Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (11363)	2/9/2006 12:20:04 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541497

I agree that quite often, early intervention is a good idea. I am aware that diabetes can be very serious and that early intervention can really help in this area. So it looks like so far we agree... Reading both the NYT article and the blog post again I can understand why you called the blog post "snarky". The NYT article doesn't seem to be calling for nationalized health care or calling for massive new government regulation of health insurance. Other people make statements similar to the NYT article as the basis for arguments for such things but the NYT article was apparently not arguing for such things at least not directly. It might be the case that Mr. Kling was irritated by the statements because statements like those are often associated with calls for nationalizing or heavily regulating health care and acted out of that irritation. If so it would fit the defintion of the word snarky rather well. I think the blog post makes some good points but its questionable how much they are relevant to the NYT article. Tim

To: Ilaine who wrote (11363)	2/9/2006 1:39:33 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541497

I can answer that- my husband and I have discussed it a lot. Big pharma doesn't make money off early intervention, and big pharma drives the big tests, and big pharma drives what is approved. There are great off patent herbal medicines, but no one makes money on them, so in the US they just aren't available, or no one knows about them. Who will make money off exercise (same with a good diet)? Ok- maybe health clubs- but I don't think they have anywhere near the lobbying power of big pharma. Sorry to say it, but this is just one more example of the captivity of the FDA, and the government health structure in general, by big corporations.

To: Ilaine who wrote (11363)	2/9/2006 3:56:02 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 541497

I think a large part of the problem with insuring diabetes prevention is that it's a money pit. It's a lot like insuring for obesity prevention and remediation. It's expensive to educate patients and, even when educated, most will either not follow what they've been taught or fail anyway. Just about everyone who loses weight ends up gaining it back. People don't exercise religiously any more than they use condoms religiously. If you want compliance, you have to lock them up at a residential clinic until their bad habits are broken and that's big bucks, as much as a foot amputation. Chronic problems like high blood pressure, which can be managed with drugs, work well in our medical system. Diabetes doesn't.