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Comment by kubelsmieci | Hacker News Reader

Solution: preventive health care, promoting a healthy lifestyle from an early age, and healthy eating

Cuts down on health costs but also increases life span, so you have the issue with the number of elderly citizens vs number of working citizens who can provide care. That needs to be tackled too somehow.

This is good to do for its own sake, but on a large scale it does not decrease health care costs: it makes people live longer, but they will still ultimately need the kind of end-of-life care where the majority of health care costs come from. Those costs don't go down for healthier people, and it might even increase health care spending on net if it takes people longer to die.

I know it’s easy to say but you do hear stories of families going to extraordinary lengths for an elderly loved one to give them a couple months of low quality of life. Is it the family trying to feel better or hoping for a miracle, or the patient themselves; I’m sure it’s both, but I can’t help but think if we were more comfortable with death, these really costly situations would go away and suffering would actually be reduced. I know it’s easy say and it sounds like I’m advocating for death, and in a way I am, but we all have to go. If your quality of life is so terrible… I’m also a hypocrite because I think that when it will be my turn or my parents’ and I have to decide, I’ll tell them to do everything possible within their directives.

The last thing you think of when your loved one is on the edge is if you can save money for the system

Totally agree. Just in those cases where death in the next month is inevitable and significant suffering is guaranteed, I guess to me (right now) it’s more about acceptance and mercy.

That definitely increases outcomes and QALY but it only is cost neutral or saves costs if you also more tightly ration low-cost-effectiveness care down the road that ends up usually being near end-of-life, which is where A LOT of current spending is.

This is rational on a broad social level but is very difficult of a change to implement.

I think most of the increase in healthcare costs is coming from elderly people (because people are living longer). So while otherwise a good thing, I'm not sure that will help this particular problem.

Obesity is currently only getting worse and many of these sicknesses are already irreversible in people. This also does not do anything about ageing

Luckily obesity is getting more and more solveable tbh

I imagine that means people will face whatever the next problem is (heart disease, or dementia or etc...)

but hopefully at a later age?

Yeah, although some of them are comorbid with obesity so they shouldn't get too much worse?

But cancer treatments probably get more common if you're living longer and your heart doesn't get you, etc

too late for most of the burden

good luck -- https://www.npr.org/2025/07/27/nx-s1-5481828/rfk-jr-uspstf-a...

If USPSTF has refused, either intentionally refused or through incompetence, to make a recommendation in its 40 year history that would have an outsize effect on preventive healthcare, then not only good riddance, but kick every single one its members out of academia and pull their licenses. I'm half surprised that National Propaganda didn't lament that the tens of thousands of millions AHRQ has given to academia wasn't enough for improved health outcomes.

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