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Re:'The People's Hospital' treats uninsured and undocumented by paulmd on Friday March 17, 2023 @11:44AM (#35198576)
Yes, this is the absurd part of the fat-hate movement, "you're wasting my insurance/tax dollars!" actually no fat people tend to die early, and US healthcare spending is absurdly weighted towards end-of-life care for terminal patients, something like 50-70% of your total life spending comes in the last 18 months of your life. Someone quietly dying at 50 of heart disease is really cheap compared to the person spending 10 years fighting lung cancer at 70.

Not that it should really matter, if the goal is to "get them healthy", right? But it's not, it's about having someone to hate and look down on. Black Mirror nailed this vibe perfectly in Ten Million Merits.

Anyway this is a specific problem with the US healthcare system though - we spend way too much on patients who are circling the drain and everyone else gets screwed. Broken bones and bad dentistry and missed immunizations are what produces the single largest improvement in health outcomes - Cuba really only has something like a 7-year reduced lifespan vs the US iirc, because they do well at delivering that basic care even if you're not going there for proton radiotherapy or other ultra-high-end treatments. And the US does the latter but sucks at the former.

Re:'The People's Hospital' treats uninsured and undocumented by PuppyTailWags on Friday March 17, 2023 @12:05PM (#35198910)
I don't think there's a fat-hate "movement" tbh. I think it's always been popular to make fun of fat people. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone had a fat child be described as neglected, spoiled, and a bully, and therefore it was justified to magically force the child to grow pig parts that had to be surgically moved. Published 1997.

I guess somewhat more recently we have people like Lizzo trying to push back on things like this, but the CDC has recently pushed a recommendation for bariatric surgery on children as young as 14 so. Shrug, I guess.

Re:'The People's Hospital' treats uninsured and undocumented by watwut on Friday March 17, 2023 @08:00PM (#35204525)
Growing up elsewhere, the stereotype of fat people was that they are nice and kind. The level of hate was quite surprising to me when I first encountered it.
Re:'The People's Hospital' treats uninsured and undocumented by masfuerte on Friday March 17, 2023 @01:31PM (#35200163)
Cuba and the USA have roughly the same life expectancy, with Cuba slightly ahead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_ex...
Re:'The People's Hospital' treats uninsured and undocumented by bumby on Friday March 17, 2023 @02:41PM (#35201122)
Your point seems muddled. If the majority of costs come from the last 18 months of care why does it matter if those last months occur at age 50 with heart disease or 70 with cancer? 18 months is 18 months.

Your point seems to rather be that some diseases are cheaper to treat than others, or that the total area under the cost-life curve is driving the cost, not just the last few months.