I don’t think your intro comparisons (air travel and churches) are very good comparisons. First, you haven’t shown that air travel increases well-being or any other holistic measure of goodness, just that it moves people. That’s the equivalent of noting that cancer treatment does, in fact, delay death from cancer. Second, you don’t explain why so many are, in fact, religious, despite no specific intervention being compelling.
I do think you’re pointing at some important reasons why medical-systems don’t work very efficiently even when many interventions do work quite well. But I’m not sure what the alternative is—I’m very happy to have modern treatments for things that were fatal just a few decades ago. I suspect there’s a lot of spending that doesn’t go to those things, but some does, and it may be overall worth it.
I think you missed the point of the air travel comparison. The idea is that airlines are supposed to move people around, and we would find (probably) that giving people free access to airline tickets results in them moving around more. The idea is not that air travel increases overall wellness or somehow substitutes for health care, but just that “it does what it says on the tin”.
Health care, on the other hand, does not do what it says on the tin. Giving people more health care does not actually make them healthier. This is the mystery that the post is trying to answer.
I think I under-explained my dissatisfaction with the comparison. Airlines are subsidized and regulated for a lot of purposes, the obvious one being to move people from point A to point B. This analogizes well to medicine being about treating injuries and clearly-defined diseases A, B, and C. Airlines and medicine both do that level of job pretty well, though medicine is much more constrained in cost-optimization for various reasons.
The less-clear purpose of “improving health outcomes” or “average life extension” for medicine would be better compared to air travel goals like “connecting the world” or “bringing people together”. Or perhaps “improving location satisfaction”. Which air travel does a bit, but not very well because it’s not universal or simple.
I think you’re doing a bit of equivocation in the health care makes people healthier statement. When thinking about health care I don’t think “made healthier” is the full extent of what one thinks about the health care infrastructure doing.
The treatments offered to many have little to do with actually making them healthier and more about making their remaining life easier or less painful. Likewise, things like prosthetics are not really making the recipient healthier but do restore a degree of mobility that is increasingly more and more natural.
This is not to say your point about resistance to hearing or investigating in an objective manner to understand the reality of the situation for given treatments is off. I agree with it. However, I think the issues here are rather complex and the argument you’re offering weaker than it could be due to equivocation suggested as the complexities are obscured.
Perhaps then simply the name of the industry is a misnomer if the majority of resources are not spent on improving health but managing existing diseases and ailments. The Disease Management Industry seems to be more accurate, at least in the US.
I don’t think your intro comparisons (air travel and churches) are very good comparisons. First, you haven’t shown that air travel increases well-being or any other holistic measure of goodness, just that it moves people. That’s the equivalent of noting that cancer treatment does, in fact, delay death from cancer. Second, you don’t explain why so many are, in fact, religious, despite no specific intervention being compelling.
I do think you’re pointing at some important reasons why medical-systems don’t work very efficiently even when many interventions do work quite well. But I’m not sure what the alternative is—I’m very happy to have modern treatments for things that were fatal just a few decades ago. I suspect there’s a lot of spending that doesn’t go to those things, but some does, and it may be overall worth it.
I think you missed the point of the air travel comparison. The idea is that airlines are supposed to move people around, and we would find (probably) that giving people free access to airline tickets results in them moving around more. The idea is not that air travel increases overall wellness or somehow substitutes for health care, but just that “it does what it says on the tin”.
Health care, on the other hand, does not do what it says on the tin. Giving people more health care does not actually make them healthier. This is the mystery that the post is trying to answer.
I think I under-explained my dissatisfaction with the comparison. Airlines are subsidized and regulated for a lot of purposes, the obvious one being to move people from point A to point B. This analogizes well to medicine being about treating injuries and clearly-defined diseases A, B, and C. Airlines and medicine both do that level of job pretty well, though medicine is much more constrained in cost-optimization for various reasons.
The less-clear purpose of “improving health outcomes” or “average life extension” for medicine would be better compared to air travel goals like “connecting the world” or “bringing people together”. Or perhaps “improving location satisfaction”. Which air travel does a bit, but not very well because it’s not universal or simple.
I think you’re doing a bit of equivocation in the health care makes people healthier statement. When thinking about health care I don’t think “made healthier” is the full extent of what one thinks about the health care infrastructure doing.
The treatments offered to many have little to do with actually making them healthier and more about making their remaining life easier or less painful. Likewise, things like prosthetics are not really making the recipient healthier but do restore a degree of mobility that is increasingly more and more natural.
This is not to say your point about resistance to hearing or investigating in an objective manner to understand the reality of the situation for given treatments is off. I agree with it. However, I think the issues here are rather complex and the argument you’re offering weaker than it could be due to equivocation suggested as the complexities are obscured.
Perhaps then simply the name of the industry is a misnomer if the majority of resources are not spent on improving health but managing existing diseases and ailments. The Disease Management Industry seems to be more accurate, at least in the US.