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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction
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To: Orcastraiter who wrote (13863)8/20/2004 3:01:14 PM
From: Oeconomicus  Read Replies (1) of 90947
 
That same correlation exists in the US...the richer you are, the better healthcare you get and the longer you live.

First of all, forget third world countries, unless you are suggesting we should cover their health care costs as well.

Now back to the US, I already said that higher income families probably do make greater use of preventative care, which would partially explain any significant differences in longevity (nutrition being the other major factor). But what I was talking about being more random is catastrophic accident or illness, not longevity.

That "the rich" have more catastrophic accidents you'd be foolish to suggest and I've conceded the preventative care difference, which would imply that "the rich" would tend to need less expensive care for catastrophic illness as they'd catch problems sooner when they are cheaper to treat. If that's the case, then one could reasonably expect that, per year of life (and tax paying), less would be spent on "the rich" than "the poor" for treatment of serious injury or illness. So, if annual per capita cost of treating "the rich" is less than "the poor", then how do you justify charging "the rich" more?

PS: One would likely find that incomes and hazardous work are inversely related, implying even greater spending on lower income groups (per capita) and further eroding your argument that the rich get more, so should pay more.

PPS: Increasing use of preventative care in order to bring down lifetime health care costs is one of the basic ideas behind HMOs like Kaiser Permanente. It seems to work for them and for their members, at least from what I've seen.
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