> Expanding the number of primary-care physicians would reduce the chances of treatable conditions, such as moderate hypertension, blooming into costly maladies, such as heart disease.
By itself, I don't think that would solve the problem. I am afraid of going to the doctor for anything that isn't pretty serious because not only will it be expensive, I have no idea how expensive it will be. Sure, a trip to my GP might catch something early, but it is much more likely I'll end up paying hundreds of dollars just to be told there is nothing wrong. Having more general practitioners might maybe decrease price due to more competition, but probably not enough to make a significant difference with how the health care system is currently structured.
The part of this article that I really appreciate is that it takes a political minefield where nobody knows what is going on and presents it as a mess of different effects, none with an identified main cause. And reasonably non-judgmentally.
It is fascinating that the problems around health particular persist despite all the factions acknowledging that it is a disaster. The US partisans need to learn how to negotiate, they obviously aren't very good at it.
What I as an European always found weird is the fact that this is a political minefield in the US. As if there are not enough nations that have shown how health care can be organized in a good way for the benefit of all, for decades, all while having thriving economies.
It happened more than once to me that in online discussions an US-american told me a thing was "not possible" that I grew up with my whole life. I am not sure if I would've become a freelancer if I had to worry about my state just letting me die if things don't work out.
The article gets the right answer, but doesn't seem to tie it all together.
Depression/despair. There are very few happy, well adjusted people on opioids. Or obese. Exceptions exist, but both seem to root from incredible amounts of unhappiness and/or lack of purpose.
I don't know the answer to the problem...taxing soda isn't it. We need to give people hope and opportunity, and not just smack their hands when they do something bad.
I'm not sure to what extent this applies to America vs. world, but deaths from despair (actually a technical term) can be helped by religion (the study considered any weekly religious services) to the tune of a 68% (in women) reduction [1]. In the journalism surrounding this study, I've seen health professionals say things like "if we could prescribe it as medicine, it would be the most revolutionary treatment in the last 100 years". I'd be morbidly curious to see scientists relate the decline in religious service attendance to the increase in deaths from despair. I'm a religious person, and I have definitely experienced the implied improvements in my outlooks on the basic concepts of "hope", "joy", and "purpose".
Hey, but you can buy smartwatch monitoring your health for 1000 bucks... and there is abundance of "health" coaches and "healthy" diets. Doctors though? They would rather never touch or even see you. Only Bill, Jeff, Zuck and your other palls can afford their attention.
Judging the US discourse on that topic the issue is, that many of you would rather self medicate and risk their own health before paying a penny that might go to the health of someone else.
If you are in a society where a part would rather have it worse themselves than support a stranger, you will not be able to have the nice things.
People buy smartwatches and go on diets in rich non-American countries too. I don’t really know what your point is though? It’s possible to have a hard time seeing doctors in wealthy countries with socialised healthcare (eg the current situation with the nhs in the U.K.) and it is patently that you need to be one of the richest ~10 Americans to see a doctor. I think a great deal of the American readers of this site will have ‘good’ health plans to the extent that they could reasonably easily see a generalist doctor at short notice.
There are obese people that go and get a heart bypass. The problem is that they will never stop going. One day they will get their second and third. This is very expensive for not much effectiveness.
The author misses that most OECD countries game these statistics (eg decrease childhood mortality by requiring 3 breaths to issue birth certificate) in response to internal political pressures you just don’t see in the US.
Can you give evidence of a developed country where that’s the case?
Because I grew up right on the Canadian/US border, I have family and friends on both sides. It’s really easy for me to see why Canadians live longer than Americans. Poor Canadians have access to preventive medicine in a way poor Americans don’t because of our universal healthcare system. This prevents a lot of illness that are easily to stop in early stages but hard to stop in late stages from killing people.
But it’s a really common thing for Americans under the influence of their radical corporate propaganda to wave things like universal healthcare away and just say with no evidence that other countries are cheating with numbers. No need to disrupt the amazing profits of your corporate health providers just to do something silly like save the lives of poor people —- they should really have worked harder if they didn’t want to die of cancer anyways.
