Summations Only

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The human desire for high sugar, high fat food is a product of natural selection.

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Well that's just wrong.

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No it's not

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Not all medical problems are due to bad diet.

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Name one.

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Downs SyndromeWork related injuriesPsychiatric conditionsGetting taken off your motorbike by a courier van that cut you off. True story of a lucky escape where no fat people were involved and no cheeseburgers were harmed.

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Eating is as natural as seeking shelter. But cheesecake and burgers are as unnatural as apartment blocks.

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So even if we blame bad eating for all medical ills and even if we apply your parody logic we still find that universal healthcare to prevent and treat medical problems is as justifiable as as a universal fire service to prevent and deal with fires.

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Um, no, we don't find that at all

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People living in countries with universal health care would disagree with you. I do.It's a difficult question because of the inevitable emotive nature - who deserves to live is the core of it.The evidence of real world statistics suggest that regardless of morality, it makes sense to make health care more accessible on a purely economic level at the very least. Lower taxes and apparently better care than what costs you so much in the US.Your argument sounds trollish - Poe's law appliesIf you are for real, then I suggest... Exercise Addiction and DependenceObsession with eating healthilyI entirely agree with your argument about population and resources but that's really not the issue here. I'm sure you'll appreciate this site. I do.Edited by Warthog, : anal retentive grammar correctionEdited by Warthog, : added link

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P90 X has been known to cure downs. Look it up.

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Just the ticket to shed that pesky extra chromosome for that summer bikini body. Now I know you're taking the piss.

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A healthy, balanced diet with an intense work out program WILL cure depression. That is a fact and you don't need to look it up, cause I'm telling you it is.

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Congratulations - that's the dumbest oversimplification I've read for a while. It even beats the fundies. I won't take issue with it 'cause I know you're taking the piss.

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Your third world opinion doesn't really matter to me.

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Hey, I'm not the one living in a country that is in so much debt that it's basically owned by China. But that's ok 'cause I don't have to live there and I know that you're taking the piss.

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Nature is brutal and only the strong and fit should survive.

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In this context, 'fit' has nothing to do with owning an abcersiser. The really smart people know that the fat ones will take longer to starve when your economy finally collapses under it's own weight. Now that's natural selection.Nothing is as brutal as a horde of fat people fighting over the last slice of pizza. Bulimic fitness dweebs wouldn't last a minute.Time for a BK delivery - you'll feel better. Over here, we don't need home delivery - our universal health care means that everyone is able to walk there for themselves. Edited by Warthog, : No reason given.Edited by Warthog, : No reason given.

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But the fat ones will taste better. What tastes better: pig or horse? Cow or chicken? Ding ding! The fatter ones always taste better. Plus, they are easier to catch. So we won't have to worry about fatties starving to death because we will have eaten them well before they do so.

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Irrefutable logic.

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Oh really? Name one person who is in shape that is also depressed.

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My wife. Diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder in 1992.In the past 20 years, we have both learned a lot about this.She eats well and suffers from regular excercise. She is in better shape than I am. When she hits a depressive episode, everything collapses - this has very little to do with diet and activity. There is a tiny correlation between activity and her emotional state but it is more to do with being outside than either of the above factors. Sitting on the beach is more effective than a 5 mile run.I know on a very intimate level that you are talking out of your arse on this one.

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Americans trying to get free healthcare should take better care of their health. Untill we do, we don't get free healthcare

