If you exclude the generally healthy period of life and think about just the retirement years– say the last 15-20 years of life - then increase that period by 20% … it feels like a pretty significant deal. You might, for example, then get to see your grandchildren graduate, see them have their own kids, maybe be around until that generation settles into middle class prosperity.
Assuming proportional wellbeing through that period, looking at it in those ‘20% extra’ terms seems reasonably valid?
I noticed the other day that men in the UK live 2 years longer than men in the US.
Question: If the US committed to a ten-year project like the 1960s NASA project to get a man on the moon, could the nation (a) almost half its healthcare budget, and at the same time (b) include the whole population and (c) increase life expectancy for men by two years?
Increasing life expectancy would increase health care costs overall, not halve them. Most health care costs are incurred in the first year of life, and then in old age. Adding years onto the end of old age means more money spent on medications and hip replacements and treating BPH and arthritis and heart disease and high blood pressure.
So no, the US couldn’t possibly cut its health care budget in half by trying to increase US male life expectancy by two years.
Not a chance that the US can cut health care expenditures by 50%. A freeze at current reates would be as big of a public policy accomplishment as establishing the Social Security system.
Universal coverage? Certainly possible. Increasing life expectancy by two years? Sure, if we get gun violence and obesity under control, but that’s fairly hard to do.
But there’s simply no interest in an Apollo or Manhattan-style program to address these issue. Over the next generation, there’s probably going to be more support for going to Mars than there is for a massive change in our health care system. We’re probably looking at continuing incremental reforms to the health care policies we have today.
Do you think people could emotionally invest in such a project - as they became proud of the US’ space achievements - if they understood things better? Two years is a big deal, after all.
No. Americans have become accustomed to an obnoxiously inefficient health care system, and they can’t even bring themselves to say that they approve of the modest reforms that have occurred in the last few years, despite Americans being generally in approval of the major elements of those reforms. And you want them to support some pie in the sky dramatic overhaul? To extend what is probably the most unhealthy part of their lives (i.e., the late 70s) by two years?
As mentioned, increasing life expectancy increases lifetime spending. Therefore the notion that we can cut our health care spending by increasing lifespan is probably wrong.
I guess the question is relative to degree of health when would those two years be added. If they would mean that you would have two extra years of good health, (i.e. a the average 42 year old having the health of the average 40 year old now). Then I could see this could lead to more productive years and an increase in retirement age which could reduce the ratio of productive to high cost years and so possibly reduce health costs. But if all you are doing is tacking on a couple of extra years by postponing death then I don’t see how this doesn’t increase health care spending. In fact if you really want to cut health care spending, the best option is to ship grandma off to the soylent green factory when she hits 70.
Gun violence isn’t even a top ten cause of death in the US, when taken as a category, and is something like 1/50th the number of things like cancer and heart disease. This is a perfect example of what amounts to a bunch of political agenda hype about something cloaked in the mantle of public health.
Suicide is #10, with 1.3% of deaths, and homicide ties Parkinson’s disease for #14, with 0.7% of deaths. Considering that slightly more than half of all suicides are by gun, and something like 70% of homicides are by gun, we’re talking .66 + .49, which totals out to 1.15%, which puts gun violence slightly above liver disease and cirrhosis as a cause of death in the US.
Apollo was a huge money sink. I don’t see how you can throw money at the problem of something being too expensive. It’s like “war for peace” or “fucking for celibacy”.
Universal coverage is an admirable goal, and one that I support, but it isn’t going to make healthcare cheaper. That’s a completely different problem and one that will be much harder to manage.
Cutting the health budget in half means cutting 1.4 trillion in economic activity. Many groups would oppose this. It sadly isn’t feasible in today’s climate. Even subsidizing people’s buying into our failed system is treated as communism. The real reforms we’d need are impossible politically.
About 1/3 to 1/2 of health spending is wasted from what I’ve heard. So it’s probably possible in theory to cut the waste (but you’d cut some good healthcare with that too) and have a system that is still decent.
I’d like to see the rise a parallel affordable health system. Generic drugs, medical tourism for non emergency surgery, scanning outlets which use low cost Japanese body scans, minute clinics, more PA and np visits for mundane illnesses, etc. Urgent care instead of going to the er.
I think if that happens it will happen because our system has gotten too expensive and inhumane to function for most people. Insurance is rapidly becoming so expensive that it only covers hospitalization and surgery for most people, everything else is out of pocket.
You are not wrong, but to be fair, people who die from guns tend to be younger than those who die from liver disease and cirrhosis. So reducing deaths from guns would have a disproportionate effect on longevity. Still not a major factor, though.
Suicide is another example of the same thing. Suicide is most common in two groups - those aged 45-64, and those over 85. (Cite.)
My point is that if you compare the difficulty of addressing premature deaths by guns versus premature deaths by, say, heart disease, there are a lot more options for reducing gun deaths than there are heart attacks.
ETA: and Shodan covered my other point, in that extending the life of a hypothetical homicide or suicide of someone in the ages of 18-50 will have a much larger impact on average lifespan than preventing a heart attack in someone aged 45-80.
There are? Like what? Gun control, as euphemistically called by proponents, arguably increases gun deaths rather than reducing them, as seen in cities such as Chicago and DC. Even if it had a neutral or positive impact, it would result in a miniscule overall change in deaths.
So what options are you suggesting? More education on gun handling and safety? That’s been going on for decades, with positive results. Hunter accidents have fallen steadily for decades due to hunter safety courses.
Reduce suicides by guns? Yeah, you might make some headway there, but I have a hunch that many would simply choose another method. Two suicides that hit my universe recently involved men that had terminal illnesses and decided to go out on their own terms. I think both would have figured out other ways if they didn’t have access to guns.
Reduce shootings by gang bangers and drug dealers? Now you are getting somewhere, probably. This would eliminate a large number of homicides, but how to reduce these killings seems like a difficult nut to crack.
But the bigger point is that heart disease kills far, far more people than guns. Diet, exercise and medical advancements are making great strides, and are reducing heart disease deaths fairly steadily, and in numbers that dwarf gun deaths. I think there will continue to be advancements in heart disease care that have a greater impact on health and longevity than worrying about gun deaths.
At this point, let me give the SDMB a heartfelt apology. This nice little thread about the leftist government idea that our health care system isn’t perfect has been derailed by introducing the even more leftist idea that gun deaths in America could be reduced.
I regret my comments and withdraw them. I will stipulate that there is no way to reduce gun deaths in America except by cracking down on “gang bangers and drug dealers”. You know, those kind of people are to blame for most gun violence, of course.
Be as flippant as you want, but the most recent mortality figures show that roughly 11,000 people died due to homicide by firearm, whereas 596,000 - or 54 times as many - died from heard disease. Are you suggesting you can somehow make such a large reduction in the 11,000 figure that will dwarf a reasonable reduction in the 596,000 figure?
I know from a personal standpoint, I have nearly no fear of dying from a gun, but I lost my father, several uncles, and both grandfathers to heart disease. And I’m supposed to worry about gun deaths?