why would I listen to Kaiser ?
They seem to push an agenda and bias in their research and analysis.
Have a different source? Or do we have to trust the "non-partisianship" of San Fransisco
Try $18,461, all in.
https://research.hks.harvard.e...
AC wrote: "cheap loans and massive debt are the foundation of the inertia that is the US economy"
And the reason for that is because in the USA the gains for increased productivity have gone to shareholders instead of workers due to decades of flat real wages -- and then the shareholders loan the money to the workers to keep the economy going (until perhaps the house of cards collapses due to unrepayable debts). See Richard Wolff and "Capitalism Hits the Fan". https://youtu.be/0HTkEBIoxBA?t...
The real issue is the resulting wealth inequality, which affects not only healthcare but many other aspects of US American society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If the USA would reinstate overtime pay rules for *all* worker -- and further if workers could claim the same percent of productivity they got in the 1950s -- that would go a long way towards resolving the worst of wealth inequality.
https://it.slashdot.org/story/...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Oh sweet, it's cherry picking season again?!
It's about time. People like MDs. Joel Fuhrman, Dean Ornish, John McDougall, Mark Hyman, and also Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C. have been saying this for decades. It's just crazy that health insurance or Medicare will pay $50K for a heart operation but won;t help people eat right to avoid the operation.
For example: https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
"CVD is ultimately caused by oxidative stress and inflammation that leads to damaged arteries. With an intake of low nutrient, pro-inflammatory foods high in saturated and trans fat, as well as refined carbohydrates, cholesterol plaques begin to line the inner endothelial layer of the arteries. Other elements of excessive animal product intake also contribute, such as the iron and carnitine in meat and too much animal protein in general. These growing plaques can block the arteries and even rupture and promote a clot, causing rapid occlusion of the vessels. The same disease-promoting diet most Americans consume results in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, insulin resistance, and obesity, all of which further contribute to an inflammatory environment that promotes atherosclerosis. Tobacco use, stress, sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep quality, and certain medications also increase risk of CVD. A Nutritarian diet, exercise, and tobacco cessation can remove plaque and reverse or eliminate the risk of CVD, as it has done in thousands of those following a Nutritarian diet worldwide."
Another aspect of this is resetting taste preferences to escape the pleasure trap of supernormal stimuli:
http://web.archive.org/web/201...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This also shows how interwoven healthcare is with all other aspects of our society like culture and easy availability of healthy foods and other aspects of healthy like moderate exercise.. BlueZones addresses some of that bigger picture: https://www.bluezones.com/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Now, there is freedom of association in the USA. So if you prefer a collectivist approach to healthcare, you are more than welcome form your own coop, insurance company, charity hospital, or whatever, and get busy with convincing others to join you.
Nope.
There are a patchwork of laws and regulations that actually make it illegal to form my own co-op, insurance company or charity hospital. You have to meet a lot of requirements first, which cost an enormous amount of money. Then you can start being an insurance company....in one state.
But, keep in mind that a national healthcare system with compulsory participation flies in the face of the principles upon which the Republic was founded
Fire departments. Are they Constitutional? It's compulsory participation, and not enumerated in the Federal constitution or any State constitution.
At a minimum for such a thing to be implemented, I think it would require a constitutional amendment
Because Medicare does not already exist.
Universal health care is different from a right to healthcare. Healthcare as a right has very different implications. If healthcare is a right, then if I move to Death Valley, the government would likely have to find a way to move a doctor near me. You end up with statutory and other requirements on access to healthcare. If healthcare is a right, every cancer patient likely has a right to the latest, greatest, most expensive treatment. Healthcare as a right would bankrupt the nation in a decade.
Rights, as understood in the eighteenth century when the general welfare clause was written, were negative: rights prevented government interference in personal affairs and kept the government from taking things that belonged to citizens. Positive rights, wherein the government has to give things to the people, are a new invention unknown to the authors of the constitution. Universal health care would be a positive right: it would require doctors to provide care and would require the government to pay for that care (to prevent the doctors from being slaves, since they are now forced to provide care). The tax burden for that care, as is the case with health insurance (almost the same thing as a tax burden), would fall on the healthy, who would be forced to subsidize the alcoholics, the sugar-addicts, the fat, the smokers, the bad life choices of the unhealthy.
Further, the Founding Fathers made very clear their intent to avoid having full-time military personnel. They would abhor the current department of "defense" (war). The second amendment and the militia were put there to avoid having a standing army. Until the World Wars, America did not have a standing army and did not have a huge budget for defense spending. That too is a new invention related to the rise of fascism and communism -- to the new forms of centralized, collectivist governments. It's not a good thing.
