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Comment by jenkstom | Hacker News Reader

The scents they use in air fresheners, candles, whatever, are just plain 100% pure evil. I've had more migraines and asthma attacks in the months they put in new air fresheners at work than the entire decade before. There should be laws against it.

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If you're Canadian then there generally is. [0][1]

0: https://ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/scent_free.html

1: https://www.allergicliving.com/2010/07/02/scent-free-workpla...

Forget public healthcare, I'd gladly live in Canada for this protection!

Public healthcare incentivizes the government to protect people's health; the American system incentivizes politicians to protect the profit margins of the insurance industry.

Private healthcare incentivizes insurance companies to protect people's health and to influence policies that do so.

I sort of doubt that. In practice, it seems to incentivize influencing policy to drive up healthcare costs, with little regard for patient outcomes.

Why would insurance companies want to pay higher healthcare costs?

If healthcare was cheap then no one would need insurance?

Taking care people and difficult medical conditions will likely never be dirt cheap, right? Unless you're envisioning Dark Mirror style robot care and cure everything pills.

How do you figure such a thing? Do you have evidence?

There's a crop of startups now that are incentivizing healthier lifestyles by gamifying healthy activities, routine doctor visits, etc. Insurance companies pay them per head to make their software available to customers, and reward customers with the most health points with lower premiums and such.

Insurance companies, by and large, make their money on the delta between the prices they charge and the costs to deliver service. If they can delivery service to a predominately healthier population, then they can deliver service for lower costs, meaning they can lower costs to be more competitive, while being able to make more profits and deliver better outcomes.

The notion that they want to drive up healthcare costs is kind of ridiculous. If that were true, they'd be rushing to sign up patients with terminal illnesses and costly pre-existing conditions, but the fact of the matter is that the government had to literally force them to for that to happen.

This is one case where the libertarian argument that governments are fundamentally coercive works against you. Insurance companies can't take such broad actions to protect health as government can -- things like taxes on products with negative health externalities, regulations ensuring workplace safety, etc.

No one here says that if you have private health insurance then you should not have government regulations ensuring workplace safety.

The argument here was about incentives -- i.e. the practical component of how our laws get updated, not about the theoretical component. Your original argument was that private companies are incentivized to pursue safety, and my counterargument is that incentivized private companies do not nearly as much power to effectively pursue safety as incentivized governments do.

In Australia, we have a public-private model for hospitals and health services. However, I think there's starting to be a greater awareness that private health insurance for many holds increasingly poor value, compared to what is available publicly under government funding as well as simply saving up what would be paid to private health insurance companies and instead directly pay health providers from one's own bank account. To date, everything I've learned about private health is that it's to maximise profit while being able to provide a semblence of good value healthcare.

Here are a some links I've collected on the topic - obviously, I'm a little biased but I have yet to see any compelling case for privatised healthcare on essential services:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/private-health-insur...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-23/more-health-insurers-t...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/18/exper...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/17/marke...

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/crisis-looms-as-a...

http://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/dont-be-fooled-by-the-pri...

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4262363.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-you-dont-need-private-heal...

> Public healthcare incentivizes the government to protect people's health

As a Swede I nust say I really don't get what you mean by that.

I'm not sure if you have the law in Sweden, but here in Norway we got a "Smoking law" that prohibits smoking in public places to promote people's health and reduce the cost of running the government hospitals.

To be fair, the smoking laws here in Norway are a little more relaxed than they were when i was living in the US. Want to smoke in the hospital parking lot? You'll get escorted off. Same for areas outside some airports, but I can smoke outside the airport here in Trondheim before I get on the bus. No real problem smoking on the sidewalks downtown. Some ask you to go away from the doors, but that isn't a real issue and I find it reasonable. Companies aren't firing people for smoking, and I don't find they tell folks they simply cannot smoke during the work day (including lunch).

You can smoke in dedicated smoking areas outside, but it's actually not allowed to smoke on bus-/train stops/sidewalks etc. There are just no one to enforce it.

I guess the places where you get escorted from in the US are privately owned and not due to a law (but I could be wrong). The companies firing you for smoking might also have to do with a bit stronger labor laws in Norway :)

That’s sounds like a pretty serious issue for your quality of life. I would ask your workplace to fix it, pursue a legal remedy, or find a new job.

In the US, you might be protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has some teeth. https://www.laborlawcenter.com/education-center/new-ada-guid...

Let's see if the coming reform leaves that teeth in place (sigh): https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/620/...

I'm fine with one candle or wax melt, in fact I love them. But walking into a soap store or soap aisle (or laundry detergent aisle for that matter) will leave me gasping for air, eyes watering, itching in sensitive areas, and with an oncoming migraine in mere minutes. And when some people hear "migraine" they think "bad headache", but a migraine is complete debilitation of your brain's functions. You can't think, can hardly walk, let alone drive home from the grocery store.

I do wish people would think more about the scents they use, and for the love of god stop putting the unscented laundry soap in the middle of all the scented ones!

According to "Multiple chemical sensitivities: A systematic review of provocation studies" (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2006)[1], perfume sensitivity is largely psycho-somatic. This means that we experience symptoms because we stress about the perfume exposure. Since learning this, I have employed stress-management techniques during perfume exposure and have enjoyed 90% reduction in symptoms.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17137865

What I've noticed anecdotally (feel free to critique this) is that of the few people I know who appear to fit that profile of having MCS, it's of my opinion that they would all benefit from stress-management techniques (including outdoor cardio exercise to help with breathing). I would suggest it to them if it weren't for the fact they're merely acquaintenances and not friends.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest that obnoxious use of perfumes should be encouraged, but for those who are extremely sensitive, it's perhaps worth a look given how rarely doctors seem to seriously prescribe exercise (I think part of the reason is that taking up a new form of exercise is intimidating and difficult to monitor for many people, and that not all doctors live the healthiest of lifestyles themselves).

I know how you feel. I'm super sensitive to perfumes. Hard to buy laundry detergent without subjecting myself to that aisle.

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