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mprotsenko) wrote2020-03-10 09:53 am
mprotsenko) wrote2020-03-10 09:53 am
Healthcare: Justice vs Efficiency - episode 2
Over the last year I had a number of discussions - how healthcare should (or should not be) just, how people should (or should not) be penalized for bad choices, how interests of healthy people with jobs may (or may not) be more important than of those who are sick and cannot work.
Now we are facing an interesting situation - there is a potential epidemic disease that can kill a lot of (affluent) elderly people while younger ones will do mostly fine.
No high-tech treatment or bleeding edge diagnostic equipment like 10.5 Tesla MRI machines seems to make a difference - but a simple and cheap universal testing does.
However, over past years, we saw deliberate efforts to deny medical care to different groups of people. E.g., if you're a poor immigrant, you are incentivized to avoid getting subsidized healthcare (unless you're willing to risk your naturalization/permanent resident status). So no universal testing, sorry folks.
What do you think, will those conservative elderly people change their minds even as the policies they were rooting for - threaten their very lives? (And will continue to do so - COVID-19 is not the only infectious disease we are going to face.) Will they say: "Oh, now I see, when it comes to infections, universal healthcare helps everybody even if it is not just - let's implement it, it will save OUR LIVES"?
I am not holding my breath - but maybe I am wrong. What do you think?
Now we are facing an interesting situation - there is a potential epidemic disease that can kill a lot of (affluent) elderly people while younger ones will do mostly fine.
No high-tech treatment or bleeding edge diagnostic equipment like 10.5 Tesla MRI machines seems to make a difference - but a simple and cheap universal testing does.
However, over past years, we saw deliberate efforts to deny medical care to different groups of people. E.g., if you're a poor immigrant, you are incentivized to avoid getting subsidized healthcare (unless you're willing to risk your naturalization/permanent resident status). So no universal testing, sorry folks.
What do you think, will those conservative elderly people change their minds even as the policies they were rooting for - threaten their very lives? (And will continue to do so - COVID-19 is not the only infectious disease we are going to face.) Will they say: "Oh, now I see, when it comes to infections, universal healthcare helps everybody even if it is not just - let's implement it, it will save OUR LIVES"?
I am not holding my breath - but maybe I am wrong. What do you think?
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What about the cook? What about this anonymous field worker who planted and picked up the salad plant? Is he afraid to go to a pro-bono clinic because he thinks it may endanger his immigration status? What about this homeless person sitting on the corner? We share the same friggin' air!
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One more bias of mine to correct for. :)
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