Get to the bookies and put all your money on a healthy diet being.............(you always need a massive dramatic pause these days)................. good for you!
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The control group in the study will be provided with a diet consisting exclusively of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Doritos (any flavor), and whatever the subject wants from the Taco Bell menu. If they are lucky, the study will not last long.
Not so much a "failure" of capitalism, but fundamentally, pure capitalism is unethical.In a pure capitalism system, the only value a human life has is whatever someone can sell that person for. The only "crime" is causing losses to someone else. Pure capitalism is just a form of anarchy where one rules by money, which is just a form of power in such a system.
Capitalism is great for certain things and horrible for others. You want a hybrid system that is some combination of socialism(term used as a laymen) and capitalism.
Capitalism also has the general issue of positive feedback that can quickly cause the formation of monopolies and monopolies are bad. Capitalism cannot exist without regulations. It's a somewhat paradoxical system.
No-one suggested enslaving doctors. So obviously someone is paying the bills, the question is should everyone have access to it?
If you think the answer should be yes, then you need to discuss how it is paid for.
OTOH if I want to have a bit of libtard fun I like to ask my right wing friends/acquaintances if healthcare is a right or not try to make them answer yes or no. After 5-10 minutes of speeches and heming and hawing they'll either say 'no' or admit we ought to have a national healthcare system.
You have a right to seek health care. Others have a right to provide you with health care. You don't have a right to force a third party to pay for the health care, nor a right to force others to provide health care gratis.
An onion will last a very long time in the fridge if you only cut off what you need, leave the stem in tact, and wrap it in plastic.
The only diet that works for Type 2 Diabetes or Congestive Heart Failure is a "Very Low Carbohydrate" Diet. By Very Low I mean less than 50 grams per day of Carbohydrates where 30 of those grams are fiber.
The Federal standard for a"Healthy" diet calls for 300-400 grams per day of Carbohydrates which your body cannot handle if you have heart disease or diabetes.
Below 30 grams per day of carbs forces your body to manufacture glucose from proteins as needed for your brain and organs to function. This process is demand regulated. Glucose is only manufactured as when your blood sugar falls below about 140 where 100 is normal and 250 is unsafe.
You can eat non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and [raw] carrots and watery vegetables like peppers, cucumber and celery.
You need to eat about double the "recommended" amount of protein to provide your liver with the excess protein it needs to be able to manufacture glucose on demand.
You should get a majority of your calories from fats [saturated or unsaturated makes NO difference] and the rest of your calories from protein. Just avoid trans fats.
You CANNOT eat Bread, Cereals, Pasta, Sugar, Starchy Vegetables, and beans [except for Black Beans].
1 slice of Bread is 30-50 grams of carbs. which is more than you can safely eat for the entire day.
On a very low carb. diet you can greatly reduce your dose of Metformin or even eliminate it completely.
Fire departments. Are they Constitutional? It's compulsory participation, and not enumerated in the Federal constitution or any State constitution.
Fire departments are "compulsory" the same way police and judges are. While they may not be explicitly defined at the federal or state level, the local municipality is typically able to require payment for them just like property taxes.
On that note. My neighbor claims they didn't have the option to not pay for the police service when they stopped at their house to fine them against the noise ordinance. Neither the Federal or State constitution says anything about noise ordinances.
Well, that's easy: no, healthcare is not a right. No hemming and hawing required.
If you read the US Constitution and its amendments
Like this bit?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I like getting one of those whole rotisserie chickens at the grocery store, they cost pennies more than a raw whole chicken. When I get it home I take five minutes to carve it up into 8 pieces and strip off all the extra bits of meat. Whatever pieces we aren't eating immediately goes in the fridge for another meal. The scraps I stripped from the carcass and usually the leftover breast meat gets cut up and used to fancy up a couple bowls of Ramen for my lunches throughout the week.
People, including my wife, like to tear down Ramen but if you take a couple minutes extra you can make it much better. I like to add a raw egg once the water comes down from the boil. You can use chopped up chicken like I do, or use some other meat, for more protein, flavor, and texture. Some raw or steamed vegetables are a good addition as well carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, snow peas, and even baby spinach all come to mind.
That $10,000 ER bill is a total fiction.
ANY American hospital bill is a fiction. At most only 33% of that would ever actually get paid. Standard labs are dirt cheap.
The hospital is providing about $200 of service and claiming it's worth some absurd amount.
