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Gap in Life Expectancy Widens for the Nation
WASHINGTON - New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.One of the researchers, Gopal K. Singh, a demographer at the Department of Health and Human Services, said "the growing inequalities in life expectancy" mirrored trends in infant mortality and in death from heart disease and certain cancers.
The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them. One of the top goals of "Healthy People 2010," an official statement of national health objectives issued in 2000, is to "eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population," including higher- and lower-income groups and people of different racial and ethnic background.
Dr. Singh said last week that federal officials had found "widening socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy" at birth and at every age level.
He and another researcher, Mohammad Siahpush, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, developed an index to measure social and economic conditions in every county, using census data on education, income, poverty, housing and other factors. Counties were then classified into 10 groups of equal population size.
In 1980-82, Dr. Singh said, people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.
After 20 years, the lowest socioeconomic group lagged further behind the most affluent, Dr. Singh said, noting that "life expectancy was higher for the most affluent in 1980 than for the most deprived group in 2000."
"If you look at the extremes in 2000," Dr. Singh said, "men in the most deprived counties had 10 years' shorter life expectancy than women in the most affluent counties (71.5 years versus 81.3 years)." The difference between poor black men and affluent white women was more than 14 years (66.9 years vs. 81.1 years).
The Democratic candidates for president, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have championed legislation to reduce such disparities, as have some Republicans, like Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.
Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said: "We have heard a lot about growing income inequality. There has been much less attention paid to growing inequality in life expectancy, which is really quite dramatic."
Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining for people who have attained a given age.
While researchers do not agree on an explanation for the widening gap, they have suggested many reasons, including these:
¶Doctors can detect and treat many forms of cancer and heart disease because of advances in medical science and technology. People who are affluent and better educated are more likely to take advantage of these discoveries.
¶Smoking has declined more rapidly among people with greater education and income.
¶Lower-income people are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior and to eat unhealthy food.
¶Lower-income people are less likely to have health insurance, so they are less likely to receive checkups, screenings, diagnostic tests, prescription drugs and other types of care.
Even among people who have insurance, many studies have documented racial disparities.
In a recent report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that black patients "tend to receive less aggressive medical care than whites" at its hospitals and clinics, in part because doctors provide them with less information and see them as "less appropriate candidates" for some types of surgery.
Some health economists contend that the disparities between rich and poor inevitably widen as doctors make gains in treating the major causes of death.
Nancy Krieger, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, rejected that idea. Professor Krieger investigated changes in the rate of premature mortality (dying before the age of 65) and infant death from 1960 to 2002. She found that inequities shrank from 1966 to 1980, but then widened.
"The recent trend of growing disparities in health status is not inevitable," she said. "From 1966 to 1980, socioeconomic disparities declined in tandem with a decline in mortality rates."
The creation of Medicaid and Medicare, community health centers, the "war on poverty" and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 all probably contributed to the earlier narrowing of health disparities, Professor Krieger said.
Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said one reason for the growing disparities might be "a very significant gap in health literacy" - what people know about diet, exercise and healthy lifestyles. Middle-class and upper-income people have greater access to the huge amounts of health information on the Internet, Mr. Moffit said.
Thomas P. Miller, a health economist at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed.
"People with more education tend to have a longer time horizon," Mr. Miller said. "They are more likely to look at the long-term consequences of their health behavior. They are more assertive in seeking out treatments and more likely to adhere to treatment advice from physicians."
A recent study by Ellen R. Meara, a health economist at Harvard Medical School, found that in the 1980s and 1990s, "virtually all gains in life expectancy occurred among highly educated groups."
Trends in smoking explain a large part of the widening gap, she said in an article this month in the journal Health Affairs.
Under federal law, officials must publish an annual report tracking health disparities. In the fifth annual report, issued this month, the Bush administration said, "Over all, disparities in quality and access for minority groups and poor populations have not been reduced" since the first report, in 2003.
The rate of new AIDS cases is still 10 times as high among blacks as among whites, it said, and the proportion of black children hospitalized for asthma is almost four times the rate for white children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that heart attack survivors with higher levels of education and income were much more likely to receive cardiac rehabilitation care, which lowers the risk of future heart problems. Likewise, it said, the odds of receiving tests for colon cancer increase with a person's education and income.
