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Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

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Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#471

Post by diogenescynic »

gumby wrote: post #414
diogenescynic wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree but I think we should also be demanding more capacity from our hospitals and maybe just maybe demanding actual universal healthcare. It’s so bizarre to me that that’s not even on the table but it’s because most just assume we have to have a for-profit medical system.

Hospitals build out capacity based on projections of need. So they look at the population of their catchment area, other hospitals, demographics of the locals, and calculate that they’ll need about X icu beds / maternity rooms etc etc and then build in a small overcapacity for surges. If they routinely overbuilt then cost would go up even more. I think this approach is reasonable for any business,* whether private or…

I generally agree but just to clarify I didn’t say overbuild—just more than our current capacity which seems to be admittedly inadequate for the current crisis. We have no flexibility.

Look at how many fewer deaths there are in countries with universal healthcare. Maybe when we don’t have to pay useless middlemen like insurers then we can spend the money to hire more healthcare workers. I think it’s just our for-profit healthcare is always going to provide the bare minimum for the highest cost—-and is woefully unprepared for this pandemic.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#472

Post by nradov »

thebooktocome wrote: post #424
syshum wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Body Positivity movement started out with a good goal, but went off the rails with the obesity == healthy BS. However if you want to solve obesity, especially the morbid obesity shamming will never resolve that as chances are the obesity is cased by an underlying metal or medical issue. most often an anxiety disorder of some kind, and socially shaming someone that suffers from anxiety is not going to cure them, and i…

The primary cause of obesity — in my experience, as a midwesterner — is a lack of access to affordable, healthy food. What people can afford (in terms of money/time/opportunity cost) is primarily overprocessed garbage. It’s mostly impossible to maintain a healthy weight in such an environment. Yes, I’m aware of the twinkie diet guy. Most people aren’t the twinkie diet guy.

Most Midwesterners have access to cheap, healthy food like frozen chicken, canned vegetables, potatoes, apples, and eggs. Especially if they get on SNAP (food stamps). The real problems are more cultural. A single large soda or a few cookies can contain more calories than a whole meal.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#473

Post by 542458 »

daenz wrote: post #393
542458 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A potential bias for 2021 would be that: In 2021 some people are worried about a vaccine->heart link and for any given event may be more likely to document it online and/or add it to Wikipedia. As such we might not be measuring number of cardiac arrests, and actually may be measuring public attention paid to cardiac arrest.

What test could prove or disprove that hypothesis? Creating some criteria by which to include a death in the statistic? (eg, notability)

Notability is sort of a bad metric since it’s incredibly subjective. And we’re not just worried about extraneous inclusions in 2021, we’re also concerned about missing data points for previous years - there’s no real statistical correction for “my inputs are biased in unknown ways”. You need to do real analyses with better quality data (i.e., national death registries) to find a ground truth to compare to. But good news, since this is quite a hot topic I’d expect that people are already looking into that.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#475

Post by ineedasername »

mlyle wrote: post #461
ineedasername wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone has said, "fentanyl is worse for 18-44, therefore COVID is no big deal". My intent was to make a general statement about anchoring as a technique. But in any case, you're incorrect: my own father has made this sort of remark about opioids, and I've seen it pop up in message boards, and with other (not necessarily opioid) comparisons by folks who resist masks/social distancing/vaccination.

I wonder if you're conflating arguments, though. I've never heard the "no big deal" one. I've heard another: If responses to COVID have worsened the opioid crisis, that's a cost that should be counted against COVID mitigation measures. (I still think this is faulty: I don't think responses to COVID have done much to change the opioid crisis. But at least this is a rational argument and open to debate).

Different social/family circles maybe? (And my own-- not always healthy-- habit of reading comments on political news site... I've mostly backed away from that for my own mental sanity) But I've seen the "no big deal" thing a fair bit. I remember one exchange nearly verbatim "Fentanyl kills more people but all the fearmongering media wants to talk about is a virus that gives you a cold".