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People should take better care of themselves even if they can afford to pay for medical care. This point is obvious and healthcare has nothing to do with it.Seriously, you are confusing two separate issues...Self care (diet and excercise) are education issues. These are things that should be taught to kids, not clumsily forced on adults. That approach never works. This is an education issue. The alternative is prohibition on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, sugar, fat, loud music(hearing impairment) and pretty much everything in our modern world. Everything can be harmful to your health when in excess."Good habits formed at youth make all the difference" Aristotle, I think.Health Care is the second issue. This is about treatment of current problems. Although unhealthy lifestyles influence this and can sometimes affect decisions relating to treatment (like transplants for smokers), the core issue is in dealing with current problems. Telling someone that they shouldn't have had all those beers and pizzas over the years is not the right answer when they have a broken leg.You are suggesting a punitive system where the 'healthy' are rewarded and the 'unhealthy' are punished. Who gets to decide which side of the fence you are on? How about the majority of problems that have little or nothing to do with weight/fitness? How long do you have to be a reformed smoker/alcoholic/fattie to be considered 'fit'? The results of smoking hang around long after you quit - are you sure you've made it onto the right side of the fence yet? There is good argument for saying that you are never completely over smoking.Without universal health care, people who need a little help to keep themselves in good shape can't afford it, dooming them to a slow decline. Without universal health care, I would be mostly blind (saved by childhood surgery), my wife - and many others would be dead from appendicitis. None of this has anything to do with your unhealthy obsession with food and running around.

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If you're implying that's the US, HA! We have a Chinatown here, many of tthem. Who needs the real China?

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No such collapes is coming.

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That 'whoosh' sound you just heard was my points going completely over your head.

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You're slowly turning into these fat Americans. Keep adding fast food places, you'll see.

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Sadly, there's an element of truth in that. This is an issue of education, culture and even marketing. This is not about universal health care. I'm pretty sure that we have about as much fast food here as in the US but the obesity problem is lower. I wonder why that could be?

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I see the moderator has made a request, so I'll get serious.

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Not yet, you haven't.Now, what I'd really like you to do is have a go at addressing my serious points in this post and preceding ones instead of ignoring them and making kindergarden fat and race jokes.Your argument so far is on the level of fundies.

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I see you got 3 "likes" for your post. I'm guessing people here have lost their minds and don't know good from poorly written anymore.

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Feeling inadequate? Don't worry, I'm sure scattergun insults will make you feel important again.

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Well, since we're just serving up anecdotes

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I am using one case I know well to illustrate my points. If you want me to dredge up off topic statistics, let me know. Maybe try it yourself.
Learning cures depression. Everyone knows that.

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I present ME. Self diagnosed depressed.

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Not another wannabe emo narcissist. Not getting enough attention and decided you were 'depressed'? I've lost count of the number of wankers who decided they were 'Self diagnosed depressed'. It became fashionable and the followers followed. Self help book or depressiontest.com is for sale | www.brandforce.com ?About 15 years ago it was the same with bipolar. Every arsehole in the street 'had it'. Take your disease of the week ideas and shove 'em. Let me guess, you're an artist too?

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Cured it with an active lifestyle and good dieting.

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Depression is a component in a lot of disorders , including bipolar and is in itself much more complicated than you think. If there was one single cure, there would be a lot less people dying out there, I can guarantee you that. All you have shown so far is that you know fuck all about what you're talking about and only have weak fat jokes to offer.

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She's probably just stressed out

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Just illustrates my point. This bullshit kills people.The only part of this that is on topic is that treatment for her was only within reach because of universal health care. For about six months after her major breakdown, I had to care for her full time and couldn't work. We nearly starved. One thing we did get was a lot of support and medical care that we couldn't hope to afford ourselves. She says she would be dead without it but now she's talking about working on her masters degree.

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No I meant just Americans, not "people" as in everybody. I don't really care if the rest of the world is over weight and ugly.

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This is why the term Ugly American exists. I was talking about people. America is not the centre of the universe and neither are you.

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"Good habits formed at youth make all the difference" Aristotle, I think.

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No, I think I said that earlier in this thread. Don't get yourself confused.

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I am not confused. Aristotle said it first. I quoted it to show that I was agreeing with you on this principle. I also tried to explain why it isn't the point of this debate.

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Who gets to decide? How about a scale? A fat test? No person is going to make a subjective decision, it'll all be by a chart. It needs to be fair. Then you'll see people get healthy quick when there's a reward at the end for being healthy. As it is now, people are rewarded for being UN-healthy.

