TheAgitator.com
Long Lives = More Health Care
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008A new study from the Netherlands confirms the intuitive: The “obese people are going to bankrupt our health care system” argument is a canard. Even if government anti-obesity initiatives work (and there’s little reason to think the will), you aren’t going to save taxpayers or health insurers any money by causing more people to wither away in old age instead of dropping dead of a heart attack at 50.
This isn’t to say we should want more people to die at 50. And I’m firmly in the camp that excess weight only really becomes a health problem once you’re in the range of “morbdly obese.”
But it’s a common refrain in the public health crowd that condition X causes so many premature deaths a year, and that if we take (usually costly, usually freedom-inhibiting) drastic measures now, we’ll save the health care system X amount of dollars. I’ve never bought it. Extending lives into old age is generally going to mean more money spent on health care.
It’s at least an honest, colorable argument to say that the government needs to pass public health proposals to prevent unnecessary loss of life. I disagree with most of those arguments, but they’re at least arguments worth having. Arguing that extending lives will save taxpayers and consumers money on health care just doesn’t make sense.
This should surprise no one. Whoever pays for X gets a say in how X is managed. With socialist health care, everyone pays for everyone else’s medical care - which leads to government running cost/benefit analysis on what you ingest, how much you weigh, and anything else that might affect your medical bill. It’s like people can’t see two steps ahead, they just want their “free” health care.
“Preventable Deaths”
I love that term.
I’d like to see a similar study about tobacco smoking. I suspect that the conclusions would be similar.
If I pause to think like a cold-hearted jerk for a moment, this comes to mind:
- It is possible under a government healthcare system that the government could decide who gets treatment based upon how they came to be in the position of needing treatment. For example, if you smoke and get lung cancer - no treatment. If you work in a coal mine and get lung cancer - treatment, with forced reimbursement from the employer. If you live a healthy lifestyle or work for the government and get lung cancer - full treatment.
I would (cruelly) imagine that similar logic could be applied to persons who are obese - no treatment. But persons who are married, yet contract AIDS - treatment.
Like I said, they are evil thoughts. But - unpleasantly - they are possible in this too-near future.
_Jon-
Cruel or not, what you’re proposing is a basic part of tort law. It’s called contributory negligence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributory_negligence
This comparison is interesting because if one extends the analogy, one finds that socialized healthcare essentially views illnesses as being the fault of the government (making it–and by extension the taxpayer–the tortfeasor), such that it’s their/our responsibility to pay damages (i.e. hospital bills). If you’re going to do that, why not allow the government to assert affirmative defenses such as contributory negligence?
This cannot be said enough. Jonathon Gruber (the MIT health economist) has been saying this for a while now. If we recalculate the cost of universal coverage to include these findings, we’d start to see just how expensive Hillary and Obama’s plans will be.
It’s always been particularly galling to have this argument put across in the Uk where taxes on cigarettes and alcohol (among a number of others) are insane. The basic maths is that smoking 20 a day will contribute £21 a week to the government coffers while drastically reducing the time after retirement where health care and pension support are provided without any taxes being paid. The public health nuts still overwhelmingly put forth the argument that smoking should be banned to save the NHS money.
Unfortunately when people are stupid there’s very little can be done to correct them.
Ah, the never ending cycle of demanding “compassionate” government aid when people think someone else is paying for it and then demanding the government dictate lifestyles to reduce that aid when they realize they’re paying for it.
Why do so many people put this at the feet of the consumer?
For profit health care is a scam. Hospitals treat the insurance program you have not the illness. All things being equal, the cost of your stay in the hospital is directly affected by the kind of insurance you have.
Universal health care is not about the government telling you exactly what kind of health care you will received. It is about a minimum threshold of care that everyone can expect to receive. If you have the means, you can get better care. If you don’t have the means, you will at the very least receive a minimum standard of care that is better than what is available now.
And before anyone starts complaining about “my tax dollars…blah blah blah” consider first doing something about tax dollars being wasted on CORPORATE welfare. 80+billion dollars a year that go to Fortune 500 companies. Stopping a family from getting a minimum amount of health service when McDonalds gets millions of dollars to advertise the benefits of its products???
Priorities people, priorities.
Oh, and Jon, your thoughts about denial of treatment to the unhealthy are very much being raised out loud in the UK (again, because the health service is nationalised here).
The amusing thing is that if you reverse-engineer the argument the whole idea of socialised health-care falls apart. If the Government claims the right to deny people treatment on the basis of their physical state then it has no moral basis on which to continue to force them to contribute to the system ‘you pay taxes, we deny you services’.
Of course, having no moral basis for something has rarely stopped governments before, but when you point out to socialists that they’re putting the lie to their own arguments in favour of universal services they tend to get uncomfortable and shut up.
Run, Runner!
[...] Long Lives = MoreHealthCare [...]
“- It is possible under a government healthcare system that the government could decide who gets treatment based upon how they came to be in the position of needing treatment.”
_Jon, that’s also possibly how your employer-provided benefits are handled. Several years ago I took up skydiving while working overseas (the UK). I was required to have a British Parachute Association membership because it provided insurance to cover costs the NHS wouldn’t absorb. That prompted a bit of research on my part and I read about a case somewhere in the US where city employees were being denied coverage because they were considered “at risk”. “At risk” being very loosely defined to include such things as owning a motorcycle, snomobile, snow skis, rollerblades or a parachute.
This was five years ago so I can’t recall the state or the case, but it was enough to prompt me to call HR and ask whether jumping out of planes would disqualify me from the company’s plan.
Shouldn’t insurers be free to charge for the additional costs associated with the risks of riding motorcycles, etc, shouldn’t they be free not to insure anyone they choose not to?
Allegedly that`s unfair for those who are leading an utterly healthy lifestyle but they are very few. The smoking would always remain an evergreen subject and people who don`t smoke used to blame smokers for ruining their health, that`s the most easiest thing and they turn to McDonalds. At our neighbourhoods in Toronto people are very loyal and respect the others freedom that means they solve the problem together in a reasonable way what concerns their health or the environment. There are so many opposite examples which make you feel like to be in the jungle.