Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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.
Negative eighty years. Oh SNAP!
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
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.
Patients are generally easy to catch. Many are pre-fattened for flavor...what? 'ON' patients?
Never mind.
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.........
Hey, why not?
They shouldn't allow those food stamps to be spend on anything but fresh veggies, meats, etc.
There is NO reason they should be allowed to buy cokes on food stamps, there is no nutritional benefit to that at all.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
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.
amazon says we can have whole foods do EBT.
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".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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.
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.
I'm gonna guess it's more than that, so let's round it to an even $10 trillion.
You can make up whatever numbers you want while you're guessing, but over in the real world the highest credible estimate - including not only the money actually spent but also projected medical spending as well as the interest on borrowed money - comes in at under $6 trillion.
So yeah, he exaggerated.
Yeah. What's an order of magnitude between friends.
Add in Iran and I can get us to $125k easy.
Man, if you add in the war with the Klingons we're probably hitting $1,000,000 easy!
So you tell me, when's it all gonna stop?
Never. Why would you expect it to? The story of mankind is one of constant conflict. What in the world makes you think that you live in a special time which will usher in an end to war?
Don't be naive.
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Success speaks for itself. The guy is 70. He's already made it to a ripe old age despite what any desperate partisan detractors want to think.
He's like the 100 year old woman that drinks bourbon and smokes cigars.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
I suppose it might vary by state, but I know this was already the case when I was a kid where I lived. I worked in a grocery store and everything was already labeled in the checkout system as being either eligible for payment with food stamps, or not. Soda, gum, and prepared foods from the deli were all prohibited if memory serves. The checkout system would show the total price, at which point the customer would pay first with their food stamps and then whatever balance was left, that wasn't eligible for that method of payment, would be settled via some other form of payment. My state also taxed what they considered luxury groceries, stuff like gum, bottled and canned beverages, and prepared food from the deli. But you could still buy microwavable TV dinners, candy, and koolaid with foodstamps and no taxes.
The guy is 70. He's already made it to a ripe old age despite what any desperate partisan detractors want to think.
Three years past retirement age is not 'a ripe old age'.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Since you changed the subject, you must be conceding the point.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Pure capitalism is the only ethical system. All other systems are based on some mixture of theft and force.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Your claim that privately built infrastructure would collapse is without merit, as is your hidden assumption that government built infrastructure never collapses.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You obviously haven't met many dying people. Some are worn down by long-term illness or pain, and would just as soon die.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That the US Supreme Court has declared something Constitutional, does not make it Constitutional.
Need is not a claim on my life.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
We have the right to shoot burglars.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The type of fats does matter. Heart patients should be getting generous amounts of the sort of fats in fish oil and olive oil.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
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.
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 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.