[ExI] socialism

[John Clark]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 9:30 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> *You seem to think that the goal of health care is longer life*
>

It's not the only goal but it most certainly is a goal and it makes for a
good metric to evaluate the quality of healthcare in various countries
because you can put a precise number on the quantity of life but you can't
do that with the quality of life.

*> but longevity is more about healthy living than it is about medical
> treatments.*


The single most unhealthy thing you can do is smoke, it's more deadly than
being overweight or exercising too little or drinking too much or driving
without a seatbelt, and people in Canada, France, Finland, Denmark, Spain,
Germany, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all smoke more
than people in the USA do, and yet they live longer and pay less. I don't
see how the evidence could get any clearer when it's screaming at you in
the face, they do some things better than we do.

>  *I think medicine in the US is expensive because medical insurers,
> medical corporations, and congress have, probably intentionally, worked
> together to make it a profit center. Drug makers don't benefit from cures,
> they benefit from keeping people on expensive prescriptions. Doctors get
> kickbacks for prescribing them. Congressmen no doubt get legal and illegal
> kickbacks, too.*
>

I'm sure that what you say above is also true of the 30 countries that pay
less for healthcare and yet live longer so there must else that they do
that the USA doesn't, and we both know what that is.

John K Clark
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