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Originally Posted by link2swim06
We dont stop fixing roads bc of irresponsible drivers, but we do fine and collect a ton of revenue from irresponsible drivers (i.e. speeding, DUIs, etc). Why not collect revenue from people being irresponsible with their health?
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It is easy to tell when a driver is at fault (speeding, DUI, etc), but it's not easy to tell if a person is at fault for their own health. how much of it is genetic/social/economic and how much is personal? we punish people for illegal driving practices, fine them, jail them, suspend their licenses. But we can't punish people for being unhealthy, for whatever reason. Because the price they pay is their LIFE which they can't get back after they die, and it is inhumane and uncivilized for a society to put a price on people's lives like this, and say "sorry you messed up and got sick, now I dont' care if you die because you don't have the money". I find this abhorant! This is rule of the jungle, not a civilized society!
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Also per the bolded statement, there are 308 million people in the US...over 80% of which have insurance (aka preventive care available...yet 1/3 of those people are still obese). So have no clue on your logic on that statement.
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Obesity is just on aspect of health, and it was used as an example. In many cases of those so-called insurance policies, when people in fact do get sick, the non-surance companies deny them, or the copays and deductibles become unbearable anyway.
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/...are/53271430/1
Employee provided insurance is rapidly declining ....
http://www.nihcr.org/Employer_Coverage.pdf (pdf)
62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical (and probably higher now)
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(09)00404-5/abstract
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"Preventive care as the cure all" is a great buzz phrase for people who are frankly clueless about medicine, the truth is the "preventive care" is a fraction of our needed solutions. Preventive care is based on the notion of high patient compliance and adjusting lifestyles (in many cases). This is one of the hardest things to do in medicine, especially when "nothing is wrong" to the patient and you are telling them to eliminate their favorite foods/activities. Alot of preventive medicine actually increases costs.
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I agree with you there that preventive care is not a cure all. A lot of it is also patient education, which has to happen at an early age (seems like adults suffering from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease from smoking, etc, don't change their lifestyles even after seeing all the warnings and knowing the health risks - according to studies). But if your parents are poor and uneducated, your school health classes/services are getting cut due to budget constraints (thanks to those who want to gut every social program in sight), and you can't afford to go to regular visits with your doctor, then how/when are you going to get educatd about health? Yes this is a multifaceted and multigenerational issue, and just "preventive care" provided through a few doctor office visits isn't going to fix it. But if we start with that, and especially focus on the young, maybe after a few decades we can reverse the trend.
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Also that is b.s. that poor people cant afford good food....here is a list for starters http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/10-h...under-1-dollar ...Sure that cheeseburger tastes better to some than a cup of yogurt and a banana, but its a lifestyle choice, not a financial limitation. If I have only $1.00 I could buy a hundred things with more nutritional value than the McDonalds cheeseburger.
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again a good point. Thanks for the low cost groceries list, I'll keep it in mind during med school
But the debate and budget calculations are not so simple. There are a lot of people who have to make a choice between rent, heat, clothes, medicines, and food. barley and lentils as source of protein? What if they can't afford to pay for the gas or electricity to cook them?
http://trenches.wordpress.com/2007/0...poor-you-cant/ A lot of people barely get by from month to month. Even a minor illness that would keep them out of work could wipe them out and make them homeless.
And again, this goes to early adoption of lifestyle habits. If you grow into adulthood with bad habits, it seems impossible to change your lifestyle. but again, is that solely a personal issue, or is it a multifaceted social problem? And do we punish members of our society by letting them suffer and die, or do we act humanely and in a civilized way, to provide them with the care that can be provided to them if we allocate our country's resources properly. we spend trillions of our tax dollors on useless wars. nobody can argue that we can't afford to provide universal healthcare.