patrick.net

I would love to see a break down of actual medical expenses across age groups and geographic locations.

My hunch is that age group wise most of the expenses go to the 55+ groups. While your first instinct would be to think that this normal and expected I strongly disagree. Expensive long term medical issues usually start much earlier. Early health monitoring could be a boon for life expectancy.

In the end it's mostly the young who can't afford (or are not willing to) to have health care and are not covered by Medicaid/Medicare. Fixing this problem of course is impossible in the current political climate. So health care costs will continue to rise until the cost bubble bursts.

I find it fascinating that something like dental health care still does increase in cost. Why does it not go down with more efficient technology and improved process? How much more value can you add to dental health care? We are not adding teeth to humans nor do we make false teeth out of diamonds.

The same thought should be applied to the medical field as a whole. I think this is where thinking about medical care in market terms is questionable. It has never worked for some reason. Anywhere.

ttt says

My hunch is that age group wise most of the expenses go to the 55+ groups

I bet -9 months to 6 months has more expenses.

Crack, Bacon, Bread, Cigs, Beer, Stress, Candy, Sodium, Cancer, Coronary Plaque, Oh you name it.

The whole reason we industrialized is so we could have a lot of wealth without having to work very hard (physically) to get it.

Now that's killing us. WTF?

Maybe we should just be like the Amish.

[...]

curious2 says

ttt says

Early health monitoring could be a boon for life expectancy.

So far, it's been the opposite. Services marketed as "preventive care" include a lot of diagnostic radiation that increases cancer risks. Getting yourself irradiated is a common way to spend more to die sooner.

Life expectancy has been decreasing? When did that start? I didn't get the memo.

[...]

curious2 says

Radiation increases your risk of cancer and is thus generally bad for your health, except in limited circumstances where it may be the lesser of two evils.

I've never had radiation except as a specific test to diagnose a specific problem.If you have a broken bone or a possible tumor then getting an xray or mri isn't "preventative care" in my mind. You need to know what's going on.

So what is this "preventative care" that randomly exposes you to radiation with no specific goal. I've never heard of "preventative care" radiation and neither does my wife who is a doctor. The only thing I've ever read about people paying for a full body MRI, but that's just silly and pretty rare. What percentage of the population gets radiation without looking for some actual problem? Do you have any research articles or is this anecdotal?

[...]

curious2 says

Meanwhile, please desist from sarcastically arguing with straw men (statements that you originate but then attribute to others, e.g. decreasing life expectancy

It's not a strawman when it's true. A different poster wrote this:

ttt says

Early health monitoring could be a boon for life expectancy.

To which you replied:

curious2 says

So far, it's been the opposite

You certainly appear to be saying life expectancy is decreasing. (decrease is usually considered the opposite of increase)

And you are greatly overestimating the radiation risks from normal medical diagnostic procedures. They are barely above the noise of background radiation. You might as well stop eating bananas if you're that worried about the radiation...

[...]

curious--

You seem to be changing your point with each post. Which is OK. But don't pretend that you've been saying the same thing each time.

Maybe you're just not very good at saying what you mean.

[...]

curious2 says

In light of the instruction not to insult another user (which you seem to have ignored), I will refrain from commenting on your ability to read.

Did I miss something? When did he insult you?

[...]

curious2 says

internet forums can sometimes devolve into daytime TV talk show fights where people throw virtual chairs at each other, and it doesn't accomplish anything.

Good point. But those shows do make money don't they.

What does that say about how f--d up humans really are at a fundamental level? "Psychotic apes" is the term one cynical blogger used.

[...]

[...]

curious2 says

A single chest or dental x-ray delivers the equivalent of almost a whole year's background radiation:

I think I see what you're suggesting which is that the 300mrem dose is equal to the annual 300mrem does. But that doesn't match the pie chart. How can I only get 19% of annual radiation from man-made sources, but have a dental dose equal to the nearly the whole year?

And this statement also seems to contradict that idea:

On the average, doses from a diagnostic x-ray are much lower, in dose effective terms, than natural background radiation.

I'm guessing what I'm missing is in that term "dose effective."

FunTime says

I think I see what you're suggesting which is that the 300mrem dose is equal to the annual 300mrem does.

I meant to type "is nearly equal to the 360mrem annual dose." Hopefully I've remembered that number correctly, as I didn't look at the link again.

[...]

Age is not the only factor in preventive care. Family history and other risk factors become important. It becomes a personal matter that should not be decided by bureaucrats on the basis of age or aggregate effect. If breast cancer runs in a patient's family, then she needs to have a mammogram covered even if she is young. Whereas another woman might decide to wait until later, because for her the radiation presents the greater risk. ObamaCare does not mandate that anyone get a mammogram, but it's great that women who need one can get it covered without a fight.

curious2 says

They try to make it sound like routine diagnostic radiation is a "benefit," because the spending benefits the providers that sell it.

It is a benefit if you are at risk. Mammograms are a real pain in the ass as per women I've talked to. I don't really believe that eliminating the copay is going to result in women rushing out to get extra mammograms just because they can. Gee what should I do today, go shopping, get a perm, lunch with the girlfriends, get a mammogram? Tough choices.

If obamacare eliminated copays on colonoscopies (literally a pain in the ass) I still wouldn't be getting them any more the the minimum recommended.