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Comment count is 14
Meerkat - 2014-04-18

Needs a "Gesticulations" tag!


Pillager - 2014-04-18

"Jazz hands" works.

I also would add we need less supervisors more "hands on" care types. I guess that falls under bloated bureaucracy.


oddeye - 2014-04-18

Politicians allow medical companies to put VAST profits above affordable healthcare. The poor are sometimes forced to choose starvation or disease as their cause of death. At my tiny pharmacy I routinely see older people forgo their blood pressure pills so they can afford their obscenely priced diabetic supplies.

When I lived in the UK the NHS in my area tried but ultimately failed to help any of my various illnesses. They were underfunded and understaffed to the point where MRSA was rampant. Is the situation better now? Maybe.

Surely there is a middle ground between these two extremes? I was hoping obamacare would be a step in the right direction and so far for me it has been. I have lower premiums and better coverage.


Konversekid - 2014-04-18

The problem is that the best solution to reducing health care costs is implement preventative care measures and provide care in lower maintenance infrastructure, such as group homes and at home rather than hospitals. This ultimately requires a drastic shift in how we view health care and quite a bit of start up money to implement the structural shift. Unfortunately, with programs like the NHS and Medicare here in Canada is that the most effective way to lower costs is to cut, and governments are doing it. This ends up being detrimental to the care and economically bad in the long term but it solves the cost problem almost immediately. Still however, I'm convinced that healthcare should be effectively removed from markets to promote an efficient use of resources.


baleen - 2014-04-19

There is no perfect health care system, there will always be abuses, quagmires in bureaucracy, and misappropriations of resources and funding.

There are, however, many things that could help that do not require a Herculean effort or the establishment of vast new bureaucracies in the short term.

Firstly, and Green winks at this in his rapid fire vlog above, is that things cost too much here. Part of this is that a cartel of four companies makes every single implant in this country. They have been accused of price gouging before, and they sue invidiously whenever there's any sign of patent infringement by their competition here and overseas. No such patent fervor in Europe and other places, where it's perfectly ok to install a 0 Indian hip implant instead of a ,000 cartel produced hip. It's that corrupt. This isn't a budget issue, it's a patent rights issue, and it can be solved with a few sweepings of a pen. The case with pills is of course, no different.

Secondly, there is something to be said for tort reform, or as I like to call it, socialized health care litigation (conservatives hate when I say that, because it's true). Currently, over 20% of a doctor's income is going to go into malpractice insurance, which is a horrible burden for young doctors in particular and some argue a deterrent to becoming a doctor in general. Tort regulations are a standard aspect of a socialized health care industry, and reducing the burden on institutions and private practices will give them more elbow room to, say, provide more care to poorer patients.

Thirdly, most chronic diseases can be prevented with a few basic changes in an individual's life that drastically lowers impact on the health care system. In short, 80% of America's most crippling chronic diseases can be reduced with a few lifestyle changes, in particular diet and even a little bit of exercise. The investment here is not great as Konversekid suggests, rather it's an educational investment, a "War on Disease" that can only reap positive rewards.

More on this massive study here:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/11/science/sci-lifestyle1 1


So where's the big tax increase? Where's the brutal socialist regime? We haven't even begun to put bandages on the bleeding and we're talking about triple bypass surgery.


ashtar. - 2014-04-18

I wish he would stop teleporting around.

It's always amazing to me how so much of our political discourse is about unanswered empirical questions. Why is our health care so expensive? We can actually do research and answer this question! Same thing for the effects of capital punishment or gun ownership on crime rates. But instead, we have people giving their opinions and guesses about how society works, rather than actually looking at the world.

I think this is due to our science education system. I have no data to back up this assertion, but it feels right.


SolRo - 2014-04-18

What science education system?


oddeye - 2014-04-18

I've written a couple of essays on why prescription drugs are so expensive (reporting inflated "research costs" and a huge advertising budget. Also profits) but without, like, a whole team I have no way of putting this together with other areas of healthcare and looking at the big picture. Sure there are professional consultancy firms out there that actually do this but I am guessing they are only ever used to cherry pick and justify political positions.

So don't blame me, mofo.


TeenerTot - 2014-04-18

I could swear this is a dupe, but if the previous didn't have the health care tag, I wouldn't know how to find out.


Binro the Heretic - 2014-04-18

This guy is also on the "Crash Course" YouTube channel. I highly recommend watching it.

He doesn't do the "jump cut teleport" thing there and gesticulations are kept to a minimum.


glasseye - 2014-04-18

John Green tag! CrashCourse is awesome.


Hooker - 2014-04-18

Capitalism: The highest quality goods at the lowest possible price.

American Capitalism: The worst quality goods at the highest possible price.


oddeye - 2014-04-18

Capitalism, like evolution, has 6 distinct branches and it's important to distinguish which one you are talking about in a discussion.


SolRo - 2014-04-18

Correct labels

Fantasy Capitalism

Real Capitalism




Fantasy Communism provides the best goods for free!


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