...has little effect on mortality?

I don't think that was ever the driving reason behind health care reform, aside from what a few extremists may claim in soundbites. The bigger issue is the continuing costs of our current health care system which are going to become nearly unsustainable in the near future. I've never bought into the claim that everyone needs health care. Certainly there are plenty of healthy single people in their 20's that don't. But the flipside of that is people who go to the ER for every bump and bruise because they don't have a regular doctor or health plan.

I don't know what the driving issue behind health care reform is. It's certainly not apparent from our leadership what the actual point is.

It certainly seems that what everyone is trying to do now is make sure everyone is "covered". What is the point of that huge expense if medical spending has little average benefit?

If the information we have is correct, and medicine is much less beneficial than "we" seem to think, isn't a large part of the continuing costs of our current health care system attributable to undue faith in what medicine is capable of?

You're focusing on health care reform as though the ultimate goal is to make Americans live longer. Lowering medical costs while increasing the quality of life, that should be the goal of any health reform. We currently outspend virtually every other western nation on health care and in return receive very low quality care.

Also I think there's a distinction to be made between "health care" and "health insurance", which is what the article talks about. Having health insurance is not going to suddenly prevent people from dying of cancer, or heart attacks. But obviously there IS a tangible benefit to having access to health care when you need it in emergencies, or when you actually use it for preventative purposes such as regular checkups that prevent more serious issues.

And if you think that health care coverage has very little benefit, well let me ask you; would you be willing to drop all coverage for yourself and family? Probably not. So why wouldn't you expect every other American family to also want coverage available? The problem isn't in the wanting of coverage, it's that the coverage is expensive and wasteful because we're getting it from private insurers that are profit driven enterprises.

Anyway, I agree 100% that the President and everyone else in Washington have pretty much done as bad a job as possible in articulating the goal of health care reform. And it pisses me off to think of the opportunity that was wasted this summer when we had all the health care companies on board.

I'm not focusing on that at all, and I agree 100% that the goal of health reform should be exactly what you said.



In fact, it's not obvious that there's a tangible benefit to having access to health care for preventative purposes. The only major study that has been done on the subject has shown basically zero benefit from having free health care vs having to pay out of pocket for health care.



source: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/r ... h_ins.html




I think CURRENT and PROPOSED health care coverage has very little benefit. HSA comes closest to being ideal based upon the information we have. I pay for life's little emergencies out of pocket, but if I need heart surgery, my insurance covers it.

So, to answer your question...I DID drop all coverage for myself and my family for something that roughly approximates the ideal situation.



You seem to think that I'm arguing that our current system doesn't need fixed which I haven't said at all. That's FAR from the case. My argument is that in the rush to look like something is being done, everyone is making bad assumptions about what we need.

If you're trying to solve the health care problem while assuming that medicine is making people healthier when in fact, our best data says it doesn't do much at all, you're going to come up with the wrong solutions.

The number one priority should be to get better data about the actual effects of medicine and then go from there, not just assume that medicine is what everyone needs to make their quality of life better. Based on what we know now, I would argue that like 95% of the billions of dollars we spend currently (and in the proposed plans I've seen out of Washington) on health care would better be spent on educating people about hygeine, healthy eating, and physical activity. Those things are what have led to most of our quality of life improvements over the past century. Apparently, being able to go to the doctor for colds and whatnot has had little effect.

I'm going to apply my rock solid Shackle-Logic algorithm to this topic...

The US should go Logan's Run and legalize weed.

End of discussion.

thermo is a cold-hearted snake (look into his eyes).

Paging FatBastard to Carousel.

good carousel tonight

Hey... You can get a good look at a butcher's ass by sticking your head up there. But, wouldn't you rather to take his word for it?