4 ms·

Citation? Obviously healthcare works on some level, else life expectancy wouldn't be going up.

pkteison 15y ago
Really? You could make life expectancy go up in much of the world with nothing more than clean water. But is that healthcare?
- Goladus 15y ago
  Maybe, but you'd also be ignoring other basic staples of western healthcare like vaccinations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2284/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2284/
bzbarsky 15y ago
Life expectancy is going up due to a variety of factors: better trauma care, better vaccination regimes, better sanitation, better nutrition, some better treatments (some amazingly so). Nevertheless, a large fraction of medical screens and procedures does not improve average life expectancy when people actually try to measure their impact. Intensive end-of-life care does not improve life expectancy when similarly measured. In terms of citations, see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161308 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161308 at least for the end-of-life effects. Also see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-dam... and http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678 and http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/beware-active-placebos.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/beware-active-placebos... and http://papers.nber.org/papers/W16011 http://papers.nber.org/papers/W16011 and the RAND health insurance study. For a start, at least.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  not just life expectancy in toto which you would rightly expect to have a huge number of variables that interact in unknown ways. many medical procedures have proven to be directly detrimental to health in double blind studies yet remain standard procedure. read this to become completely disillusioned with medicine. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/07/catheter-infection-law.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/07/catheter-infection-law...

Really? You could make life expectancy go up in much of the world with nothing more than clean water. But is that healthcare?

Goladus 15y ago
Maybe, but you'd also be ignoring other basic staples of western healthcare like vaccinations. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2284/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2284/

bzbarsky 15y ago

Life expectancy is going up due to a variety of factors: better trauma care, better vaccination regimes, better sanitation, better nutrition, some better treatments (some amazingly so). Nevertheless, a large fraction of medical screens and procedures does not improve average life expectancy when people actually try to measure their impact. Intensive end-of-life care does not improve life expectancy when similarly measured. In terms of citations, see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161308 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161308 at least for the end-of-life effects. Also see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-dam... and http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1000678 and http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/beware-active-placebos.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/beware-active-placebos... and http://papers.nber.org/papers/W16011 http://papers.nber.org/papers/W16011 and the RAND health insurance study. For a start, at least.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
not just life expectancy in toto which you would rightly expect to have a huge number of variables that interact in unknown ways. many medical procedures have proven to be directly detrimental to health in double blind studies yet remain standard procedure. read this to become completely disillusioned with medicine. http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/07/catheter-infection-law.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/07/catheter-infection-law...