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america, unsatisfied with spending vastly more privately on healthcare than the rest of the world, while also spending more publicly on healthcare than the rest

america, unsatisfied with spending vastly more privately on healthcare than the rest of the world, while also spending more publicly on healthcare than the rest of the world, continues to find ways to make healthcare yet more expensive and ruinous for its citizens.

dazc 3y ago
Maybe true but, for the rest of the world, you're still the 'go-to' place where medical miracles can happen. Money had something to do with this.
- Retric 3y ago
  That is more a function of the size of the US medical system than its overall quality. The average American is going to whatever hospital is closest when they have an emergency, but if you’re healthy and wealthy enough to go anywhere then you can pick and choose extreme outliers. Large countries simply have more extreme outliers in both directions. More US citizens seek treatment outside the US than foreign nationals seek treatment inside the US. But, people have specific diseases and sometimes the best treatment is inside the US, though more often it isn’t.
- chaxor 3y ago
  *In mice - you forgot that part there
- olddustytrail 3y ago
  Not really. The number of people that's true for is miniscule compared to the number of Americans who engage in medical tourism.
  - weberer 3y ago
    What are the numbers for each one?
    - olddustytrail 3y ago
      1.4 million US medical tourism versus 200k traveling to the USA (according to Bard).
- orwin 3y ago
  I don't think it's true. In fact, I'm pretty sure each year 14 millions Americans are going to Canada for medical treatment, and richer American are going to Singapore/Uk.
poorbutdebtfree 3y ago
Metabolic health is responsible for at least 3/5 of healthcare costs. 4/5 of SNAP recipients have at least one underlying metabolic health issue. Big food wins. Big medicine wins. Big pharma wins.
- elishah 3y ago
  > Metabolic health is responsible for at least 3/5 of healthcare costs. I would love to see a source for that, as it is strongly at odds with all data that I've ever seen. For example: "Medical cost of overweight and obesity combined is approximately 5.0% to 10% of US healthcare spending." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00708.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.... "Costs attributable to overweight and obesity in Canada were $6.0 billion in 2006, with 66% attributable to obesity. This corresponds to 4.1% of the total health expenditures in Canada in 2006. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00579.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.... "Costs attributable to obesity totaled US$ 269.6 million (1.86% of all expenditures on medium- and high-complexity health care)." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121160 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... This is a notoriously difficult thing to estimate, and highly influenced by exact definitions of any given study, so some variance is to be expected. But going from around 6% to >60% seems like quite a jump.
  - worik 3y ago
    We can cherry pick until we go green... Here is the top result for me at: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Metabolic+health+share+of+healthcare+costs&t=lm&atb=v342-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Metabolic+health+share+of+healthca... https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/poor-diets-health-care-costs/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/poor-diet... Starts with: > Unhealthy diets account for almost 20% of U.S. health care costs from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, according to a new study. Please help yourself to cherries
    - elishah 3y ago

dazc 3y ago

Maybe true but, for the rest of the world, you're still the 'go-to' place where medical miracles can happen. Money had something to do with this.

Retric 3y ago
That is more a function of the size of the US medical system than its overall quality. The average American is going to whatever hospital is closest when they have an emergency, but if you’re healthy and wealthy enough to go anywhere then you can pick and choose extreme outliers. Large countries simply have more extreme outliers in both directions. More US citizens seek treatment outside the US than foreign nationals seek treatment inside the US. But, people have specific diseases and sometimes the best treatment is inside the US, though more often it isn’t.
chaxor 3y ago
*In mice - you forgot that part there
olddustytrail 3y ago
Not really. The number of people that's true for is miniscule compared to the number of Americans who engage in medical tourism.
- weberer 3y ago
  What are the numbers for each one?
  - olddustytrail 3y ago
    1.4 million US medical tourism versus 200k traveling to the USA (according to Bard).
orwin 3y ago
I don't think it's true. In fact, I'm pretty sure each year 14 millions Americans are going to Canada for medical treatment, and richer American are going to Singapore/Uk.

poorbutdebtfree 3y ago

Metabolic health is responsible for at least 3/5 of healthcare costs. 4/5 of SNAP recipients have at least one underlying metabolic health issue. Big food wins. Big medicine wins. Big pharma wins.

elishah 3y ago
> Metabolic health is responsible for at least 3/5 of healthcare costs. I would love to see a source for that, as it is strongly at odds with all data that I've ever seen. For example: "Medical cost of overweight and obesity combined is approximately 5.0% to 10% of US healthcare spending." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00708.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.... "Costs attributable to overweight and obesity in Canada were $6.0 billion in 2006, with 66% attributable to obesity. This corresponds to 4.1% of the total health expenditures in Canada in 2006. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00579.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.... "Costs attributable to obesity totaled US$ 269.6 million (1.86% of all expenditures on medium- and high-complexity health care)." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121160 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... This is a notoriously difficult thing to estimate, and highly influenced by exact definitions of any given study, so some variance is to be expected. But going from around 6% to >60% seems like quite a jump.
- worik 3y ago
  We can cherry pick until we go green... Here is the top result for me at: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Metabolic+health+share+of+healthcare+costs&t=lm&atb=v342-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Metabolic+health+share+of+healthca... https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/poor-diets-health-care-costs/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/poor-diet... Starts with: > Unhealthy diets account for almost 20% of U.S. health care costs from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, according to a new study. Please help yourself to cherries
  - elishah 3y ago