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No. Lack of universal health care and a proper social safety net resulted in the Hepatitis outbreak. Hepatitis can be prevented through vaccination, which a un
by erentz 9y ago
No. Lack of universal health care and a proper social safety net resulted in the Hepatitis outbreak.
Hepatitis can be prevented through vaccination, which a universal health care system would provide. Through treatment, which a universal health care system would provide. And proper sanitary conditions, which taking care of people so they don't have to live on the streets would provide.
- djsumdog 9y agoExactly! We need better homeless support. Day centers with real bathrooms and showers, better public bathrooms, and better safety nets for those who are struggling. We need more programs like Utah's where they try to get homeless people into homes first, then work on job training, drug addiction and integration into society. If we had housing first, many of these people could have accessible toilets. Plastic bags are terrible for the environment. They're not recyclable unless that type of plastic is in demand. Even then, it's often shipped to China. Most companies don't touch it because there is so little return and things like staples or food particle can contaminate whole batches if they get through sorting.
- mattnewport 9y agoWe still get hepatitis outbreaks here in Canada despite our universal healthcare. Universal healthcare does not automatically solve the problem of getting vaccinations to vulnerable populations or prioritizing the right interventions at the right time given limited resources. Maybe our situation is better here in this regard, I don't know the statistics, but it's demonstrably false that universal healthcare automatically prevents hepatitis outbreaks.
- guelo 9y agoFor whatever reason Canada doesn't require childhood HepA vaccinations, though they could.
- javajocky 9y agoI have no idea why you're getting downvoted for stating facts, and not in an argumentative or derogatory way. You're stating the truth, perhaps one people don't want to hear, but it's immature for them to downvote you.
- xiaoma 9y agoIt's the same reason people try to get each other fired, "deplatformed" or ostracized for off-handed remarks, relatively mainstream opinions or even for supporting the wrong side of a divisive issue years in the past. People are very tribal, the Anglosphere is highly politicized and it's a lot easier to make a snap judgment and label someone as part of an enemy tribe than it is to deal with nuanced statements.
- sctb 9y agoVotes take a little while to stabilize and commenting about them just adds agitation, so the guidelines ask you to please not: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoSome people might not vaccinate their kids for dumber reasons than not having insurance.
- mattnewport 9y agoPart of my point was that the homeless are a particularly difficult population to reach with health interventions like vaccinations even with universal healthcare.
- coldtea 9y agoSome people might do so if the alternative is going to jail.
- ethnic_throw 9y agoSo I take it you implicitly agree with the original article's thesis?
- mattnewport 9y agoI think the original article makes a plausible case that the plastic bag ban was a contributing factor to this outbreak. That's irrelevant to the point I was making in the comment however.
- coldtea 9y ago>Universal healthcare does not automatically solve the problem of getting vaccinations to vulnerable populations A well functioning society, where people don't live like dogs in the street, does. >or prioritizing the right interventions at the right time given limited resources. I doubt nations that can spend billions on pet food have "limited resources" for things as insignificant budget-wise as hep vaccines.
- mattnewport 9y ago> A well functioning society, where people don't live like dogs in the street, does. I guess I've never lived in or visited a well functioning society then. I have lived in two countries with universal healthcare and visited many more and they all have homeless populations living on the streets. Whether they live "like dogs" would be a subjective call I guess. I don't think you understand the term 'limited resources'. The opposite would be 'unlimited resources', not 'a different allocation of limited resources than I would prefer'.
- coldtea 9y ago>I don't think you understand the term 'limited resources'. The opposite would be 'unlimited resources', not 'a different allocation of limited resources than I would prefer'. Then you maybe don't understand that it doesn't take "unlimited resources" to vaccinate people, and that not all "allocations of limited resources" make sense or are to be respected or are inevitable like the laws of physics. Like one can't use the excuse that they have "limited resources" for feeding themselves if at the same time they spend 10 times the money in trivial BS like fancy clothes or the latest and greatest smartphone -- they'd be (rightly) laughed off. Sure, they can spend their money wherever they want (it's a free country, after all) -- they just don't get to invoke "limited resources" afterwards as the reason they didn't do something that should have gotten a much bigger priority. The same goes for societies. They can opt not to vaccinate people, but unless they are some dead poor developing world country, they don't get to use "limited resources" as the reason for doing so. Twisted sense of priorities would be a much better fit.
