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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (13962)	3/5/2010 10:47:50 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

that includes smoking cessation, diet, activity, obesity prevention, education targeted at preventable chronic illnesses. Most of which costs money without having much effect, and most of which isn't really medical care. The education about preventable chronic illnesses, well maybe that's cost effective, and its most strongly connected with the idea of healthcare, although its a bit borderline as "care". The rest isn't preventive care because it isn't care at all, to the extent it amounts to messages about the issues. "You shouldn't eat so much", or "people should stop smoking", in a pamphlet or TV commercial isn't "preventive care". Its also something that while it possibly could be cost effective to an extent, is something we already have a lot of (particularly for smoking). But rather than get tied down in semantic debates about "is it preventive care", I will for the rest of this post only, assume that it fits that definition. Fine it's "preventive care". Maybe its even "cost effective preventive care". But it isn't something that "universal coverage" impacts to any great degree. (Not that any plan on the table will get us universal coverage, but that's another issue.) Getting out the messages, has little to do with insurance coverage. Actual treatment for things like obesity, isn't really preventive care, its treatment, also it might not save money either (although to the extent its effective its likely to produce better health results for the person in question). In that case you should be a supporter of a public OPTION. No because a public option doesn't increase efficiency, it can help contain costs but that would be by reducing the responsiveness, quantity, or quality of health care. In the context of the US's relative wealth, and the American medical culture's strong concern about doing anything possible to help patients, its possible that its impact on those things might be minor, but if so then your tossing cost containment out the window, while at the same time socializing the cost.