Heck, at the very beginning people saying that sort of thing by comparison to the flu. That line of thinking went away when deaths far exceeded annual flu deaths, but with the (possible) decrease in severe cases with Omicron I've seen hints of this argument again.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#476

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dh5 wrote: post #470
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at expected years of life lost - and the average person is ~30 - you could multiply the numbers by ~47. ~47 x 5,000 = 235k years of life (extra). In the US in 2020 the average age of death from Covid was ~77 [1]. People ~77 are expected to life ~10.2 years [2]. In 2020, there were ~350k Covid deaths [3]. But (very crudely) 3.5M years of life lost. This small group of 11,000 people (3%) made up 7% of years…

I'm not sure that calculation makes sense. If someone has already lived to 77 he probably has a much higher chance of living to 78 than the average person. And if someone has lived past 78 does that mean he's lost negative years of life?

Thanks - added a reference to an actuary table.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#477

Post by diogenescynic »

thebooktocome wrote: post #424
syshum wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Body Positivity movement started out with a good goal, but went off the rails with the obesity == healthy BS. However if you want to solve obesity, especially the morbid obesity shamming will never resolve that as chances are the obesity is cased by an underlying metal or medical issue. most often an anxiety disorder of some kind, and socially shaming someone that suffers from anxiety is not going to cure them, and i…

The primary cause of obesity — in my experience, as a midwesterner — is a lack of access to affordable, healthy food. What people can afford (in terms of money/time/opportunity cost) is primarily overprocessed garbage. It’s mostly impossible to maintain a healthy weight in such an environment. Yes, I’m aware of the twinkie diet guy. Most people aren’t the twinkie diet guy.

Rice and beans are cheap everywhere. It’s our culture that is the problem. Look at immigrants who come here, they are often healthy when they stick to their ethnic traditional food but as soon as they start eating an “American” diet they gain weight. American food is very indulgent. We even feed kids shitty over-processed food in schools. In contrast, most of Europe feeds its students locally sourced and fresh food for much cheaper. America is on the dark side of capitalism where profit motive drives everything to excess.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#478

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #468
freyr wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many Covid-related? How many drug overdoses? How many suicides?

This seems like what-about-ism. You could look these numbers up easily on the CDCs death data, and then you could formulate a coherent thought. Instead, it seems like you're just trying to derail the conversation with as little effort as possible.

[deleted]

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#479

Post by csee »

toss1 wrote: post #450
csee wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that attorney vaxxed? > I'm not interested in that risk, and you shouldn't be either. Well, I share your anxiety about it at least. It's my biggest concern about COVID as a young person. Even 2 points is too much given the asymmetric payoff at the margin.

IIRC, he got it before the vaccines were available. I'll check the next time I chat with my friend. >>Even 2 points is too much given the asymmetric payoff at the margin. YUP!! It feels like for someone close to 100, 5 points lower would be a loss putting them suddenly below a huge group they were ahead of, and for someone close to 140, 5 points lower would be a huge step down in overall capability, even though the g…

I'm curious what this drug is trying to do. You can see COVID brain damage on an FMRI, not sure how a drug is supposed to reverse that.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#480

Post by dlp211 »

dh5 wrote: post #470
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at expected years of life lost - and the average person is ~30 - you could multiply the numbers by ~47. ~47 x 5,000 = 235k years of life (extra). In the US in 2020 the average age of death from Covid was ~77 [1]. People ~77 are expected to life ~10.2 years [2]. In 2020, there were ~350k Covid deaths [3]. But (very crudely) 3.5M years of life lost. This small group of 11,000 people (3%) made up 7% of years…

I'm not sure that calculation makes sense. If someone has already lived to 77 he probably has a much higher chance of living to 78 than the average person. And if someone has lived past 78 does that mean he's lost negative years of life?

Yep, 78 is life expectancy at birth. Your life expectancy goes up every day you are alive.
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