4 ms·

YOU are the only entity with the incentive to maintain your health. The government could care less. It's a giant unfeeling AI that follows rules and incentive

YOU are the only entity with the incentive to maintain your health. The government could care less. It's a giant unfeeling AI that follows rules and incentives laid down by politicians. The overriding concern when government gets involved is cost, not outcomes or quality of care.

yohannparis 5y ago
This is mostly an U.S.A. point of view. As an European, and now Canadian, of all the countries I lived in, the U.S.A. was the only one who did not think that the health, education, and opportunities of their citizens was good for the nation and more importantly the state.
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  > Education Is why they can't connect the dots in the US.
Retric 5y ago
Governments do have incentives to keep the population healthy, as seen by free covid vaccinations by a GOP administration. The dead don’t pay taxes. The important bit is a lot of healthcare makes minimal difference. People have a huge bias around doing something even if it doesn’t help. Governments on the other hand care a lot more about the cost/benefit from healthcare thus vaccination is considered an obvious win but Medicare puts limits on physical therapy etc.
- makomk 5y ago
  Paying taxes can only act as an incentive for governments to keep the population healthy if it costs them less than they'll get from that person in taxes - so if you're old, retired, or not able-bodied enough to work, well... (This kinda resembles how the NHS in the UK decides what treatments to fund if you squint, though that's not the official justification.) There's also a lot of pressure to fund treatments of dubious effectiveness for high-profile diseases like cancer which politicians tend to give into because they care about being re-elected, whilst unglamorous but quality-of-life affecting stuff like physical therapy gets deprioritized.

4 ms·

YOU are the only entity with the incentive to maintain your health. The government could care less. It's a giant unfeeling AI that follows rules and incentive

by tomohawk 5y ago

yohannparis 5y ago
This is mostly an U.S.A. point of view. As an European, and now Canadian, of all the countries I lived in, the U.S.A. was the only one who did not think that the health, education, and opportunities of their citizens was good for the nation and more importantly the state.
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  > Education Is why they can't connect the dots in the US.
Retric 5y ago
Governments do have incentives to keep the population healthy, as seen by free covid vaccinations by a GOP administration. The dead don’t pay taxes. The important bit is a lot of healthcare makes minimal difference. People have a huge bias around doing something even if it doesn’t help. Governments on the other hand care a lot more about the cost/benefit from healthcare thus vaccination is considered an obvious win but Medicare puts limits on physical therapy etc.
- makomk 5y ago
  Paying taxes can only act as an incentive for governments to keep the population healthy if it costs them less than they'll get from that person in taxes - so if you're old, retired, or not able-bodied enough to work, well... (This kinda resembles how the NHS in the UK decides what treatments to fund if you squint, though that's not the official justification.) There's also a lot of pressure to fund treatments of dubious effectiveness for high-profile diseases like cancer which politicians tend to give into because they care about being re-elected, whilst unglamorous but quality-of-life affecting stuff like physical therapy gets deprioritized.