- gdulli 9y agoThose things could have prevented it, like giving everyone housing could solve homelessness. But given the actual conditions San Diego started in, did the lack of plastic bags cause this specific outbreak? Which is the actual prompt. Seems inconclusive from the article, but not casually dismissable.
- irrational 9y agoThey tried that in SLC, but it turns out that not everyone who is homeless wants to live in a home. I would imagine this is related to mental illness, but you can't just force people to move into a home who don't want to just so homelessness is "solved".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- svend 9y agoActually you can. That's what they do in the rest of the western world. Not saying it's a good idea, but it's far from impossible. It's more of a "do you want to".
- jdminhbg 9y agoVaccinations are free, per TFA.
- eveningcoffee 9y agoWere not before the outbreak.
- djrogers 9y agoI guarantee every person living and defecating in the street in San Diego is eligible for MediCal or MedicAid - the very programs Sen. Sanders is touting as a panacea for single payer healthcare.
- mindslight 9y agoOr aim lower and just build and maintain some proper public toilets we all can use. One shouldn't be guilted into purchasing more diuretic just to relieve themselves while out.
- frogpelt 9y agoIf we just had the right system we could solve the problems. Some people just don't want us to have the right system. The right system is the solution.
- touchofevil 9y agoCompletely agree. Future generations will marvel at the fact that we didn't figure out that having large populations living in poverty would create hot zones for contagious disease to spread from. The Ebola outbreak that showed up in Dallas a few years ago comes to mind. Poverty needs to be eliminated worldwide ASAP to prevent the next pandemic.
- subroutine 9y agoThey may also look back and marvel at our inability to implement even simple solutions because they fail to seem optimal. It's debatable whether the hepA outbreak is due to the scarcity of plastic bags the homeless were accustomed to using to do their business. But it's plausible; and it's an easy fix. But it's possible that future generations will look back and wonder- why did they spend all that time debating 1000-lightbulb ideas about how to care for the homeless, never reaching any consensus, when they could have just hung up plastic bag distributors downtown.
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoUS's positive view of globalization after World War II did wonders in reducing extreme poverty (via our aid programs, charities, etc). Sadly, many in our country are turning their backs to globalization when the world really needs more investment.
- katastic 9y agoI'm standing here, in awe, that you literally wrote that on a comment. Like... you actually believe merely having UHC will somehow stop stupid people from either 1) being disgusting or 2) being too stupid and forgoing vaccinations. Like, you actually think that EVERYONE who suffers is doing it simply because they can't walk into their local hospital and be like "hook me up with them needles." People like Jenny McCarthy talking about how vaccinations cause autism don't actually exist. And I say all this as a freakin' liberal. Come on guys. Up your brain game. Because this is one step above the political discourse equivalent of a a bumper sticker. Just chant and shoehorn in whatever catchphrase / slogan that's barely applicable into the conversation. A bumper sticker has never changed the world.
- bllguo 9y agoYou're clearly being intentionally provocative. I don't even know what you're railing against. Vaccinations have basically eradicated many diseases in the Western world. Certainly if these people were vaccinated a hep outbreak would not have occurred. Furthermore, if these people had access to proper facilities thru social safety nets, they also wouldn't be in situations where the loss of plastic bags means increased risk of hep A. UHC and more resources for the homeless would have helped prevent this, objectively. You rant about changing the world yet propose no solution or alternative of your own.
- guelo 9y agovaccination doesn't have much to do with universal health care. About half of states currently require childhood HepA vaccinations, the others don't http://www.immunize.org/laws/hepa.asp http://www.immunize.org/laws/hepa.asp
- prostoalex 9y ago> Hepatitis can be prevented through vaccination, which a universal health care system would provide. Most of the the homeless people are likely eligible for California Medicare.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Most of the the homeless people are likely eligible for California Medicare. “California Medicare” is not a thing that exists. You are perhaps thinking of Medi-Cal, which is California’s Medicaid program (Medicaid is for the medically indigent, and is partly federally funded and administered by the states; Medicare is federally administered, and for seniors and certain disabled.)
- prostoalex 9y agoI stand corrected, yes, the Medi-Cal program that covers the low-income Californians.