4 ms·

In a pay to play healthcare system, those who can pay the most get the best toys. An important study but it shouldn't surprise anyone.

frgewut 11y ago
It doesn't seem so obvious to me, e.g. in Cuba much less money is spent, but results are similar. http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2014/12/22/cuba-cost-effective-healthcare/#15ac5eb55990 http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2014/12/22/cuba-cost-e...
- pessimizer 11y ago
  > In a pay to play healthcare system...
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Maybe people with money take care of themselves better? All my lower income acquaintances and friends are fat and never work out. They drive everywhere and are generally very unhealthy. It just blows my mind to see what they eat at restaurants. There's a real issue here about the lack of proper eating and exercise. The middle class or higher group people in my life often take care of their health, work out, eat right, etc. They ride bikes, stay active, walk a lot, etc. The idea that its purely healthcare dollars at work here is unrealistic to me. I think there's more at play here and the knee-jerk answers that are political correct is often wrong. Especially post Obamacare, where so many are now insured and go the same doctors and hospitals everyone else goes to.
- llamataboot 11y ago
  Think have some strange causation going on here. Have you ever had to figure out how many calories you could get per dollar -- let me tell you it looks a lot more like Taco Bell than grass-fed meat and a kale smoothie. Have you ever had to work 2 terrible mind-numbing boring jobs for 60 hours a week and then threw a couple kids or even grandkids into the mix? Not a lot of spare money or time to get a gym membership. There's also social norms, a lack of future orientation (that is a well known effect of living in poverty), etc. Being poor is unhealthy -- blaming its effects on individual's not "being responsible and eating and exercising right" is an individual cop-out for a structural problems.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    When I was poor buying healthy meat and greens at the mexican grocery store cost me very, very little. I don't believe for one second the "the poor must eat big macs and drink full sugar colas or they will die" nonsense.
    - undersuit 11y ago
      When you were poor you apparently had time to make a meal with the meat and greens you bought. But llamataboot mentioned time constraints so you must've missed that.
    - VLM 11y ago
      "we" have lived thru a major cultural shift where 30 years ago when I was a starving student, we didn't have loans (or high tuition) and we did starve. All of us, pretty much. Entire generations went to uni unable to afford junk food because a meal at the restaurant was like one weeks groceries, its unaffordable. I ate a lot of salad. Even pizza delivery was kinda an investment to be budgeted and rarely experienced. Economic changes over the last couple decades mean college students today are poorer than ever on the balance sheet with $100K of college loans etc, but have wealthy people level cash flows. So when your tuition alone is $30K, you can squeeze the bank for an extra $6 for a big mac at any time. Or all college students today have new iphones, new macbooks, etc. But this is a very new phenomena and has lead to weird cultural beliefs among the very young (say gen Y and younger), like "all poor people pig out on junk food" because modern college students think they experienced real poverty in school when they used the same macbook for two years instead of upgrading every six months like the rich kids (LOL). There are weird statistic warping exceptions, like homeless people have no where to cook or eat, so they disproportionately eat at McDonalds. Also, for very poor people, an occasional trip to the McDonalds for a value meal is like my occasional trips to the $200/plate steakhouse, so their intake skews junkfood, but its very low. And there are the struggling addict types where the money is getting spent in the next 5 minutes and if its not food in the belly it'll be injected death so they skew toward junk food as a preventative. There is some truth to poor people are often poor because they find ways to waste money, and junk food being a very expensive way to eat, it is in itself a minor status symbol in that culture. My class level would show off the expensive watch my aunt bought me when I graduated, even though my people never wear watches anymore, but they'd show off they bought an entire 2L bottle of corn syrup soda, because, thats what they can afford and their peers can't afford.
- bryondowd 11y ago
  "Especially post Obamacare, where so many are now insured and go the same doctors and hospitals everyone else goes to." Have you ever had to deal with the healthcare system from the bottom? Even with "Obamacare" it's a nightmare. Unless you have fairly high quality health insurance, you tend to be limited in which doctors you can go to. So, no, the poor aren't suddenly going to the same doctors as the upper middle class. And the doctors that work with those cheaper insurance plans seem to, in my experience, have more patients and less time to spend with each. Quality of care is less, because it's an operation designed around high turnover rather than developing a relationship with each client, as is more common from a 'good' doctor, which tend to only accept better insurance plans.
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    Also if you gave a chronic condition like asthma you might be on 3 medicines with a 75 dollar copay a month each. Many people have to make due without, that might increase mortality right there.
    - bryondowd 11y ago
      Good point. I know someone who was born with HIV. They can maintain the condition indefinitely, but the combination of drugs comes to over $200 per month in just co-pays. This person was born to it, and you can blame the parents for being irresponsible, but this person had no input. Now this person has to consistently maintain insurance and a steady income significantly above what most people need or risk being unable to afford medication and face terminal illness. Fortunately this person was raised by people capable of meeting her needs, has worked consistently since adulthood, and is working toward future security, but if things had been stacked the other way, this person could easily have not reached adulthood, or not survived much beyond that. So, certainly being poor vs being rich makes a difference beyond individual habits.
- dikdik 11y ago
  Offense intended. You sound like you hate poor people and you every obviously do not understand what it means to be poor.

frgewut 11y ago

It doesn't seem so obvious to me, e.g. in Cuba much less money is spent, but results are similar. http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2014/12/22/cuba-cost-effective-healthcare/#15ac5eb55990 http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2014/12/22/cuba-cost-e...

pessimizer 11y ago
> In a pay to play healthcare system...

