India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer • Hacker News Board

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#11

Post by th0waway » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

sophacles wrote: post #6

merpnderp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there have been recent papers discussing how roughly 10% of the medicare budget goes to people who live less than a year, with the implication that perhaps we shouldn't be spending so much on people with so little time. It is a well established fact by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that roughly 10% of the medicare budget is wasted on fraudulent claims (even though their rejection claim rate is rough…

Fraud should be a concern, however at some points, the attempts to eliminate it outweigh (in terms of cost and effort) the effect of its existence. At that point it becomes a morality issue rather than a practical one. For comparison, I wonder if the CBO was given full investigatory power into private insurance, would they discover a higher or lower fraud percentage? It would not surprise me if they were higher, and…

I would expect it to be the reverse: there is no incentive for government programs to root out fraud, if they fall short, they just raise taxes. For private companies - if they are being defrauded, it directly affects their bottom line, and the bottom line of their executives (who would be VERY interested to make sure bonuses increase).

If we are talking about fraud within the company/government, I would expect the same - less in the company than in the government. Not zero, but less overall.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#12

Post by PhearTheCeal » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

Now if only they could eliminate defecating in the streets. [1]

  In India, nearly half of the population 
  - more than 590m people - 
  relieve themselves in the open

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#13

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:31 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #10

>India has reduced cases to less than one per 1,000 live births, which the W.H.O. considers “elimination as a public health problem." One in one thousand of over a billion is still a rather large number. Shouldn't the WHO use proportional statistics for populations over, say, 100 million?

"One billion" is not the live birth rate.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#14

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:31 PM UTC

PhearTheCeal wrote: post #12

Now if only they could eliminate defecating in the streets. [1] In India, nearly half of the population - more than 590m people - relieve themselves in the open [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

People say the same thing about California.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#15

Post by neduma » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

PhearTheCeal wrote: post #12

Now if only they could eliminate defecating in the streets. [1] In India, nearly half of the population - more than 590m people - relieve themselves in the open [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

This really bothers me. Any ideas to cure this issue with local/government support. I would like to explore more about current solutions in terms of what worked and what not worked so far (with numbers, of course).

Thinking of starting some kind of kickstarter campaign to solve this in few villages and let the community/government to replicate this model to everywhere in India.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#16

Post by neduma » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #14

PhearTheCeal wrote: post #12

Now if only they could eliminate defecating in the streets. [1] In India, nearly half of the population - more than 590m people - relieve themselves in the open [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

People say the same thing about California.

You mean homeless peoples urinating in SF..

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#17

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

th0waway wrote: post #11

sophacles wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud should be a concern, however at some points, the attempts to eliminate it outweigh (in terms of cost and effort) the effect of its existence. At that point it becomes a morality issue rather than a practical one. For comparison, I wonder if the CBO was given full investigatory power into private insurance, would they discover a higher or lower fraud percentage? It would not surprise me if they were higher, and…

I would expect it to be the reverse: there is no incentive for government programs to root out fraud, if they fall short, they just raise taxes. For private companies - if they are being defrauded, it directly affects their bottom line, and the bottom line of their executives (who would be VERY interested to make sure bonuses increase). If we are talking about fraud within the company/government, I would expect the s…

[deleted]

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#18

Post by adventured » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #14

PhearTheCeal wrote: post #12

Now if only they could eliminate defecating in the streets. [1] In India, nearly half of the population - more than 590m people - relieve themselves in the open [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33980904

People say the same thing about California.

No people don't say the same thing about California.

In California it's a rare occurrence among the 38 million people that live there, caused by a tiny fraction of the population - almost exclusively a subset of the homeless.

In India, it's ~45% of 1.2 billion people.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#19

Post by merpnderp » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #9

merpnderp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there have been recent papers discussing how roughly 10% of the medicare budget goes to people who live less than a year, with the implication that perhaps we shouldn't be spending so much on people with so little time. It is a well established fact by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that roughly 10% of the medicare budget is wasted on fraudulent claims (even though their rejection claim rate is rough…

> So there are some cases where the status quo is untenable, fraud is blatantly obvious, and people could die untreated do to a lack or resources. I agree in general; I seem to have given another impression. Absolutely we should reduce corruption and there are cases where it causes serious problems. But if by "untenable" you mean Medicare should be shut down rather than continue like this, I'd disagree. You describe…

I don't mean untenable as in it should be shut down, but untenable in that people are about to start having treatment withheld do to lack of funds. Given that medicare is already considered simply a supplemental insurance program, there are already people suffering from a lack of available resources.

As for trusting the CBO, if you can't trust their accounting, there's literally no one else you could trust.

Re: India Virtually Eliminates Tetanus as a Killer

#20

Post by merpnderp » Mon, Aug 31, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

DougWebb wrote: post #8

merpnderp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there have been recent papers discussing how roughly 10% of the medicare budget goes to people who live less than a year, with the implication that perhaps we shouldn't be spending so much on people with so little time. It is a well established fact by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) that roughly 10% of the medicare budget is wasted on fraudulent claims (even though their rejection claim rate is rough…

Expanding on sophalces' point: Assuming the figures you quoted are correct, how much of the medicare budget is spent on fraud prevention? That includes: * time spent by Congress and Medicare deciding what is and what is not covered, * deciding who is and who is not covered, * what the rules and processes are for preventing and discovering fraud, * what the process is for handling fraud * the actual time needed to enf…

Medicare's budget is around ~$600 billion. It is highly unlikely that the CBO, FBI, DHS, and IRS spend $60 billion looking into potential medicare fraud given how many of those just named organizations could fit into a $60 billion budget (3 of the 4).