© 2008 The New York Times
107 Comments so far
Show AllThe average infant mortality of Cuba is slightly lower, or significantly lower, depending on the source, than that of the US. But the infant mortality rate of Cuba is that of poor people. The US poor people mortality rate is higher than the average. Take a mortality rate of 7.2 per 1000 live births (US). The poor have a mortality rate twice that of the rich. Their mortality rate is above 10. Cuba is 6.8. So Cuban poor (all people) have about one half the IMR of the US poor. The poor of the US have Third world status health, the people of Cuba (poor) have US status health, and compares with industrialized nations without being one. That is unique. The US is a thirld world country with a large rich population.
The biggest reason for the disparity is lack of health insurance. But also, not even mentioned in this article, low-wage US workers often work debilitatingly long hours and get no sick leave - aside from simply getting fired - even if they do have rudimentary insurance.
The dissembling, "it's their own fault" rationales given by apologists-for-oligharchy Moffit and Miller sound exactly like something right out of the court of Lois XVI on the eve of the fall of the Bastille. May the poor to whom they express their callous contempt someday visit on them the same fate.
I hope all Canadians get an opportunity to read this article an stop bellyaching about their health system, and boost it's funding.
The US is showing the world how even a nations with enormous resources and wealth can end up with a third-world living standard for man of it's citizens, it's easy, just give the capitalists everything they want.
One needs to factor in, not only access to medical care, but also life habits. A correlation does not necissarily imply cause. I am sure that obesity and smoking are also higher for the poor. Is this caused by lack of money or does a lifestyle that cannot avoid immediate gratifiaction reduce income. I come from a household that had a poor income. I had an older brother that died pennyless at 28 from alcohol and drugs, a younger brother who is a high income businessman, and the youngest - my sister, is obese and on welfare, and very sick from the extra 150 lbs she needs to lose. I am middle-class. We all started out economically poor, but I am sure that my younger brother and I will live quite a bit longer than my poor brother and sister. This is a striking correlation that has little to do with access to medical care. I am not saying this is the whole story, and I strongly support access to reasonable healthcare for everyone. However, I do not want to be denied excellent healthcare after I have worked my whole life to save in case I need it, so that I can support others that squander their money and health. People deserve better if they put in some effort themselves.
"However, I do not want to be denied excellent healthcare after I have worked my whole life to save in case I need it, so that I can support others that squander their money and health. People deserve better if they put in some effort themselves."
Wow, another false choice posited by compassionless selfish self aggrandizing republican grinch. Notice how his personal success is from his efforts only with no credit given to the community of people around him; therefore no compassion for others is forthcoming from him. Notice how nice and tidy greed can be packaged with a little self justifying rationalization. Notice the implication that Progressives are lazy and need to put in more effort themselves. Ignore him, it's just another Sunday sermon from a trickster devil.
What a surprise! People are forced to work two or three slave wage jobs just to exist and their health fails. Wow, what an academic insight!
Doom n Gloom - My choice for our next presendent is Obama. However, there is a reason that we have such good medicine and doctors in the world. It is because some are willing to spend a lot on healthcare. I am selfish. Do you have a house or a car? If so, why don't you give it to someone more needy? Capitalism recognizes that people will work harder if they know that they can get better for their family. We have seen the success of pure socalist governments. The increadibly greedy simply find ways to corrupt the system, and the rest get lazy, because there is no reward for hard work. The eastern european countries are stuggling with this right now. I am for universal healthcare, but it must be affordable. To make it affordable it will not be the best money can buy. I am not for a system that prevents health providers from competing in a free market. This type of system will only lower the healthcare for everyone. Capitalism works because the vast majority of people are greedy to some extent. They work to improve things for their family first, and then for everyone else. Systems that ignore this are destined to fail.
Miller and some others here are blaming the victim. Capitalism only works for those who have a lot of capital. We need to get the profit motive out of health care. We need a Single Payer System that is not controlled by Wall Street. Do you really want some Wall Street bean counter making your medical decisions? I am voting for Ralph Nader because his health care plan will prevent the deaths of 18,000 every year.
Lois XVI
Hi Lizard : Is that an intended pun , Lois of let them cake or an unintended , typographical mis-spelling ; either way itès good and I like your poke-in-the-eye American-Cuban IMR , ironical data . We know why.
The fact that Mr. Obvious - the apologist for brutish, dog-eat-dog capitalism - supports Obama certainly supports what I've been trying to argue regarding Obama.