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The facts are against you. America is about the only first world nation without some form of subsidised health care. You spend more on health care but you are fatter and have a lower life expectancy. There is no evidence that people will be rewarded to be unhealthy. Quite the opposite. You don't even get better care when you do pay for it.Once again, the problem you are describing is one of education and culture. It's a red herring. I'm waiting for you to bring God into it.

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I'm sorry but that's what nature wants, that's what happens to every other species.

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Close enough. Another red herring. This is almost a parody of creationist tactics. Poe's law still applies. What nature 'wants' sounds delusional. Sure you don't mean Gaia?

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We by-pass this with healthcare and have now over populated the planet and we're running out of resources

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Off topic and another red herring. When we overpopulate past critical mass, we will suffer for it, no doubt. In this, we are in agreement. Once again, I direct you to my favourite movement. I am serious when I say I think they're right. You will not out-cynic me.

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It's because your facts are wrong and you don't have as many fast food places.

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There are 18,590 Mc Donalds alone in the US. That's more than the entire WORLD combined, by a lot! And we have an obesity problem, I wonder why that is...?

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Just checked my facts. You're right - there's a shitload of McDonalds in the US. There's also a shitload of people there. Per capita there are only about 80% as many here. Congratulations - you actually made a valid point. The difference isn't huge, but you're right.

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Don't tell me what to do, chubby.

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I didn't.Try not to be a dick. It doesn't affect me but it turns you into a dickhead.

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Its been working fine for me. It is a little pricey, but we do a lot of innovation and inventing here too. That's gotta be factored in.

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Just for the record, The US hardly dominates in medical innovations. From what I can find, it's about the same as the UK, Canada and Australia - all countries with universal health care of some sort.e.g.
30 Significant Medical Achievements and Their Country of Origin | Reach and Teach's Just Lists

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I think that we spend a lot more money on research at the facilities that also provide the healthcare and that that drives up the costs in ways that it doesn't in other countries.

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Wouldn't an indicator of research money spent be results like my (admittedly not ironclad) link? What is it about the US that would be affecting research and medical costs more than in other countries?

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Welcome to EvC by the way. How'd you find us?

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Thanks.I found the site by random googling and intellectual selection

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If those other countries have hospitals that aren't also research facilities, then that would play a part in their cost being lower.

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Just had a quick look for numbers and you may have a point. Found a ranking of top hospitals around the world and it seems like they are looking at research hospitals in particular. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong... List of hospitalsSeems like a huge a huge difference. It occurred to me to compare per capita, so... Populations by countryUsing these two lists - top 1000 research hospital per capita...Taiwan - 1/407454
Canada - 1/706231
US - 1/734626
UK - 1/958461
Australia - 1/1630057
Germany - 1/1994341Just a quickly sketched out, ultra-broad indicator but interesting. I've not done the maths on the whole list, just eurocentrically selected a few.The US clearly leads in absolute numbers but the list changes when you look at it on a per capita basis. There is some credence to your statement.When you look at costs to the taxpayer, you'd expect Canadians to have to pay more but they don't.None of this holds any great weight - there are so many factors ignored but it's kept me busy for 15 minutes I'm really surprised that Taiwan is on top of this list.

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Holy shit... so out of the top hospitals in the world, no matter how you slice it, the US has almost half of them, and then the next groups down are about 10% of that.

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Not quite - of my instant list, both Taiwan and Canada have more per capita. Taiwan has almost twice as many as the US. Seeing as we are talking about costs vs. benefit to the taxpayer, per capita is more useful than per country totals. It matters a lot how you slice it.Don't forget that I only tried a handful to figure out; hardly comprehensive.Edited by Warthog, : missed a spot

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me writes:

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Not quite - of my instant list, both Taiwan and Canada have more per capita.

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What does that imply?

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It is simply about the real cost to the individual. As we are talking about the costs of healthcare, whether privatised like in the US or universal/subsidised/socialised like a fair chunk of the world, we need to look at costs to the individual i.e. per capita. A country like the US with 300 million people will, of course have more hospitals than say Canada, with 33 million. If you consider the number of service users, Canada has more research hospitals than the US.You made the point that health care in the US could be more expensive because of the amount of research being done there. I am simply showing that it is more complex than that. Overall, it doesn't seem to hold up as the results from the US (new discoveries) isn't greater than other countries (especially if you consider the number of researchers/facilities) and the number of research hospitals, although greater in the US is less per user/taxpayer than some other countries.

