Driving cars would be minor and apply to almost everyone, so it would mostly cancel out and be negligible. Really it would be a slight discount for taking transit, and that seems... fine to me.
And those other ones aren't even notable risk factors.
Yeah, so almost everyone.
> Driving is one of the most dangerous things humans do. The argument that all health care should be private– the perspective this comment addressed– would not make such a consolation simply because it's common.
Car deaths are about 1% of deaths. Heart disease and cancer are each around 15x as likely.
Even if it's high on the danger scale, I don't think it would be a very big factor in health care costs.
CDC: Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in the U.S.1, with over 100 people dying every day. 2 More than 2.5 million drivers and passengers were treated in emergency departments as the result of being injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2015.1 The economic impact is also notable: for crashes that occurred in 2017, the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 Billion."
American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card says only 45% of the US population has no access to public transit.
Motor vehicle crashes are slightly outside the top ten causes of death. Those 100+ deaths are coming out of about 9300 total deaths.
> The economic impact is also notable: for crashes that occurred in 2017, the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 Billion.
Productivity losses are outside the scope of medical costs, but even if we include those dollars that's $75B out of $4100B in health care spending.
So I stand by my statement that it's a pretty small impact.
> American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card says only 45% of the US population has no access to public transit.
And most of the other 55% still need cars.
You said "good subway systems and a walkable infrastructure" and that's what I responded to. We can go ahead and remove the word "subway", but the fraction of people with access to good public transit systems is pretty small.
> socialize your health related losses while privatizing the gains you reap.
Those famous health care gains.