Senator Harkin lays out the game plan that will win in univeral health care.. no argument can stand

[Peacetrain]

against it. Preventive care will lower all our medical cost in the future. I am pulling out one paragraph that if those stats are 100% accurate, should be one the TV every day.. and repeated incessantly into the ear of the media and thrown at the right wing who do not want health care coverage for everyone


"Consider this: Right now, some 75 percent of health care costs are accounted for by heart disease, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and obesity. What these five diseases and conditions have in common is that they are largely preventable and even reversible by changes in nutrition, physical activity, and lifestyle."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090625/ts_ynews/ynews_ts408

[Lancer]

1. He's absolutely right.

Colon and ovarian cancers are other diseases that should not have such high mortality rates. Early detection is key. Baseline colonoscopies are often recommended by doctors for patients once they reach 50. But there are insurers who will not cover them unless the patient has "active bleeding."

[Peacetrain]

2. I am a 23 year survivor of ovarian cancer..

Its a horrific cancer that hits young women also..a CA125 could screen for that and catch so many more, because once you go under the chemo for that.. it is unbelievably expensive. I still have the letter of apology from one doctor who could not believe someone as young as I was at that time, had the cancer...yet I showed all symptoms.

What a little blood test would have saved.

[Armstead]

3. Fuck that -- "Drink your milk and you won't get cancer."

I am sick of the stupid argument about preventative care being the answer to health care.

Sure, adopt healthy habits and avoid unhealthy ones, and chances are you will stay weller longer......maybe.

We're comparing apples and oranges by tossing in that kind of stuff into the real need for real healthcare reform.

Focus on what can be done to make it affordable and practical for more people (everyone) to have access to healthcare.

Democrats, don't muddy the issue by bringing up this kind of crap. Fight for what's right.

P.S. I generally love Sen Harkin.My beef is this distressing tendency to yet again steer the debate over the crux of the problem, which is profiteering and racketeering by the private sector in health care.

[Peacetrain]

4. Well what an attitude.. if that stats are right, it shoots a hole in any argument

against universal care, if we can help people slow down the onset of those 5 diseases. You can punch yourself in the head till the cows come home. It is numbers like that, that we need to get out to the public so they can put the pressure on congress, and this finally get done.

[Armstead]

5. The problem is it diverts attention

Prevention is a diversion from the real issue.

First of all, prevention is great. I'm all for it.

But the unfortunate fact is that sickness is largely arbitrary. One can live the healthiest lifestyle in the world and still either have a terrible accident or get struck by the random finger of fate and get an awful disease anyway.

A universally available public health care plan is the only morally right answer to reform, and the only practical solution. And, most people know it in their gut. One can quibble over the details, but the Democrats ought to draw their own "line in the sand" and say "We're going to do this. Period."

[Peacetrain]

6. Call it the long game.. Call it education of why change is necessary..

But if we do not want the republicans to run this in 2012 and take it down.. which they are all prepping to do, and could do, we need to get this kind of information into the hands of low info voters.

Whether we like it or not.. keeping the Presidency and Congress so that we can get this things done, means we have to educate. You and I know, because we are partisan Democrats. We are aware of it. Even the masses are aware of needs for change.

But giving them this kind of information, along with how much health care has actually increased, is important for that long game, because costs are going to go up, and there will be a need for some taxation of higher end programs and money found to pay for it.

This is the kind of thing that can get us that support.

Hey I am as tired as you are of having to play the education game. I would just love to smack some of those LI voters in the head.. but that is not how it works.. long term

[dionysus]

7. armstead, i think the point is, with preventative care keeping things like heart trouble or diabetes

from happening, the savings in cost for that will be used to pay for things like cancer.

[frazzled]

9. Prevent diabetes from happening? Not so much

Look, you can probably reduce the incidence of diabetes, or more likely delay it, but diabetes won't totally disappear with the most stringent preventive care.

Take my dad as an example. Today I just heard on NPR that aerobic exercise can prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes. No one has gotten more exercise, aerobic or otherwise, than my dad. Even today, at 92 1/2, he still can ride his bicycle more than 25 miles and he goes to the gym 5 days a week. But back in his 80s, when he was cycle training 40 miles a day and working out religiously at the gym, he still got serious type 2 diabetes. Now, perhaps it would have come on earlier had he not been so active, or had been overweight. But still, he's had diabetes for almost a decade now, despite his best efforts to stay fit.

Especially if you have genetic predispositions in your family, it is difficult to overcome diseases like diabetes, heart defects, and cancer. You can detect them earlier and get more effective treatment, avoid limb amputation or vision loss. But don't make people think they can totally control disease. You live the healthiest you can, but you can't prevent everything. You can induce a lot of guilt with the prevention mantra. I have been at funerals of cancer victims where the discussion all around his how so-and-so "got" it (that time spent in Algeria? The late nights working? The predilection for wine collecting?) or could have avoided it. Sad.

[dionysus]

10. i'm not talkign about cases like your dad, but look at the childhood obesity statistics.

those are mostly preventable cases.

no one is saying that if you get it's necessarily your fault!

[PVnRT]

8. Once again Mr. Pareto is correct

Most of your costs/problems come from a relative small amount of causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle