"94 billion dollars in medical costs" attributed to the fact, Americans (american video) don't eat the correct food, what this video claims is
that if people eat their daily requirement instead of eating just junk food, America will save tax dollars and people get to live a better
healthier life and live longer!
and with that argument, I can't help but wonder if it's true...
If at 55 they're dead from a heart attack related to bad diets, eating healthily might help you live to 90, between the ages of 55 and 90 while eating healthy, how many times
will that person end up in hospital for other normal related issues due from old age?...
Surely it works out more cost effective to kill a person off early ?
The American problem is value for money. Despite vast sums being spent a lot of Americans don't have health cover. When people do have cover it is in Doctor's interests to get the most they can from the insurance. Also a litigation climate means Doctors run a lot of tests that may not really be needed.
I think a comparison was made between Cuba, Canada and the USA for medical treatment of a simple broken leg. From memory Cuba came up tops in almost all areas from speed, relevance and effectivness of treatment through to patient satisfaction. I think Canada came second but there was more overlap with the USA.
Probably for a condition requiring more high tec treatment America would come out on top - for those whose insurance covered the treatment.
America does provide food stamps to a significant number of people. Junk food is cheap so the stamps go on those. Experiments where stamps have a higher value when used to purchase fruit etc. showed people began choosing more healthier food.
My father had to go to the emergency room at a local hospital for a kidney stone, the initial bill was $8,000. When he told them he didn't have insurance, and would be paying cash, the amended bill was $2000.
A lot of this is due to insurance not paying out and medical malpractice insurance costs. People are so sue happy in this country that doctors have to take out insurance to cover all the lawsuits. My own local hospital also had to just write off several hundred million dollars in unpaid health insurance claims. We have 3 different healthcare insurance programs in my state, and hospitals hate accepting any of them as they almost never pay the full amount, and a lot of the time fail to pay at all. The hospitals have to make up their losses by increasing the costs for everyone, and hoping that at least 50% of them actually pay.
I'd also argue that "the correct food" has nothing to do with health, as "the correct food" changes every few years.
Proper food, no dangerous activities, the people have decided that you and others would have longer lives as industrial slaves. So far you have to be convicted of a crime to become one but with new laws upcoming your best interests will be enough.
wizdum:
My father had to go to the emergency room at a local hospital for a kidney stone, the initial bill was $8,000. When he told them he didn't have insurance, and would be paying cash, the amended bill was $2000.
That's the part I am always amazed at. We've seen some extreme examples. Provider charges $1000, insurance offers $42 and they take it. Those are made up numbers, but I'm absolutely sure that we've seen ratios way larger than the 8000/2000. We always wonder what the actual cost of the procedure was. Something is seriously wrong. Need more of a free market or something.
cjdelphi:
When i had a kidney stone they pumped me full of morphine and left me in a corner until the stone passed ...
$2000 for 3 shots of morphine sounds a little expensive for that kind of treatment here...
He didn't even get any morphine. The $2000 was just to see a doctor that told him "its a kidney stone, heres a bucket".
Those BASTARDS!!!!!
I'm so glad I don't live in the good US of A.
Both here (Australia) and where I was born and grew up for 18 years (UK) medical costs at the hospital are generally free providing it's not for a breast implant or some other vein reason, both the NHS in the UK and the Medicare system here in Aus allow anyone to walk in providing they're covered (be a resident) they will get free treatment, in Aus they'll charge you money for the Ambulance to come and pick you up, in the UK it's free and they'll even pay you for the taxi to get back home!
you argue one day that doing electronics wrong is OK cause it works for you in the short term, then turn around and post some FUD junk article and claim that an entire country is doing it wrong in the long term and act amazed WHILE nearly bullying some guy who doesn't use microwave ovens cause of the perceived health effects BASED on FUD junk articles?
gee I wish I could see myself as a glowing beacon of perfection...
personally I think your healthcare needs to be questioned, cause there are some underlying, yet subtle, mental issues at work as I review your recent posts. (aka everything out of your mouth on any subject is not only the truth, its written in stone as fact)
CrossRoads:
John Derek as Nick Romano "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse." Knock On Any Door, 1949, with Humphrey Bogart.
Man, I am totally blowing it!
XD
I did the first, somehow escaped the second, and now have no hope for the third.
Osgeld:
you argue one day that doing electronics wrong is OK cause it works for you in the short term, then turn around and post some FUD junk article and claim that an entire country is doing it wrong in the long term and act amazed WHILE nearly bullying some guy who doesn't use microwave ovens cause of the perceived health effects BASED on FUD junk articles?
gee I wish I could see myself as a glowing beacon of perfection...
personally I think your healthcare needs to be questioned, cause there are some underlying, yet subtle, mental issues at work as I review your recent posts. (aka everything out of your mouth on any subject is not only the truth, its written in stone as fact)
Unlike your 1 man Crusades to annoy the crap out of me....
Healthcare as a barely regulated (joke) profit industry will always cost the most possible to give the least possible. Same as the power industry since the regs were removed, all these now companies to make things more efficient yet in the biggest energy glut in decades, consumer prices have more than doubled.
Some things should not be left to profiteers and thieves given little or no oversight. Here they have that and they get to "work with" the government to make the rules they use to steal all they can.
Wizdum, how can you have a free market when a few hundred people control most of everything between them?
GoForSmoke:
Wizdum, how can you have a free market when a few hundred people control most of everything between them?
Easy. Bullets are cheap and poor people are desperate. At first, the government will call them terrorists, but as time goes on these "terrorists" will start becoming people that you know. The government can only lock up so many of your friends, family, and neighbors before even the most dense people will wake up. As the middle class falls apart in the US, more and more people will realize that they never really had any "wealth" to begin with.