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It's not just medical care. Housing follows the same trend[1]. These kinds of studies make me wonder if, politically, we care about cost savings at all. 1. ht

It's not just medical care. Housing follows the same trend[1]. These kinds of studies make me wonder if, politically, we care about cost savings at all. 1. http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/housing-homeless-mentally-ill-pays-itself-according-university-pennsylvania http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/housing-homeless-mentally...

mikeash 13y ago
I think we care about cost savings politically, but we don't care about evidence. If someone holds the political belief that cutting public services for the poor saves public money, it's unlikely that any number of studies will change their mind. Politicians seem to have decent motives, but the system is almost inherently allergic to facts.
ahoyhere 13y ago
I've been watching these issues for a long time and here's the conclusion I've come to: Americans care far more about people getting "what they deserve," than caring about costs in the long run. Many of the Americans who have the least will still argue against people like them getting "free" things like healthcare -- "I DON'T HAVE HEALTHCARE, LOOK AT ME, I'M FINE". Because they believe those other people don't deserve it. On some level, they believe they don't deserve it either. (In America, land of opportunity, you get what you deserve! So if you don't have it already, you don't deserve it, post ergo propter hoc.) This also explains why allegedly fiscally conservative Republicans don't support a guaranteed minimum income, because "those people" haven't "earned" it -- no matter that the uncountable costs to society, and the totally countable costs to the government/taxation system, is much greater when people go poor and raise their children in poverty and in slums. Americans, by and large, are so afraid that one person will get something they don't "deserve" that they'd rather punish them, and everyone else, many times over. The opposite of "Better 10 guilty men go free, than one innocent suffer." IMO this also explains our ridiculously punitive sentences, instead of simple rehabilitation which is proven to reduce recidivism. "Why would you give them THERAPY? and GYMS? and let them have PUPPIES? THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN JAIL!" And why so much (much more than you'd think) of the general spirit seems to be against young women who are raped. And on and on. People obviously must be getting what they deserve, or nothing makes sense about their beliefs about themselves, their country, what they've achieved (or not) in their lives, etc. (I say "Americans" because I've lived for years in another country and traveled all over, and this is far from a universal feeling.) Puritannical background at work? Perhaps. Certainly not Quaker.

mikeash 13y ago

I think we care about cost savings politically, but we don't care about evidence. If someone holds the political belief that cutting public services for the poor saves public money, it's unlikely that any number of studies will change their mind. Politicians seem to have decent motives, but the system is almost inherently allergic to facts.

ahoyhere 13y ago

I've been watching these issues for a long time and here's the conclusion I've come to: Americans care far more about people getting "what they deserve," than caring about costs in the long run. Many of the Americans who have the least will still argue against people like them getting "free" things like healthcare -- "I DON'T HAVE HEALTHCARE, LOOK AT ME, I'M FINE". Because they believe those other people don't deserve it. On some level, they believe they don't deserve it either. (In America, land of opportunity, you get what you deserve! So if you don't have it already, you don't deserve it, post ergo propter hoc.) This also explains why allegedly fiscally conservative Republicans don't support a guaranteed minimum income, because "those people" haven't "earned" it -- no matter that the uncountable costs to society, and the totally countable costs to the government/taxation system, is much greater when people go poor and raise their children in poverty and in slums. Americans, by and large, are so afraid that one person will get something they don't "deserve" that they'd rather punish them, and everyone else, many times over. The opposite of "Better 10 guilty men go free, than one innocent suffer." IMO this also explains our ridiculously punitive sentences, instead of simple rehabilitation which is proven to reduce recidivism. "Why would you give them THERAPY? and GYMS? and let them have PUPPIES? THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN JAIL!" And why so much (much more than you'd think) of the general spirit seems to be against young women who are raped. And on and on. People obviously must be getting what they deserve, or nothing makes sense about their beliefs about themselves, their country, what they've achieved (or not) in their lives, etc. (I say "Americans" because I've lived for years in another country and traveled all over, and this is far from a universal feeling.) Puritannical background at work? Perhaps. Certainly not Quaker.