The hospital is certainly not out $10K.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
America already has government health care and it's a disgrace. This isn't some fantasy where the idolized version of Sweden will magically appear. If you force more Americans on government health care we will end up with more of Medicaid, Medicare, and the VA.
All other arguments fail in the face that America has already tried and continues to fail badly at this sort of thing.
It's not some abstract theory. You can find yourself a Vet or an old person and ask them yourself.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Admittedly a CT scan is a pretty expensive procedure. Although reimbursement rates for blood work are pretty low. Even the "rack rates" for basic blood work is not a budget buster.
Most blood work is done by machines. They look like something out of old Trek but larger.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> If you think the answer should be yes, then you need to discuss how it is paid for.
You put your money where your mouth is and you open your wallet. You don't leave it to anyone else. You don't pretend that you can just soak the rich or gut the Pentagon.
Conservatives can play that game even better than you can.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Try $18,461, all in.
https://research.hks.harvard.e...
Well, thank you Uncle Sam for spending $18,461 that I don't have and can't afford. Make that $73,844 since I'm the sole support for a family of 4.
Yeah, no problem, right? Making me and mine suffer for their stupidity is just roses and rainbows all around.
...digestive and metabolic systems are highly optimized for MEAT consumption.
you're welcome!
Socialized doctors have free range to impose unnecessary procedures and run up the consultations count in order to maximize charges to the government.
Ironically the only place where I've heard this happening is the USA.
You must not hear well. It happens more places than you think.
Since you changed the subject, you must be conceding the point.
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Pure capitalism is the only ethical system. All other systems are based on some mixture of theft and force.
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I buy that chicken too. After stripping off and disposing of that disgusting skin layer, the fat and tendons, I carve it up to use in pasta, sandwiches or to eat directly. The remaining bones are great for making soup stock.
Of course the $10,000 is a bogus number, but the hospital needs some margin to use to bargain against the (always dishonest) insurance companies.
Likewise, your $200 figure is bogus. Assuming the ripoff-artist patient is there for an hour, he's using up the apparent time of one hour for a doctor who rightfully charges over $100/hr. The doctor will also have to spend time (which people don't see) keeping records. There will also be a nurse and other support personnel in attendance. The hospital has a lot of expensive machinery to pay for and maintain, and supplies to have ready for all occasions. The hospital has to have people available for all sorts of emergencies, and they have to be paid even when they're not visibly working. There are a lot of other expenses not immediately apparent, and much bad debt that has to be covered somehow.
The 33% you propose is probably not far off actual costs.
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Your claim that privately built infrastructure would collapse is without merit, as is your hidden assumption that government built infrastructure never collapses.
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One of the primary aspects of socialism is that it hides costs. By its very nature, the true costs of socialist medical care are not possible to determine.
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You obviously haven't met many dying people. Some are worn down by long-term illness or pain, and would just as soon die.
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Madison, the primary author of the United States Constitution, explicitly rejected the notion that the general welfare clause was a justification for any particular expense. It is a statement of intent, nothing more.
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OK, let's run the argument from your citation. To insure domestic tranquility, we're going to post an armed and cranky soldier at your front door 24/7. Say you don't like it? You're disturbing domestic tranquility, and we'll lock you up.
It's no more absurd than your claim that "general Welfare" provides support for nationalized health care.
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That the US Supreme Court has declared something Constitutional, does not make it Constitutional.
Need is not a claim on my life.
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You signed a contract when you joined the military. Your healthcare is a result of a contractual arrangement with the government, and a result of laws. It is not a right. A right is something you have as a result of your being human.
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We have the right to shoot burglars.
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Yeah, the first link you've skipped in your eagerness to criticise the second. Also most of the first few pages of a google search with terms like "US health outcomes vs world".
Have some intellectual honesty. If you are interested, I've made a point and provided some evidence. If you'd like to criticise the evidence, then please provide evidence to support your criticism. The bar has been raised. We left bare assertions a few comments back. Ante up or fold.
Your argument appears to be of the form
"Health care in the US has failed not because of too much capitalism, but too little"
I'd be fascinated with either a justification of same, with some kind of argument or evidence or a rejection and clarification of my characterisation.
Meantime
libtard
Insults are usually used to pad an otherwise empty position.
Well, here's a hint
Informal tone; condescension/patronisation. Too early. You've only just introduced your position. Neither tone, information nor content justify your assumption of the superior position. This comes across as desperately insecure.
capitalism doesn't run on government handouts
Oversimplification bordering on strawman. The US system is less socialised and more capitalist than other OECD countries.