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How does dividing it per capita help determine how much it costs to run the whole thing?

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The same way purchasing co-ops are set up to minimise costs - the more people paying for something, the less it costs each individual. The reason it works like this is because (almost) everything done on a large scale is more efficient i.e. cheaper per user than if everyone pays for themselves. This is more about economics than just health care.The important part of all of this is how much it will cost you as an individual to have universal vs privatised healthcare. i.e. the cost per capita. This seems to me to be a core factor of the debate.

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Is Taiwan a part of China?

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This depends on whether you ask the Chinese or the Taiwanese. Complex politics here - it's way off topic to get into it, so I've avoided Taiwan in my reply.

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Even just the total number of people is going to affect the cost of healthcare for an individual... I guess I just don't see any value in comparing another country's cost to ours in considering only one variable: whether its socialized or not.

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How about a few variables and a large chunk of the developed world? I've referred to these earlier in Message 187... Overall cost of healthcare
Life expectancy
Quality of Health CareThere seems to be a pattern that universal health care around the world has resulted in healthier populations at a lower overall cost.

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On the surface, dividing that cost by more people should lower the cost for everyone.

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Yes, it does lower the cost for everyone - I believe I have shown that.

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But just because another country's costs is lower, while everyone is paying together, doesn't mean that the cost in the US isn't still going to be a lot higher because of all the other stuff that goes into the costs of the hospitals. Even if we were to socailize it, it still might cost a lot more than other countries and look unjustifiably expensive.

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What other stuff? What is it about the US that you think makes it completely different to the rest of the world in this regard? I can't think of anything and I was talking about research because you specifically mentioned it as an example. You haven't given any other suggestions, so I'm stumped. Help me out here.The US already has the highest cost for health care and this is not reflected by the results. How would it get worse under universal health care?

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The current system is working fine for me.

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You're lucky. Either you have insurance or have never needed it. This is not a universal situation as you did point out...

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Healthcare is expensive so you need to have insurance for it. I think the problem is that you pretty much have to get health insurance as a benefit from your job, unless you're job is paying you enough money to afford it on your own (like a contract worker). That, or be so poor or old that you get it as a benefit that way. The guy in the middle doesn't have a good option for health insurance: if his job doesn't provide health insurance as a benefit then he probably doesn't make enough to buy it himself.

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Here's the real problem. When you need medical care for a serious condition, you are rarely in the best position to pay for it yourself. By this, I mean that if you are really sick or injured, it will often mean loss of income. At the same time you need to pay out more than usual, as the medical expenses are on top of the rest of your life (rent etc.) If you do actually lose your job then that employer supplied insurance will dry up and you are in real trouble. The guy in the middle is in trouble right from the start.The general pattern to this is the slow decline into worse health and high, sometimes astronomical expenses frequently leading to poverty as a self feeding cycle. Only in the US have I heard of people having to sell their homes to afford to stay alive.As I understand it, what is termed insurance in the US is different to the universal health care loving developed world in that you have to deal with HMOs. It is such a convoluted web of networks and loopholes that it's mind boggling to me - and I'm not easily boggled.

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Part of the problem is that people aren't good at taking care of themselves and doctors do a lot of guess-and-check work. Too, as the technology advances we seem to keep pushing the latest and greatest (and most expensive) instead of sticking with the old reliables: eat right, exercise, and take good care of yourself. Everyone wants easy-to-take pills to control the symptoms instead of working their ass off to solve the problems.

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As I have stated before, people not taking care of themselves has nothing to do with universal health care. If there were any correlation, the US most likely wouldn't be the fattest country in the world. Healthy living is an education issue and is preventative in nature. Health care is not the same thing.A big part of the problem is that because medical care is so expensive, people avoid getting minor complaints seen to until they become a major health issue. With universal care, you still pay for your medical care but getting something minor seen to is not a problem so more people benefit from earlier treatment, lowering the cost and improving results.

