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

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    3 days 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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      3 days 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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      3 days ago

      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.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
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      3 days 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

    • Illecors@lemmy.cafe
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      3 days ago

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

      • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days 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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        3 days 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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        3 days 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 ❤️)