5 ms·
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. How can we make money selling this idea?
by RobertRoberts 5y ago
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
How can we make money selling this idea?
- sn_master 5y agoMost cancers cannot be prevented, they're genetic. Other diseases that can be prevented (obesity, smoking-related), require long-term media campaigns, cannot all of a sudden change people behavior. We have free will.
- sebmellen 5y agoEven if “most” cancers are genetic (do you have a source on that?) they absolutely can be prevented. For example, people with a family history of colon cancer can get colonoscopy screenings to check for polyps. Same goes for people with BRCA2, etc. And environmental factors play a gigantic role in the prevalence of cancer today.
- inter_netuser 5y agoCancers are failure of immunosurveillance. Yes, some genetic factors increase risks, but even in those cases cancers tend to show up after the age 40, when your immune system begins to falter due to thymus involution. At that point - everyone has some cancerous cells in their body, and often even multiple tumors. If you live long enough - you WILL gets some sort of a cancer. From a good pool of autopsies: 1.1 per patient. "There were 250 malignancies diagnosed in 225 patients, an average of 1.1 malignancies per patient. The average age of all patients autopsied was 48.3 years (range, 1-98 years)." doi:10.1001/jama.280.14.1245
- adrianN 5y agoIncentivize people by reducing health insurance premiums when they take part in appropriate preventative activities.
- vidyesh 5y agoPlease elaborate.
- admash 5y agoIf a policy holder: * completes a smoking cessation class * has a mammogram/pap smear/PSA test/colonoscopy * has cholesterol levels checked * attends a monthly diet/nutrition group class * attends a participating gym twice a week then discount the insurance premium appropriately for each positive lifestyle behavior.
- evandijk70 5y agoI think this idea is good in theory, but has practical problems: - Privacy concerns - Administrative overhead - Potential for fraud/people losing coverage if they miss attending their gym
- lordgrenville 5y agoThat's basically what Vitality does https://www.vitalitygroup.com/ https://www.vitalitygroup.com/
- teachingassist 5y agoThis is just a coupon scheme for rich people. If you have the time and energy to jump through the technical hoops, you get the discount. Plenty of people go through the gym gate, meeting the Vitality discount condition, and then sit and read a newspaper.
- lordgrenville 5y agoAFAIU their model is successful because incentivising people to make healthy life choices really does reduce their actuarial predicted health costs - so on aggregate the cheaters can't be that significant.
- FriedrichN 5y ago
- agogdog 5y agoSo, $50 annual gym credit?
- evandijk70 5y agoSell vaccines?
- taneq 5y agoIt may be apocryphal but there's the story about Japanese doctors being paid a retainer by healthy patients in return for being responsible when they fall ill.