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On the other side, the insurance companies, and pill-makers, are in it to make money. Healthcare is not all about caring for peoples' health. Its quite lucrative and companies are going to take advantage of that.

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This is exactly the problem with privatised heath care as the US has it. It is really a feeding trough for medical corporations with a captive, often desperate market.

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I don't what the solution is. Its a very complicated system.

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The solution to the very complicated system is to look at the rest of the world, see that it is working and adopt an equitable universal health care system. It is simpler, cheaper and more effective.I don't see what you are afraid of.

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Here's the easy way: Pull out a scale. Get up there fatty...nope you don't qualify, get to the gym. Or...yup you qualify, go ahead and get any disease you want.

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...and have you ever been a smoker, taken any non-prescribed drug, had an injury that restricts your mobility or had any history of mental illness?You sound like you work for an HMO.You've sidestepped the whole rational argument in this thread and gone back to shouting 'fat people don't deserve it'. Why don't you address the actual argument rather than sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating the same drivel over and over?

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Smokers aren't taking care of their health. Under my plan they wouldn't qualify 'till they kicked the habit

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But quitting isn't enough. It also takes years for the health effects to go away.When did you quit? Was is less that fifteen years ago? Five? Have you 'earned' the right to health care yet?Try not to fixate on one thing - I also mentioned other drugs, injuries and mental illness as examples. How would you address these things? What about the suicidal depressive? Do they not 'deserve' help? How about a five year ex-smoker health junkie who has a stroke?The problem with your argument is that you're taking what most people consider to be a basic human right and turning into a mechanism for control of peoples lives.Under your plan, where would you draw the line?From Message 135

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You want government, or me, getting involved in what you feed yourself?

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- Oni

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Apparently you do.

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Don't tell me what to do.

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Why? Does it make any difference?

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Sure it takes a while, but it's a start. Get them off the butts and onto an intense cardio workout 7 days a week and a zero carb diet, and I think after a year of that they should be able to qualify for health insurance. See, very reasonable.

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I'd be willing to bet you quit smoking a little over a year ago, maybe two.What happens when they have a stroke during their mandatory Physical Jerks? Remember that the risk of stroke is high for 5-15 years after quitting.

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I writes:

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I also mentioned other drugs, injuries and mental illness as examples. How would you address these things? What about the suicidal depressive? Do they not 'deserve' help?

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Well this isn't "health" as per physical issues, but rather mental issues that are separate problems.

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Hang on - are you saying that an injury is a mental issue or that mental health isn't a physiological issue?

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But it is documented FACT that a heathy diet and exercising program is a cure for depression. Look it up, I've already wasted too much time explaining that on this thread.

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Don't have to look it up but for the sake of the argument...Yes - exercise has a positive effect. There is even evidence that in cases of mild depression, exercise can be as effective as some antidepressants. This is hardly a cure all or there wouldn't be such a list of treatments used.. Note that this isn't because of Big Pharm or incompetent doctors but because different people suffering different conditions will respond to different treatments. Lack of exercise and general activity is actually a symptom of depression too.Your biggest mistake in all of this is in the assumption that depression, rather than being such a complicated variety of conditions and symptoms of other conditions, is all the same as your 'self diagnosed depression'. It's a bit like saying that all viral infections are like having a cold. BTW - exercise won't save you from that either.

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I'm only suggesting my plan under a FREE healthcare program.

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It's not free. It's subsidised through government via taxation. Hardly free. Cheaper than the system in place but not free.

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But if the government has to carry the burden of insuring it's citizens, then YES, it's only fair that everyone get healthy before they qualify so the cost is not as much on the tax payer.

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But the US government is the only government in the developed world which doesn't subsidise health care and Americans are the some of the more unhealthy people. The evidence doesn't suggest that universal health care allows people to be more unhealthy; It suggests exactly the opposite. You've got it the wrong way around.

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Did I mention not to sass me either? Well don't.

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Don't tell me what to do.