But Mr. Obvious is reversing cause and effect, greed is in no way, an innate human trait. Greed arises in a system that is deliberately rigged to reward it. And capitalism most definitely does NOT reward "hard work" the people who work hardest in US society are it's poorest. it's richest don't work for their money at all, but rather leech off the sweat of the worker through userous "investments". Mr. Obvious, please do some traveling and offer your views to someone in France or Sweden, or even say, India. We really need them to realize what mosnsters US ideology breeds.
Correction: "Louis XVI" I wrote that not lizard.
Moffit and Miller, of the conservative Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute respectively, are apparently unaware that educational levels are also a function of income. Their explanations exhibit a rather astonishing failure to recognize correlations between variables. Educational levels and poverty are not orthogonal vectors. Too bad. Try again. You can come up with something more persuasive than this.
r jackowski -
You wrote "Capitalism only works for those who have a lot of capital."
Bull - My wife and I started with nothing and put ourselves through school. We saved every penny to buy our farm. Why? Because working and saving in a capitalistic society can get you ahead. I am tired of seeing satelite dishes and large screen TVs in the houses of those in forclosure, and hearing how they are victims. They are victims of gluttany. We live well but do not have the fancy things that I see in "poor" households. We save to help our children through school. The secret is simple - delay gratification.
P.S. The bogus comparisons used in the original article are obvious to anyone with a brain. The big gaps in lifespan between women and men are irrelavent to income and are used to deceive the reader by purposefully confounding them with the main topic (income). Take profit out of medicine and you can also take success out of healthcare. And no, I do not work for or gain any profit from any healthcare provider etc.
The BILLIONS of dollars in PROFIT in the healthcare industry are by no means, resulting in "success". Why, I repeat WHY, should anyone make BILLIONS of dollars off of people getting ill/hurt? Because we can?? We are a pathetic bunch of animals if this is our reasoning. Pathetic.
It 's the system that looked at my friends cancer and looked at his MediCal insurance and said lets wait and see if it grows in 6 months. In 7 months he was dead. USA veteran. RIP. I miss you.
WhatToDo - Don't buy their medicines and they will go out of business. We have miracle drugs because the brightest researchers work at these companies looking for the next breakthrough. If you don't like their products, then don't buy them! Companies are in business to make money. If non-profit organizations made better medications, then these companies would no longer exist. I suggest that you start such a non-profit organization instead of trying to destroy the organizations that have been responsible for finding our current medications. After food and shelter, what else is worth more than your health? Do you want to be prevented from spending a lot of your money on a drug that might save your spouses life? Do want these drugs to exist?
We have seen the success of pure socalist governments.
What you really meant to say was we have seen the failure of pure socialist systems like eastern-european countries and I agree .
Now as Horace Greeley once said , Go west , young man . In our case go west in Europe to Italy , France , Belgium , Holland , Finland , Sweden , Norway , Germany , Austria ... and find that every one of these countries function not under (in your words ) a pure socialist government but a socialist-capitalist hybrid.
As an example , French citizens laugh sympathetically at your ideology with their responce to your aversion to tax-supported , single-payer health care , Sure we are drowning in taxes but that is OK because ALL of us have equal access to health care and ALL of us are literate both linguisticly and mathematically.
Donèt think for a moment that the capitalist side of the comedy-tragedy mask in Finland for example is any less robust than in USA . Check out average-citizen wages , per-capita GNP , per-capita military expenditure , IMRs , you know , all those things that make the pursuit of life,liberty,happiness... much easier and then tell us that the rise of pure capitalism in USA is any less a failure than your despised pure socialism
Put on your glasses and learn to discriminate between the baby and the bath-water before throwing them both out
Bad analogy , I know , but you know what I mean
In a society that demands hyper- personal responsibility and champions institutional abdication of responsibility and abuse of power, let me put things in proper perspeective.
Poorer people often have poorer food - the economic stimulus package didn't include food stamp or unemployment benefit recipients. Food stamps do not provide sufficient resources for optimum nutrition. Also, poorer people have, as a group, poorer education, higher stress, less capacity to weather sudden economic burdens and live in more environmentallly hazardous areas, including more polluted. Did I also mention, more likely to be caught up in the criminal "justice" system?
Our medical procurement industry wastes so much money to deny health care compared to other countries. And we get a worse product.
Why is it that the concept of efficiency is never brought into play when societal, not market economic goals are discussed?
