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Man, what happened in 1965 that caused that nice linear trajectory that would have resulted in a 1.75% of GDP spend on government healthcare in 2015 to over 7% of GDP?
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Kung Wu say, man who read woman like book, prefer braille! -
I have spoken until I was blue in the face about 1965. It's not worth it.Originally posted by Kung Wu View PostMan, what happened in 1965 that caused that nice linear trajectory that would have resulted in a 1.75% of GDP spend on government healthcare in 2015 to over 7% of GDP?
There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.Comment
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Dear. Lord.Originally posted by shocka khan View Post
I didn't say it was 21.74% cumulative over 4 years. Apologies I didn't copy the words "average annual growth rate" down the column - although it was clearly inferred - but even then I'm not so sure you would have gotten it.Comment
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Tobacco use caused this?Originally posted by Kung Wu View PostMan, what happened in 1965 that caused that nice linear trajectory that would have resulted in a 1.75% of GDP spend on government healthcare in 2015 to over 7% of GDP?
In 1965, over 40% of adults smoked. By 2011, only 20% of adults smoke. Trends for high schoolers is even sharper in decline since 1965.
Turns out Americans are living a HEALTHIER lifestyle regarding tobacco use, so the cost of healthcare should be going DOWN.
No ... tobacco use is the not the problem.Kung Wu say, man who read woman like book, prefer braille!Comment
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You have to understand Kung's contexting to get his point. Being that he is a libertarian, he is telling the rest of us that the Medicaid Act of 1965 is the problem.
Kung, I would somewhat agree with you, but now I'm going to sound like one of those people that Sarah Palin warned us about (you know, the death squad people)?
I think at least part of the problem is that we spend huge amounts of $$$ keeping people alive way past time for hope.
My uncle was a very religious man, who went home to die when it was obvious that his cancer was beyond treatment.
Unfortunately, there are too many people in this world that are 'waiting for the miracle to save uncle shocka khan'. And we the taxpayers are paying for it.
I hope if I'm ever confronted with the same fact set that I can be as brave as my uncle was, just send me home to die, don't spend thousands of dollars on 'miracles'.Comment
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Ummm, I agree with a lot of this. I don't have the answer as to when it is time to let people die, but keeping grandma alive is costing billions. Old people die, always have. Old people used to die at home, now they die in an overpriced, medicare funded nursing home.Originally posted by shocka khan View PostThere are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.Comment
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Oh, and Medicare IS the problem. Always has been.There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.Comment
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My father-in-laws struggle to depart this earth:
Went in for surgery on an ulcer. Sewed that up and the rest of his stomach gave way. A little research showed that a side effect of one of the meds he was taking was destruction of stomach tissue. His doctors should have been aware of that.
So, in response to the second "ulcer", they went in and removed his stomach. Put him on a feeding tube. Then his lungs quit working. You would think that someone who can't eat and can't breathe - and both of these are permanent - would be allowed to leave this earthly life, but that wasn't what the hospital and the doctors had in mind. We had a "do not resuscitate" order, but they would only use that if, in addition to everything else, his heart stopped.
This gets us up to about the second week of an ordeal where my father-in-law was kept alive (against his wishes) for over 3 months. Eventually Medicare stopped paying for his hospital stay because of the time involved. At that time a "miracle of all miracles" occurred. My father-in-law was pronounced healthy enough to go to a rehab facility affiliated with the hospital. That started a new round of eligibility for Medicare.
Within a week of hitting the rehab facility, his heart stopped. Unfortunately, the hospital had failed to send the "do not resuscitate" order to the rehab facility. At the rehab facility, he was revived and sent back to the hospital, which started yet another round of Medicare eligibility.
At that point, my mother-in-law, against the advice of the doctors, ordered that the feeding through the tube be discontinued. My father-in-law eventually starved to death.
The medical industry is not a shining example of how Capitalism should work. Capitalism encourages profit maximization and hospitals are doing that by prolonging life past any logical point if an income stream can be maintained. In the process many geriatric patients are realizing horrible suffering in their last days.
One man racked up over $300,000 of Medicare payments because the hospital was able to prolong his life when there was no hope he could ever survive outside a hospital.Last edited by Aargh; October 13, 2014, 06:06 PM.The future's so bright - I gotta wear shades.
We like to cut down nets and get sized for championship rings.Comment
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A sedentary lifestyle/obesity caused this?Originally posted by Kung Wu View PostMan, what happened in 1965 that caused that nice linear trajectory that would have resulted in a 1.75% of GDP spend on government healthcare in 2015 to over 7% of GDP?
The linear ramp-up in the graph clearly starts late 1960s. Yet there was very little change in obesity and healthy weight patterns from 1960 through 1980. The ramp-up starts before the obesity problem even began! That's enough right there to prove that our problem is NOT obesity.
However let's pretend it is ... a recent study indicates that 21% of the total cost of healthcare is due to obesity. OK, let's use that number then (I'll round it down to 20% so we can do mental math). In 1960 13.4% of adults aged 20-74 were obese. The government spend on healthcare at the time was about 1% of GDP. If 20% of the total GDP spend was toward obesity (and we know it was lower because obesity rates were lower), then 0.2% of our spend in healthcare in 1960 went toward obesity health related issues. Since then the overweight statistic hasn't changed significantly but obesity has increased to 34.3% (by 2008). Well ... that's a 3x multiplier (rounding WAY up -- it's really 2.5ish).
Sooooo ... if whatever happened in 1965 didn't happen ... then we would should expect the increase in GDP spend to be 3x the 0.2% number ... in other words a bump of 0.6% GDP. The percent of spend on healthcare GDP should be at 1.6% of spend if obesity is the problem.
That's a FULL MAGNITUDE below the current 7% disaster (and growing and _not including private spending_) we are looking at.
No ... obesity is NOT the problem.Kung Wu say, man who read woman like book, prefer braille!Comment
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Good points by @Aargh: and @shocka khan: on the prolonging of life at any and all costs. The AARP, unfortunately, has no room for nuance on the subject and is incredibly effective at scaring legions of old farts to vote however the organization would like.
Something akin to the "death panels" seems inevitable, but probably not until the boomers are dying off en masse and many billions more have been wasted.Comment
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There have always been death panels. They are called insurance companies. Your death panel can be summed up in the provisions of what is covered. If your policy doesn't cover a treatment you need to live, well the death panel has spoken.There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.Comment
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Seven Factors Driving Up Your Health Care Costs
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/...th-care-costs/ShockerNet is a rat infested cess pool.Comment
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Originally posted by Kung Wu View PostMan, what happened in 1965 that caused that nice linear trajectory that would have resulted in a 1.75% of GDP spend on government healthcare in 2015 to over 7% of GDP?
Drug abuse caused this?
Try again. With the mid to late 60's came rampant drug use. So maybe that's the smoking gun (no pun intended)? Well the only problem with that is that drug use peaked around 1980 and then began falling off for over a decade. Where was the correlated fall off in %GDP spend? Oh there wasn't one.
Pay attention to the "Any Illicit Drug" line -- that's the one that matters. Aww heck, just look at any of them:
Page 16 (labeled 11) of this PDF shows that adolescent drug use peaked in 1975 and tapered down through 2010. A net loss over 3 decades starting from 1975. Where is the drop in the %GDP spend over that time period? Well not only did it not drop, it has accelerated over that time period.
No ... drug abuse did not cause this disaster.Kung Wu say, man who read woman like book, prefer braille!Comment
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