What you have there is a statist operation
Double standard. You argue that any involvement by the government means that the policy isn't capitalist, yet ignore that the US Health system is more capitalist than other nations and describe it as 'statist'.
EVEN MORE SO than in the rest of OECD
Assertion. Would you care to explain this apparently contradictory statement?
Well, colour my libertarian ass suprised
Are you, by chance, false-flagging libertarians because there are many who can at least post coherent and reasoned argument and this isn't.
OK, let's run the argument from your citation. To insure domestic tranquility, we're going to post an armed and cranky soldier at your front door 24/7. Say you don't like it? You're disturbing domestic tranquility, and we'll lock you up.
That only works if you completely ignore the word "tranquiliy"
It's no more absurd
it really is much more absurd.
than your claim that "general Welfare" provides support for nationalized health care.
It's less absurd than the claim that the constitution precludes nationalised healthcare.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Your claim that privately built infrastructure would collapse is without merit, as is your hidden assumption that government built infrastructure never collapses.
Well two things: The former is often backed up, especially in the road example with real world cases (e.g. see how many of the private toll roads in Australia remained in business without the government buying out the business, if you guessed 0% you would be right). But on a philosophical level much infrastructure requires a backhaul or trunk at some point. Private point-to-point systems imply no sharing. No sharing implies no economies of scale and for infrastructure projects economies of scale is ultimately what kills it (e.g. people refusing to pay tolls through a tunnel and preferring to be stuck in traffic).
You can do this yourself by a simple thought experiment:
You have a coal mine, a town, and a port. Everyone is out for themselves.
The port builds a road to the coal mine and no one else gets to use it. The end result is a success because the economies of scale are backed by the product shipped over the road. It is worth one company building this private road.
Everyone in the town builds a road to the coal mine. It fails miserably. A person can no afford to build their own way to a destination, let alone run 1000 parallel roads. So some form of collective agreement is needed. Okay in this case everyone is going to the same place so a private company builds the road for you and you pay them (kind of like a tax, but not a tax so a republican can sleep at night). This system works... right until you don't need to go to the coal mine and instead need to go to the shopping centre, right until someone else comes to town (why should they have access, we've paid more than them in aggregate), right until the users realise a middle man is turning a profit on doing nothing.
This is basic high-school level macro-economics. You don't need a fancy degree to understand the role of government in infrastructure development.
Secondly, I have no hidden assumption. Don't read into things that aren't there, it saves a lot of misunderstanding. Government systems fail all the time, as does government itself. The collective government is a solution to very specific macro-economic scenarios, but those aren't the only things that break infrastructure.
The word is "ensure" you idiot. And no, posting a guard outside his house isn't going to ensure domestic tranquility, while it's pretty fucking obvious that providing healthcare to the entire country would be promoting the general welfare.
You people and your fucked up view of the constitution are why we can't have nice things.
You're welcome.
I like getting one of those whole rotisserie chickens at the grocery store, they cost pennies more than a raw whole chicken. ...
{offtopic}
We do that too. And I have to keep asking myself "how the heck do they do that?". Are the raw chickens overpriced? Are the rotisserie birds loss-leaders or just second-rate? When Amazon took over Whole Foods/Paycheck the prices on organic rotisserie chix dropped pretty significantly.
{/offtopic}
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Stop food subsidies and I bet they will get better results in that kind of study. Nutrition is expensive, taste sells, therefore, tasty non-nutritious foods are the logical result to maximize profits. Just like any machine, if you provide it superior fuel, it will operate at a higher rate of performance. Of course the other bunch of lobbyists that will get all bothered are the medical industry. As a society were all about allopathic medicine -- not improved health. Well, I better shut up now. :-)
I can attest that a healthy diet can actually REVERSE a diagnosis of Type II Diabetes..
I used to take 1000mg of Metformin a day, test my blood three times a day, and was overweight.
Now I'm near my ideal body weight, and haven't tested my blood sugar in over a year, I went off Metformin over a year ago, and only have to have my A1C checked every quarter.
Remember, you are what you eat... Garbage in... turns you to Garbage.
I think the raw chicken is being over priced although possibly not that extremely. I say that because part of the pricing for things is based on the churn rate, and I'm pretty sure they sell a lot less whole chickens than trays of the various parts. They probably take any raw chicken that is nearing it's sell by date and cook it in the rotisserie oven. So they're converting something from nearly being a loss to a new product that probably sells a lot better.
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