undefined | Better HN

0 pointss3graham15y ago0 comments

But by the "whole system" argument you're making, health care could easily have a negative cost.

Let's hypothesize that all the engineers working in SV get an AIDS-like illness caused by spending too much time on news.yc.

If there was a health care solution that would make sure that all the employees of Google, Intel, HP, etc. continued to function as usual by caring for those engineers, then even an extremely high up-front cost for that care would result in a net-win for the budget/economy/country.

Of course, that's silly as it won't happen to that extreme. But, I don't think the downward-spiral of more-cuts-here-and-there that you describe is the only possible outcome. A positive virtuous-cycle of increased wealth production is also possible.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

wtallis15y ago

Before that positive outcome can have a chance of happening, we have to get rid of the obscenely expensive hopeless palliative end-of-life care (cue teabaggers screaming about "death panels"), and make basic healthcare universally available.

The only ways that increased healthcare spending can increase productivity are through effective preventive measures and corrective treatments that return the patient to sufficient health to be productive, but that's not where our super-high healthcare costs come from.

They come from the consequences of delayed care (eg. using only emergency rooms when you're uninsured, necessitating more risky treatments for more advanced problems, which means higher malpractice premiums) and from end-of-life care.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse