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Health Care: A market opportunity.
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:28 pm
by MSimon
Why demand for health care is rising in the USA:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernande ... t-of-view/
The main factor is that the long-term income elasticity of the demand for healthcare is 1.6—for every 1 percent increase in a family’s income, the family wants to increase its expenditures on healthcare by 1.6 percent. This is not a new trend. Between 1875 and 1995, the share of family income spent on food, clothing, and shelter declined from 87 percent to just 30 percent, despite the fact that we eat more food, own more clothes, and have better and larger homes today than we had in 1875. All of this has been made possible by the growth in the productivity of traditional commodities. In the last quarter of the 19th century, it took 1,700 hours of labor to purchase the annual food supply for a family. Today it requires just 260 hours, and it is likely that by 2040, a family’s food supply will be purchased with about 160 hours of labor.
Fogel’s graphs and calculations, his estimates of total health costs and curves while interesting, are less fascinating than the philosophical perspective he brings to the debate. By contrast, Dr. Zeke Emmanuel’s age rationing diagram seems straight out of the Marxist 19th century. To Emmanuel, aging and its challenges are a cost to managed, for Fogel it is a market opportunity.
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:30 pm
by MSimon
So why does the USA spend more on health care?
We are richer.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:45 pm
by JohnP
Um. We spend more on health care but end up less healthy than most industrialized nations. We're dumb with our money. HC has a gun to Congress' head. Rip-off to continue.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:51 pm
by MSimon
JohnP wrote:Um. We spend more on health care but end up less healthy than most industrialized nations. We're dumb with our money. HC has a gun to Congress' head. Rip-off to continue.
You can avoid being ripped off by not using their services. No one forces you to support the medical system until you are over 65. At that point the government takes your money whether you want their service or not.
They are going to be ripping me off for $100 a month starting next month despite the fact that I have better coverage through my mate.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:07 pm
by MSimon
JohnP wrote:Um. We spend more on health care but end up less healthy than most industrialized nations. We're dumb with our money. HC has a gun to Congress' head. Rip-off to continue.
Cancer survival rates are higher in the USA.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/second ... nd-canada/
The main thing driving down life expectancy statistics are infant mortality for one. And in America it is a live birth if the baby is breathing. In many other first world countries there is a gestation cut off (before 23 weeks in Britain) to be counted as a live birth.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... limit.html
Our other mortality issue is that the drug war is a shooting war in some neighborhoods. It kills a lot of 16 to 25 year olds.
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-war-victim/
http://www.tothepeople.com/2009/07/balt ... ar-19.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-60769099.html
You take out those two factors and life expectancy in the USA is among the very highest in the first world.
Now if we could switch tobacco smokers to marijuana our lung cancer rates would go down:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 193338.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01729.html
The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.
The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.
"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a
suggestion of some protective effect."
It seems you have been misinformed.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:07 pm
by tombo
Other factors working against us are obesity rate and sedentary lifestyle.
Both again are because we are relatively rich.
Getting medical costs down would be aided by letting anyone write prescriptions so we don't have to pay md's so much just to get access to simple medicines. This goes hand in hand with stopping the drug war. Too bad the dealers (of both stripes) have so much influence in keeping the status quo.
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:32 pm
by Skipjack
And we here have more smokers than you have in the US. So that makes up for your other issues. Also according to Msimon, more drugs make you healthier (self medication), so if you really have more illegal drugs, you all should be much healthier there.
LOL
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:30 pm
by TallDave
You take out those two factors and life expectancy in the USA is among the very highest in the first world.
Yep. Look at Minnesota and Hawaii. LE is higher than any country in Europe -- even with our penalty for not tossing our preemies in the trash.