America is a rich death trap
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
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.
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.
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.
One rhetorical approach might be to say that since this is already the case, let's acknowledge that reality, then decide whether to increase/decrease/alter that reality.
What you mean like saying that the only explanation for disagreeing with them is not being capable of rational thought?
This is a major problem in American politics, maybe the biggest problem. Neither side is willing to accept they might be wrong, or even partly wrong. Or even really listen to the other side's position.
I agree with you that that other countries have better healthcare, and we should try and make ours like theirs. But ad hominem attacks on the other side are not productive and do nothing to convince them.
Honestly, what are you talking about? What am I disagreeing with exactly? Could you be a little more specific?
> I agree with you that that other countries have better healthcare, and we should try and make ours like theirs. But ad hominem attacks on the other side are not productive and do nothing to convince them.
How is this an ad hominem? I’m making these statements in general to a certain audience on hacker news. I’m not making it to any specific individuals. Just because I think many Americans are idiots doesn’t mean I tell them that directly. I pretend like their nonsense isn’t nonsense because they’re more receptive to that. In other words, I do basically the opposite of ad hominem attacks when engaging with these people. I talked to them quite patiently. But yes I do believe many of them are morons.
Edit: The more I read your post the more confused I get. What side am I on exactly? The side that believes that American healthcare outcomes could be better? I could hold that opinion even if I thought more—not less—deregulation is necessary. I’m not complaining about people who want to improve American healthcare even by making things “more free market”. I’m complain about idiots (and yes they are idiots) who can’t fathom that other systems might have better outcomes because they are “socialist”. They don’t even consider statistics and analysis they just conclude the US is better because our system must be. That is inexcusable and basically incompatible with any progress in society.
The point is that the measure of the quality of healthcare systems shouldn't be whether they are socialist or something it's looking at life expectancy, efficacy, cost, etc. Those are the things that actually matter. Hence "but they don't think that American health care is good" is missing the point. A common talking point in the US is that American healthcare is better because it's not socialist (or some essentially equivalent argument). It's total nonsense. An introspective American with a little humility might wonder "I've been led to believe my system is better because it is not socialist, but outcomes in other systems I consider socialist seem better". An introspective American might wonder if this belief "the solution is for the government to be less involved in healthcare, or at least make it more competitive" is truly worth holding given that so many supposedly less competitive systems have better results.
Maybe in summary, think in terms of actionable information about systems and not nebulous undefined dogmas such as "socialist" or "market".
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.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...
BUT: I still find myself missing it sometimes.
What it boils down to (for me) is community - I miss having easy, abundant community. Religion tends to be a communal thing, and it’s not surprising to me that community yields health benefits.
I don’t think America in particular has much in the way of non-religious community. I wish we did.
It's all gone for me today, and I find myself wishing for it and missing it. People seem more insular and isolated than ever.
I expect that a sense of community plays a large role in the outcome of the study. For me, and I would think for religious folk in general, there's more to it than just community.
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.
This mortality figure is a disgrace, especially with the longevity technology we now have in humanity.
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.
The article also suggests some issues may be due to the way cities in the US are laid out which doesn’t really result from some kind of corporate propaganda or conspiracy, but then Canadian cities are quite similarly laid out.
It seems like a pretty messy nuanced topic that can’t be reduced to single US policies.
[1] perhaps their wealthy groups were eg 80%ile of the population by wealth and biased differently due to how people make money in different countries, or perhaps you need a smaller group for wealthy Americans to perform better, or perhaps they picked some dollar threshold so the American group was proportionally poorer or broader as America is richer in general. I don’t really know how that comparison was made though.
In the entirety of England and Wales, that's 60 million people, the police has about 0-3 fatal shootings per year.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...
https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/1555923442112815105
"what's going on here is that the US is actually reporting "pregnancy related mortality," a formally separate concept, and that's why literally every international organization puts like 19 asterisks after the US data and says DO NOT COMPARE"