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Maybe people with money take care of themselves better? All my lower income acquaintances and friends are fat and never work out. They drive everywhere and are generally very unhealthy. It just blows my mind to see what they eat at restaurants. There's a real issue here about the lack of proper eating and exercise. The middle class or higher group people in my life often take care of their health, work out, eat right, etc. They ride bikes, stay active, walk a lot, etc. The idea that its purely healthcare dollars at work here is unrealistic to me. I think there's more at play here and the knee-jerk answers that are political correct is often wrong. Especially post Obamacare, where so many are now insured and go the same doctors and hospitals everyone else goes to.

llamataboot 11y ago
Think have some strange causation going on here. Have you ever had to figure out how many calories you could get per dollar -- let me tell you it looks a lot more like Taco Bell than grass-fed meat and a kale smoothie. Have you ever had to work 2 terrible mind-numbing boring jobs for 60 hours a week and then threw a couple kids or even grandkids into the mix? Not a lot of spare money or time to get a gym membership. There's also social norms, a lack of future orientation (that is a well known effect of living in poverty), etc. Being poor is unhealthy -- blaming its effects on individual's not "being responsible and eating and exercising right" is an individual cop-out for a structural problems.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  When I was poor buying healthy meat and greens at the mexican grocery store cost me very, very little. I don't believe for one second the "the poor must eat big macs and drink full sugar colas or they will die" nonsense.
  - undersuit 11y ago
    When you were poor you apparently had time to make a meal with the meat and greens you bought. But llamataboot mentioned time constraints so you must've missed that.
  - VLM 11y ago
    "we" have lived thru a major cultural shift where 30 years ago when I was a starving student, we didn't have loans (or high tuition) and we did starve. All of us, pretty much. Entire generations went to uni unable to afford junk food because a meal at the restaurant was like one weeks groceries, its unaffordable. I ate a lot of salad. Even pizza delivery was kinda an investment to be budgeted and rarely experienced. Economic changes over the last couple decades mean college students today are poorer than ever on the balance sheet with $100K of college loans etc, but have wealthy people level cash flows. So when your tuition alone is $30K, you can squeeze the bank for an extra $6 for a big mac at any time. Or all college students today have new iphones, new macbooks, etc. But this is a very new phenomena and has lead to weird cultural beliefs among the very young (say gen Y and younger), like "all poor people pig out on junk food" because modern college students think they experienced real poverty in school when they used the same macbook for two years instead of upgrading every six months like the rich kids (LOL). There are weird statistic warping exceptions, like homeless people have no where to cook or eat, so they disproportionately eat at McDonalds. Also, for very poor people, an occasional trip to the McDonalds for a value meal is like my occasional trips to the $200/plate steakhouse, so their intake skews junkfood, but its very low. And there are the struggling addict types where the money is getting spent in the next 5 minutes and if its not food in the belly it'll be injected death so they skew toward junk food as a preventative. There is some truth to poor people are often poor because they find ways to waste money, and junk food being a very expensive way to eat, it is in itself a minor status symbol in that culture. My class level would show off the expensive watch my aunt bought me when I graduated, even though my people never wear watches anymore, but they'd show off they bought an entire 2L bottle of corn syrup soda, because, thats what they can afford and their peers can't afford.
bryondowd 11y ago
"Especially post Obamacare, where so many are now insured and go the same doctors and hospitals everyone else goes to." Have you ever had to deal with the healthcare system from the bottom? Even with "Obamacare" it's a nightmare. Unless you have fairly high quality health insurance, you tend to be limited in which doctors you can go to. So, no, the poor aren't suddenly going to the same doctors as the upper middle class. And the doctors that work with those cheaper insurance plans seem to, in my experience, have more patients and less time to spend with each. Quality of care is less, because it's an operation designed around high turnover rather than developing a relationship with each client, as is more common from a 'good' doctor, which tend to only accept better insurance plans.
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  Also if you gave a chronic condition like asthma you might be on 3 medicines with a 75 dollar copay a month each. Many people have to make due without, that might increase mortality right there.
  - bryondowd 11y ago
    Good point. I know someone who was born with HIV. They can maintain the condition indefinitely, but the combination of drugs comes to over $200 per month in just co-pays. This person was born to it, and you can blame the parents for being irresponsible, but this person had no input. Now this person has to consistently maintain insurance and a steady income significantly above what most people need or risk being unable to afford medication and face terminal illness. Fortunately this person was raised by people capable of meeting her needs, has worked consistently since adulthood, and is working toward future security, but if things had been stacked the other way, this person could easily have not reached adulthood, or not survived much beyond that. So, certainly being poor vs being rich makes a difference beyond individual habits.
dikdik 11y ago
Offense intended. You sound like you hate poor people and you every obviously do not understand what it means to be poor.