Health research in the US is warped by major industries and the politicians they fund. Just a few days ago there was a press release stating the FDA used 2 discredited industry "studies" when there were 1000 peer-reviewed studies that contradicted the industry ones.
The government spends our taxes on an extraordinarily corrupt, inefficient "health care" system, buying drugs, equipment and paying medical bills. To claim that the health care of this country should remain controlled by the private sector ignores the health data comparing the US to other modern countries in life span, quality of health and health disparity. Note I said controlled, not owned.
And from a more enlighted "selfish" point of view, if we have a healthier society, we'd have a more productive society. One with less occurences of chronic and life threatening health conditions. One with less kids and adults with asthma, one with less instances of auto-immune and man-made diseases such as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. And one whose resources make our society better.
All that would need to happen to those who support the status quo to change their tune would be for themselves or someone in their family to have a serious illness. Half of all bankrupcies in the country can be traced to it. Talk to any bankruptcy attorney who gives a damn about people. I do.
How many people who have been injured by the current system would have not been harmed or would have been able to recover one's health with a "healthy " health care system? As one who has gone through the mill of Workers Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, welfare, SSI/SSDI and other systems, I know I would have been able to be healthier today. I know I'd be more productive both economically and personally.
For every person who is needlessly made sicker and less productive, our country is the poorer. Literally and figuratively.
Why don't you look at real socialist countries - like Scandinavia - before making blanket comparisons? Eastern Europe was NEVER socialist - the predators at the top lived quite well. Just like in the US today.
The patent laws give incentives to drug companies to make slight changes in formulas in order to make more profit. There have been few 'break-throughs' in medicine in recent years that do much for the average citizen - except empty their wallets. Predatory capitalism (fascism) has never worked and never will - man is a social animal, and functions best when incentives encourage community solidarity and support.
I support tax-payer funded kitchens, shelters and healthcare. They should be available to everyone without exception (no spending most of the money on determining who is eligible). They should not be fancy, but they should provide healthy food, safe accommodations and clean, good healthcare; but if we want to continue to see the current rate of development of new beneficial drugs, then I believe that a free market will be needed. If you do not think that personal success and support for your family is an inate human behavior, then you need to do a little research. Even our primate cousins show these traits. Take away incentive and you can kiss productivity goodby. Since when has a government program been more efficient than a competitive private enterprise?
amybrat - If you do not think that the patented medications are better, then don't buy them! When your kid gets sick, tell your doctor to only use medications that are off patent.
One can't help wondering why alternative health care, with none of the multitude of dangerous possible side effects that allopathic "blesses" you with, is not even mentioned. Dear Readers, you may be interested in checking the great nonprofit website, Orthomolecular.org; see what you think, after looking at the degrees their staff members hold and checking out some of their articles.
As for this money game, a frank dear doctor friend once told me that in choosing a profession, one must choose either to "make a lot of money" or to dedicate one's life to service—the latter making enough to live sufficiently well.
Financial insecurity is extremely stressful, especially if it is ongoing. Stress makes you vulnerable to illness. The working poor do not have nice vacations or nannies, cannot afford the convenience of eating out at a good restaurant, to help them cope, so maybe they cope by smoking or drinking. Maybe TV is the only entertainment they can afford.
Even within the same family there are large discrepancies in well-being, ability, etc. This is why people need to care about each other. BTW, out our way, wealthy kids are dying from taking drugs. This is not even unusual! Also, the girls are more likely to experience deprivation if they have children and end up having to raise them alone.
I love the way people with money like to tout their lifestyle as a virtue. (For that matter, poor people have a smaller impact on the environment.) My friends get massages! to deal with the stress of spending all that money!
It costs more to shop at, say, Whole Foods. You can eat well on less money IF you have the time to shop and prepare all of your meals. Who has the time?
I have the feeling that the powers-that-be would like us working stiffs to keep producing until we just die relatively young and therefore never collect social security or use Medicare.
Our society is very unhealthy. Even the wealthy do not escape. But, they do have more resources for coping.
Jeevee - Natural remedies are powerful and the source of many mainsteam medications. But do not assert that they do not have side effects. Nature produces some of the most potent medications and poisons. Healthcare providers are just now realizing this and considering the herbal medications when looking at drug interactions. One such interaction almost killed my father in-law after his heart surgery to correct a congenital heart defect. Natural medications generally contain mixtures of compounds that differ from batch to batch and which are frought with side effects.