You know what my lived truth is? Before Canada had more advanced health cards and systems for keeping patient records, it was a common thing in my city for poor Americans to try to defraud our health system just so they could get basic treatment.
But yeah buddy, keep believing the lies that we’re just counting infant mortality differently.
It might be fair to say that statistics vary a bit on definitions, but mother mortality is defined by the UN and the difference is much more pronounced because of US "internal political pressures".
That actually sounds fairly reasonable as a threshold of “this is a live birth”. I’m not going to spend hours debating in my head whether it should 1, 3, 5, or 0-with-other-criteria, but someone has to make that determination.
So the majority of OECD countries is cheating at statistics except the US? Do you have the exceptional evidence to go along with such an exceptional claim?
that sounds like just about the only thing on that list that you could imagine to be a statistical artifact rather than self-evidently true. You know what you just don't see in Japan, Korea or Europe? Anything else on that list. The rate of obesity, gun deaths, car accidents, entire regions ravaged by opioids and so on.
In the entirety of England and Wales, that's 60 million people, the police has about 0-3 fatal shootings per year.
[+] [-] thayne|3 years ago|reply
By itself, I don't think that would solve the problem. I am afraid of going to the doctor for anything that isn't pretty serious because not only will it be expensive, I have no idea how expensive it will be. Sure, a trip to my GP might catch something early, but it is much more likely I'll end up paying hundreds of dollars just to be told there is nothing wrong. Having more general practitioners might maybe decrease price due to more competition, but probably not enough to make a significant difference with how the health care system is currently structured.
[+] [-] roenxi|3 years ago|reply
It is fascinating that the problems around health particular persist despite all the factions acknowledging that it is a disaster. The US partisans need to learn how to negotiate, they obviously aren't very good at it.
[+] [-] atoav|3 years ago|reply
It happened more than once to me that in online discussions an US-american told me a thing was "not possible" that I grew up with my whole life. I am not sure if I would've become a freelancer if I had to worry about my state just letting me die if things don't work out.
[+] [-] silisili|3 years ago|reply
Depression/despair. There are very few happy, well adjusted people on opioids. Or obese. Exceptions exist, but both seem to root from incredible amounts of unhappiness and/or lack of purpose.
I don't know the answer to the problem...taxing soda isn't it. We need to give people hope and opportunity, and not just smack their hands when they do something bad.
[+] [-] comfypotato|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
[+] [-] durnygbur|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atoav|3 years ago|reply
If you are in a society where a part would rather have it worse themselves than support a stranger, you will not be able to have the nice things.
[+] [-] dan-robertson|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harwoodleon|3 years ago|reply
This mortality figure is a disgrace, especially with the longevity technology we now have in humanity.
[+] [-] imtringued|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blackhaz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morgunkorn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stop50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitchbob|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peyton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsomers|3 years ago|reply
Because I grew up right on the Canadian/US border, I have family and friends on both sides. It’s really easy for me to see why Canadians live longer than Americans. Poor Canadians have access to preventive medicine in a way poor Americans don’t because of our universal healthcare system. This prevents a lot of illness that are easily to stop in early stages but hard to stop in late stages from killing people.
But it’s a really common thing for Americans under the influence of their radical corporate propaganda to wave things like universal healthcare away and just say with no evidence that other countries are cheating with numbers. No need to disrupt the amazing profits of your corporate health providers just to do something silly like save the lives of poor people —- they should really have worked harder if they didn’t want to die of cancer anyways.
You know what my lived truth is? Before Canada had more advanced health cards and systems for keeping patient records, it was a common thing in my city for poor Americans to try to defraud our health system just so they could get basic treatment.
But yeah buddy, keep believing the lies that we’re just counting infant mortality differently.
[+] [-] yakak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vanderZwan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|3 years ago|reply
In the entirety of England and Wales, that's 60 million people, the police has about 0-3 fatal shootings per year.
[+] [-] BlargMcLarg|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigbacaloa|3 years ago|reply