radical for-profit “investment” in healthcare research, production, and administration makes outcomes worse, not better

not to be a raging commie but this upsets me

    • Prove_your_argument@piefed.social
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      1 month ago

      You mean the ~$200/hr contract cleaners at the nonprofit “rehab center” our 80something year old parents go to is going to profit? no way!

      Now multiply that single contract worker doing cleaning to all aspects of building maintenance, medical devices… and unbelievably these are all for-profit entities acting as vendors are owned by the same entity that owns the nonprofit healthcare facility.

      I’m not making this up, sadly.

  • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Life in the US may be intolerably expensive and exploitative, but look on the bright side - at least it’s short.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    It’s less that investment is bad and more that no amount of investments is going to improve general life expectancy if healthcare isn’t affordable, or at all available, for poorer people. I think other countries with more sensible healthcare systems actually greatly benefit from american medical research.

    Also damn, didn’t know Germany’s life expectancy is that much worse than than even countries like UK and Belgium that aren’t exactly known for healthy living or good public policies.

    • arudesalad@piefed.ca
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      1 month ago

      The UK used to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. If we don’t fix it soon I’d imagine our life expectancy is going to drop soon.

    • Yozul@beehaw.org
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      Almost all health care research in the US was funded by the NIH. So, uh, oops. The very tiny amount of research that pharmaceutical companies do with their own money is just excuses for extending patents on profitable drugs. Real research has always been funded with taxpayer money, even in the US. That isn’t even included in that chart for how expensive US healthcare is, either.

    • Illecors@lemmy.cafe
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      1 month ago

      I mean… the scale starts at 78 and ends at 85. It’s incredibly misrepresentative.

      • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        …it’s a life expectancy plot, are you really interested in all the dead space? I think the person making the graph expects a certain level of general literacy and contextual awareness to grasp the reason neither axis starts at 0

      • Hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 month ago

        graphs with scales that don’t start at zero are not fundamentally misleading. There are no countries included with zero health spending or zero life expectancy.

        What may be more misleading is the choice of which countries to include and reject. But a lack of a white space because humans live a long time regardless of circumstances isn’t a substantive criticism of this chart.

      • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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        1 month ago

        i think its pretty fair and standard to do that for ages, and more than that average ages that represent lifespan where tiny differences can have a lot of meaning

        (also hi to my favorite admin ❤️)

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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      1 month ago

      yea das why i put “radical” before “investment”

      im sure someone smarter than me could explain a middle ground where investment is perfectly lovely but the way we do it? painandsuffering.jpeg

  • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    twice as much money to live several years shorter and work that much closer to retirement, most likely

    are you winning, america?

  • azolus@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    Don’t worry guys, we’re folding to MAGA pressure in the EU and our conservative parties are working hard to privatize our healthcare so it can be just as shitty as yours.

  • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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    1 month ago

    The main problem is comparing America to other wealthy liberal democracies. We’re closer to lower income countries with far more authoritarian governments at this point, and we’ll only get closer with time. Comparisons to Russia and China would also be quite apt, as they’re in similar imperial positions.

        • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          I mean, you’re kind of right? It is much worse for black women though. The rate’s of infant and maternal mortality are shockingly higher for them, let alone other health outcomes. As well you’ve got the case of Adriana Smith, which yes, could absolutely happen to a white woman. However, it’s not really surprising the case they used to normalise the concept was a black woman.

          • traceur301@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 month ago

            the whole culture of medicine is infected with conservative quacks whose first line of treatment for non-white-men is trying to convince patients they don’t need treatment

    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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      Cuban has a higher life expectancy, and would be off the left side for cost. Turns out if you use your authoritarianism to force all the people who want to be doctors to go to college and become doctors, you get shittons of healthcare.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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      1 month ago

      1 US year is 0.95 EU years just like how 1 woman dollar is 85 man cents

  • Metype @pawb.social
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    1 month ago

    In my defense I’m a little stoned, but I couldn’t find the US flag for a moment it’s such an outlier.

    • jimjam5@lemmy.world
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      Happy to see Japan towards the left and up.

      Having spent a considerable amount of time there, it’s a multitude of things that are swaying the life expectancy. Yes healthcare there is significantly cheaper, but perhaps more importantly their diet is phenomenal (higher amounts of non-processed foods and *vegetables* [the town I lived in grew simple but quite delicious veggies]).

      😩 日本に戻りたいなぁ

      • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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        1 month ago

        fucking love vegetables bro that’s what they don’t tell you about america is they brainwash us from literally age zero to believe vegetables aren’t the tastiest yummiest shit

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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      1 month ago

      ngl i struggled to find japan at first glance it blends in and lools like a red data point 🤪 🙈

      • Victor@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        ngl I only took a guess it was Japan, I saw this image during bedtime mode on Android where I keep the screen on grayscale, but I only know one country flag with a dot and two colors. 😅

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I think that US figure is way too skewed for this chart

    The US probably spends less that most first world countries on providing actual health care services to its citizens … the rest of the money and funds that are calculated into charts like this should be identified as financing a private for-profit medical / health industry.

    The US doesn’t have health care … they have a private medical industry

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      No, the US really does spend this much per person on average. Expenses intended for medicine that end up in finance pockets count. You don’t get a handicap in this game merely because your system is corrupt. There is already plenty that isn’t being counted here, like how the costs of poor health externalize onto and make more expensive everything else in our society. If anything, the dot for the US in this chart isn’t far afield enough.

      By the way, this is also how the US spends more per person on education than any other country despite having some of the worst education outcomes. We just shovel money into tech and finance and get nothing back from it.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      the rest of the money and funds that are calculated into charts like this should be identified as financing a private for-profit medical / health industry.

      Lol, change the rules to make the numbers look better, eh?

      Per capita spending should include the money wasted going to for profit health care, because that’s money wasted that should have gone to health care, and is a contributor to that high number. Don’t lie to yourself to make the metrics look better, solve the actual problem.

      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        I don’t think that was the intent, more how much health care actually costs vs. how much just goes to pad people’s wallets.