Doom and Doom and Obvious. It is true that obvious is being very American. It is true that it is a wrong attitude. But obvious is a basically good guy who has been brought up in a culture that thinks this way. I am sure he will understand eventually.
Mr.Obvious: You are wrong about capitalism. It has nothing to do with people making more money if they work harder, that would be the philosophy of early, pre-russian communism. Capitalism means that the means of production are privately owned. Wether hard work gives you a better living depends on the attitude of the owners and competition for workers, wether the owners are private, or the government. Both systems are corruptible and both can deliever a better life if there is no exploitation or corruption. Take a look at Cuba's government, it has an interesting attitude.
lizard - I have lived poor America. I have sympathy for the young and those caught up in domestic violence, but I also know the other side. As "areader" said above, stress can be a big factor and can create a cycle of failure. Temptation is ever present in our society, and if you can not resist, you will overspend and succumb to addiction. Its not easy, but it is not a trap unless you are weak. My biggest concern is with the young and education. Voucher systems and charter schools may help the strong from becoming victims of their communities by seperating those who have a chance from those who will only serve to disrupt them.
Mr. Obvious wrote:
"Since when has a government program been more efficient than a competitive private enterprise?"
Medicare, for starters.
A much greater percentage of Medicare revenues go directly to beneficiaries than the gross revenues of a private insurance company do. So, Medicare is much more efficient than private insurance.
Indeed, one of the challenges of single-payer is that it is so much cheaper to run that it will hurt the local economies of communities where big insurance companies are located. The per capita health care expenditures of nationalized health care countries are less than half of US health care expenditures - and their poeple are healthier by every measure.
Because there is no profit involved, governments can do many things cheaper and while paying it's employees better.
Here in Pittsburgh, the publicly owned city water works delivers cheaper and much better quality water than the privatized systems in surrounding communities. When Pittsburgh owned it's own Asphalt plant, and did it's street repaving in-house, it cost less than private contractors. Indeed, the city plant produced asphalt so efficiently that it depressed Asphalt prices in the whole region. The superior performance and low cost of publicly owned electric utilities in Cleveland and Los Angeles is well known.
And at any rate. What do you mean by "efficient"? The purpose of a private business sis to maximize profit, which starts with maximizing revenues, and you maximize revenues by conjuring up, through hundreds-billion dollar advertising and PR industry, new markets for ever increasing amounts of good that no one really needs - while NOT producing simple, frugal, resource efficient goods people really need. These goods use more natural resources and the whole path to profit for a private resource producer - Coal , Oil, metals - is to encourage waste on teh part of it's consumers.
If free markets are so efficient, why, under these "markets" has fossil fuel usage in the US, since 1980 increased by far greater amounts than accountable by it's population growth. Wouldn't "efficiency" produce decreases in fossil fuel usage? Why can't I even find, at any price, a car with the fuel economy that cheap cars in 1980 got?
The neoliberal "free markets are more efficient" myth has has a good 25 year run. It's time to throw it in the trash can.
"...Bull - My wife and I started with nothing and put ourselves through school. We saved every penny to buy our farm. Why? Because working and saving in a capitalistic society can get you ahead....", so says Mr. Obvious. I could not disagree more with a statement like that. You can sing the praises of Capitalism all you want but that does not change the facts. Sure, some in the US work hard and get ahead. Usually there is some luck and timing on their side. Maybe you went to school at a time that higher ed was being subsidized. I know plenty of damn intelligent, hard working people who never got ahead financially.
You are talking to the wrong person when you come in with stereotyping, mean-spirited comments about the causes of poverty. I started working when I was 10. Usually worked more than 80 hours per week. Do not have a big screen TV. Have not had a vacation for many years and just spent my 71st birthday cleaning mud out of a flooded basement.
There are many reasons for poverty. The leading cause of bankruptcy is medical expenses. In my case there is an additional issue. Read about it by googling my name and "The Deposition".
USAn - Based on your assessment everything should be done by and belong to the goverment. Then we can live just as well as the former USSR or China.
Mr. Obvious has to pinch pennies and work very hard to be able to afford school for his children and medical insurance and bills. In other places that are not as rich as the country of Mr.Obvious he would have free education and health care, AND a farm. Obviously Mr.Obvious would be better off in Canada, for example. But he likes it his way, because that way he doesn't have to participate in social projects of benefit to all. This is typically American, entrench yourself on your piece of land and defend yourself from the world . This is a provincial and antisocial approach that explains why the US is wealthy and poor at the same time. That is why everyone is armed, in case they have to fight off the world.It is pathetic, really.
Here's a link to help educate Mr. Obvious. One example out of many about how the "government" can destroy the finances of ordinary people.
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/jackowski01252006/
r jackowski - Sounds like you did not get where you thought you should be. But it looks like you are older than the lifespan of most Americans just a short time ago and you have a house. Did you build it yourself like people used to do? What effort did you make to get training that would make you valuable to anyone? What did you learn to do that a high-school graduate could not do better? Maybe you should be glad that you do not live in Mexico where unskilled labor lives in a cardboard box. Sounds like you are a professional victim.
Mr Obvious...
The big Pharma companies' constant rant ''we need the patents and all that profit to further research''.. is the biggest lie out there.
it is FACT.. big Pharma spends way way more every day on flogging the crap they make than on any ''research''...
here take this pill it will give you relief from you aches.. oh by the way your liver will blow up and you may get a stroke and oh ..don't worry.. they have ''pills'' to fix that when it happens
So go on believing the crap THEY tell you .. save away for the dayyou will need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for the ''treatments'' that would have been unnecessary had you had basic affordable health care in the first place
The corporate school system pretty much feeds you to the corporate machine!
Very few people question this and go for all the glitter; some succeed and most are working poor.
The working poor includes MOST people!
johnycanuck - In a free country, we can sell what we produce if it is deemed safe by government regulators. If you don't think thier products are worth it, then don't buy them. This is your choice. The pharma companies are betting that when you get sick, you attitude will change. If not, they will go out of business. Its not really that difficult of a concept. Your position is that they should not have the freedom to set the price for what they sell. Should I be able to tell you that I want your product or service cheaper, so you must give it to me for that price?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the disparity in life expectancies: If you are well off and have gold plated health insurance and can afford the best care money can buy, why, your chances of a longer life expectancy are fairly good. But if you are uninsured or, like more and more of us nowadays, underinsured, and can't afford as good medical care as others, then your chances of living a longer life are considerably lessened.
The problem now is that along with the uninsured, there are many more of us whose co-pays and deductibles make it harder and harder to seek out medical care, and thus, we fall into that category known as "underinsured". I cannot afford supplementary insurance - goodness knows, I've surfed on line looking for it - but none of it is anything I can ever hope to afford.
My current employer provided health insurance won't pay for diagnostic testing, so I forgo most of what I need. I can't afford X-Rays, MRI's or any other diagnostic procedure, so I forgo those as well. Blood work, anything else used as a diagnostic tool comes out of my own pocket. So what ends up happening at work is that most of us wait until we're so sick that we have to see a doctor and by then, more expensive procedures are needed. It all seems so counterproductive not to pay for diagnostic testing when that can catch problems early enough to be easily and less expensively treatable.
We used to have what I considered "gold plated" health insurance, but we had to dump it because of its high premiums, in favor of a cheaper package that puts the onus of paying for most medical care on the back of the patient, leaving me to wonder, why is it that I pay 20% of the cost of my premiums out of my paycheck when it hardly covers anything anymore? And even that 20% gets higher and higher every year, but no other insurance carriers will take us because of our demographic: Our average age is 45+ and we have over 50% of our employees who are considered morbidly obese. No one's gonna touch us with that kind of statistic.
We do have a wellness program, but it seems that the only employees partaking of it are those who are already fitness conscious and don't have a weight problem to begin with, so the ones who really need it aren't taking advantage of it. I still see the same heavyweights on the elevator and in the staff room daily, chowing down fattening snacks and sucking down cans of pop.
If you ask me, those who are doing what they can to keep their weight at healthy levels and have good numbers where cholesterol, blood sugar and BP are concerned should pay lower premiums and have more comprehensive health care coverage than those who don't seem to be taking care of themselves. Why should I have to pay for people who are slowly killing themselves by staying overweight, eating badly and having high cholesterol, BP and blood sugar numbers? Wouldn't lower premiums and better health insurance be an incentive to do something about it? Maybe this is what we need to be doing to curb our national obesity epidemic - use a carrot and stick approach to entice people into losing weight and getting their numbers under control.
I don't know what else can be done aside from comprehensive, universal cradle-to-grave health care, but that's never going to happen, so we need to try something else to lower health care costs, and Job 1 is to curb our national obesity epidemic, and we need to start NOW. That will put a real dent in health care costs, believe me, and may eventually lead to that much coveted universal health care we all dream of having someday.
