[1]http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/04/...
"Finally, it began to institute global budgets — caps on the total amount paid for all care — in the hope of squeezing providers into becoming more efficient."
OK, what happens when a part of the system hits the cap in a given year? Rising obesity -> cancer/blood pressure/type 2 diabetes in a decade or two based on UK experience. In UK we spend a large % of GDP on the NHS but that % can't keep rising forever, so I'm interested in alternatives.
While rice and noodles may be staples of Taiwanese food, that doesn't mean that everyone is eating healthy. In the West, you might say the same about wheat flour and potatoes, but when that flour comes in the form of burger buns and cake, and the potatoes in greasy fries, it doesn't seem so healthy.
I don't know how often Taiwanese drink sugary drinks or eat sweets in addition to their meals, nor do I know how much of that rice and those noodles are fried as chow fan or chow mein (and apologies if those are not the words Taiwanese would use), but it isn't hard to imagine that it is more than optimal. That's usually what happens when people are able to afford more food than they actually need, and are able to choose tasty high-calorie high-fat meals whenever they feel like it.
I've bent over backwards to remain charitable even after receiving uncivil and ideological barbs such as "problematic" and "reductionist characterization" flung at me in the midst of an exceedingly dubious comment.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Read them many times and believe my comment, unlike the ancestor comment, was in harmony with them.
Preventive healthcare should be pushed more. But remember when Michelle Obama said kids should eat more vegetables?
Jamie Oliver did a show in the US and kids didn't even know what some vegetables were. Jamie showed them potatoes, tomatoes, carrots they may as well been alien the kids didn't have a clue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg
Also in corporate cafes, foods are still very traditional.
Notably their eyes are relatively poor. Almost 90% have corrected vision. Often in large meeting 100% will be wearing glasses.
But lets not overlook the elephant in the room.
Taiwan is an island full of thin people who eat rice or noodles at almost every meal. Millions of people still shop primarily at traditional markets and millions of others follow Buddhist diets that would be mocked by western "diet hackers". Only in the past generation has it really begun adopting, and suffering the effects of, western eating habits.
If Taiwanese people ate like Americans and drove everywhere, their health care system would have become bankrupt years ago.