Talk-Polywell.org

[TDPerk]

@ IntLibber RE your post of Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:42 am

"Beyond this, however, there was no significant difference in a general health index, which was the designed outcome measure."

Which is not the same as saying it is a reasonable measure, just what they were trying to measure.

"For example, large medically unexplained variations in Medicare spending across hospital regions [100, 101] were recently used to estimate the regional mortality benefit from spending $1000 more in the last six months of life. The benefit is bounded (at the 95% c.l.) to be less than 0.1% in general, and less than 1% for a subpopulation with certain specific conditions (such as heart attack) [89]."

Which is taking no note of the fact the ages at which the spending is taking place are later and later ages.

"An optimistic accounting of the benefits of specific treatments attributes only five years of the forty or more years of added lifespan over the last two centuries to medicine [17]."

Why look at specific treatments instead of the entirety of the healthcare apparatus? Why is their measure the appropriate measure?

"And even if this overall risk-index effect were real, it would represent about fifty days of life gained for the average patient, paid for by roughly 30% more medical spending over a lifetime."

Many people deal with their mortality when it is the more directly in front of them, and having those fifty days is worthwhile to most; also they are having those fifty days at later and later ages, which is important.

As an counterexample I see every work day, let's talk about Jack (name changed). Jack has arthritis, and he wouldn't be doing the job he was doing if it weren't for his medical care, he wouldn't be able to type. It is all part and parcel of the whole. In fact, he had heart trouble about 8 years ago, and he wouldn't even be here to have arthritis if it weren't for medical care.

What Hanson is saying is that it is inappropriate, to go by the general case, for Jack to have had the medical care he had (treatment for heart attack) because in the general case he only got an extra 50 days. Unfortunately for Hanson and his ideas, no one is the general case.

Also, the health care research establishment is what will develop into life-extension...

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=life+extension

...that technology will also proceed incrementally. Because it advances at the margins, and the margins will always be the expensive bits, we should forego the prolongation of healthful, useful life?

We only get there by the spending at the margins. We should keep spending on the margins.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
_________________
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

[ravingdave]

More evidence of what i've been saying all along.

[TDPerk]

@IntLibber

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124227053842018311.html

[ravingdave]

More evidence that Media people are nothing but Liberal Democrats who attempt to steer public opinion.


Maureen Dowd caught stealing material from Left-Wing Blog.

[ravingdave]

[IntLibber]

[ravingdave]

How about another game of GUESS THE PARTY.

The rules are simple. If a Republican does something, the party's affiliation is noted in major headlines in every story which covers it, but if a Democrat does something, no mention of party affiliation is ever made. (That's because 90% of journalists are Liberal Democrats. ) Here's the latest example.

Remember all those people arrested recently in New Jersey ?






http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=4672





David

[MSimon]

[ravingdave]

Journalists REALLY are psychotic liberal democrats.


A psychiatrist says so in Psychology today.


why-most-journalists-are-democrats-view-the-soviet-socialist-trenches


David

[ravingdave]

Another example of why it is SO dangerous to have Liberals exclusively controlling what the American Public is allowed to see.
What they did in this last election the TRIED to do in the previous one.


http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/content/2009/08/25/a-lost-fact-in-the-rathergate-mess-part-1/



David

[Diogenes]

Another example of how the media manipulates elections by the way they report the news.

Norman Hsu Should be a household name

[Diogenes]

NBC’s Historian Goodwin Campaigns for Democratic Senate Candidate

[Diogenes]

Another example of the inbred relationship between Democrats and the Media. They are literally relatives. They marry each other, they have each others children.

[Diogenes]

Democrats woo MSNBC host Ed Schultz for Senate

Why would the Democrat want an unbiased neutral media employee ? It's a mystery!

[IntLibber]