In a perfect world, there would be a balance of capitolism and socialism, because everyone is different, and while there are those of us with the right genes, or whatever it is that makes us this way, we can and do take care of ourselves regardless of how little we might start out with; and there are those aren't lucky enough to have whatever it takes, and no matter how they try, just can't seem to manage.
I don't advocate hand-outs, but rather hands-up. Like education or job-training while getting living aid for a designated amount of time; health care for everyone equally, and so on.
Do you really believe the actual researchers need all that profit to do research.. they get a wage and would be researching anyway ..cause that's what they do.. they don't see a cent above there wages so what a crock that it would suddenly dry up (research) if no profit was made
Yes, the cost of marketing comprises a huge chunk of the price we pay. And, as for research, a great deal of the serious research is done by the government and in universities. The major part of drug company research goes into creating copycat drugs, essentially the same as a drug already on the market, but with some very minor distinction that makes it patentable for them.
Imagine a shaman having another shaman put in chains for stealing his intellectual property.
But, now we're talking pre-greedism!
SallyUUKent - Ditto on rewarding those that keep their weight at reasonable levels. Some insurance companies actually do penalize obese customers as well as smokers. This seems reasonable to me. Why should I pay for gluttany? I also believe that sometimes a stick motivates folks to do what is best for them. Paying for taking risks makes sense to me.
rumiluv - So buy the old drug if its just as good. If you think the new drugs are just trendy copycats of older, cheaper drugs, then buy the old ones. What makes you buy the new ones? If they are no better, then the companies will go broke for such a stupid activity. Maybe, they stay in business, because the new version is better? Of course this cannot be; how could pharma companies actually be producing better and better drugs. Why do we care what these useless drugs cost? Duh - you want the best for less.
Mr. Obvious are you a real person or are you just hanging out here today as a provocateur?
I rarely see such mean-spirited and prejudicial comments on the sites I visit.
For one thing, as Barbara Erenright says, there is no such thing as unskilled work.
Another thing, why do you assume that those who are struggling economically have no education and are stupid. Some of the most intelligent people have been self-educated. And some of those struggling with capitalism DO have college educations.
It is people who hold your global view who are responsible for the deaths of the 18,000 who die every year in the US because of the lack of health care. That is like having a 9/11 every 60 days. Are you more dangerous than a terrorist?
Most of it is Snake Oil in my opinion.
Health is a state of mind found in keeping your body active.
The Corporate Life can make you sick!
r jackowski - Being unskilled or without motivation is not a crime. Just do not expect handouts and rewards. This is not a moral judgement on your decisions. I just don't want to pay for you to live as well as those that seek training and work hard. You are mean to yourself if living the lifestyle of those that are trained and ambitious is important to you.
Mr Obvious demands recognition for working and saving his money, and refuses to share it with those who failed to do the same. Doom n Gloom gives him the "third degree" for failing to give some credit to the community around him.
Doom n Gloom should offer more detailed explanation of the community's role because, at least in the US, this information is highly suppressed. It's likely that Mr Obvious relies on privilege to some degree so the system he buys into is likely to be unfair. Also, a group of Mr Obvious' peers, lacking information, will tend to give undue credit to economic individualism such that a culture of greed may develop and further suppress the truth.
People's dependence on a corrupt establishment feeds the corruption so we should support individualism to suppress that kind of corruption, but individualism that fails to recognize the positive contribution of the community is also a drag.
In the end it seem that the optimum personal/public policy scrutinizes everything in terms of goodness or value. Is an entity, a concept, or method promoting greatest value (most benefits and least liabilities) to all people and the biosphere? This approach is likely to result in ideological heterogeneity, e.g. combinations of socialist/capitalism, liberty with the constraint of responsibility, etc.
NMBill says, "The corporate school system pretty much feeds you to the corporate machine!..." I'll second that.
Who do you think works harder and longer the day labor building a bridge or the corporate CEO funding it?
"Mr. Obvious" is frozen spittle in Dante's 9th circle of treacherous fraud, thus absolute zero for empathy or recognition of humanity in other people, as proven in the Banal comments directed to r. jackowski, comments which define its attitude towards anybody, those neighbors God commands us (some would say) to love. No use in speaking or responding to "Mr. Obvious", at least in this forum; it just keeps belching back.