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Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

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Re: Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bhupy wrote: post #70
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why people use this talking point. It's easy to say and the reasons why it's nonsense involve details. You can't compare life expectancy without accounting for cultural or geographic differences. The US has a higher rate of motor vehicle fatalities (as a result of driving more), more suicides and drug overdoses etc. These bring down life expectancy because they disproportionately impact the young. The US…

> The outcomes for US patients with health insurance are better than they are just about anywhere. This is interesting, can you provide a source for this? Agreed on all other counts.

There is evidence for this from basically anyone who collects relevant data, e.g.:

https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2635326/relationship-heal...

> Such patients live, on average, 10 years longer in Canada than in the United States. Among U.S. patients, those without known coverage have the shortest survival; among privately insured persons, life expectancy is similar to that of patients in Canada

Re: Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

#82

Post by danaris »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #78
danaris wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who sell towels to Walmart are not an "idealized free market" but it's close enough for practical purposes. Towels are a commodity: they're functional, fairly easy to produce, and differentiation is a pretty straightforward tradeoff of higher price for more luxury towels. Health care is not a commodity. Different services are not interchangeable, and for anything more specialized than basic care, there m…

> Health care is not a commodity. Different services are not interchangeable, and for anything more specialized than basic care, there may only be one provider within a reasonable distance of you that can offer it at all , let alone at an acceptable level of quality. In what way is it not a commodity? Does the medical practice in the next town over not have an X-ray machine or an operating room or whatever it is that…

Your answers talking about taking plane trips to get to other providers show that you are only considering the effects of these things on the fairly-well-off and up, and completely ignoring how they affect the poorest 50% of the population. This is not terribly surprising, on HN, but it is disappointing in a discussion of how health care and the population at large interact.

There are so, so many broken assumptions that go into your response here, from assuming that it's trivial to find out that a $300 plane trip would get you to a cheaper provider, to the idea that "the next town over" is a reasonable place to go when that's an hour's drive away and you've just been in a car crash. It's just not worth trying to address every way in which you clearly don't understand what it's like not to make 6 figures and live in a major metropolitan area.

Re: Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

#83

Post by bhupy »

danaris wrote: post #82
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Health care is not a commodity. Different services are not interchangeable, and for anything more specialized than basic care, there may only be one provider within a reasonable distance of you that can offer it at all , let alone at an acceptable level of quality. In what way is it not a commodity? Does the medical practice in the next town over not have an X-ray machine or an operating room or whatever it is that…

Your answers talking about taking plane trips to get to other providers show that you are only considering the effects of these things on the fairly-well-off and up, and completely ignoring how they affect the poorest 50% of the population. This is not terribly surprising, on HN, but it is disappointing in a discussion of how health care and the population at large interact. There are so, so many broken assumptions t…

> completely ignoring how they affect the poorest 50% of the population

You're absolutely right that there are some poor people that don't have the ability to shop around. The solution to this isn't to centrally plan resource allocation, it's to just give poor people money (UBI/NIT).

We do this already for food (food stamps). Food is also a life-or-death good, one starves and dies if they don't have access to food.

There's definitely an argument to be made to increase food stamps and also turn it into straight cash, but that's orthogonal.

Re: Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

#84

Post by littlestymaar »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #81
bhupy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The outcomes for US patients with health insurance are better than they are just about anywhere. This is interesting, can you provide a source for this? Agreed on all other counts.

There is evidence for this from basically anyone who collects relevant data, e.g.: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2635326/relationship-heal... > Such patients live, on average, 10 years longer in Canada than in the United States. Among U.S. patients, those without known coverage have the shortest survival; among privately insured persons, life expectancy is similar to that of patients in Canada

You realize that your quote contradicts your own claim don't you.

Re: Coronavirus Spike Protein Binder Design

#85

Post by danaris »

bhupy wrote: post #83
danaris wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answers talking about taking plane trips to get to other providers show that you are only considering the effects of these things on the fairly-well-off and up, and completely ignoring how they affect the poorest 50% of the population. This is not terribly surprising, on HN, but it is disappointing in a discussion of how health care and the population at large interact. There are so, so many broken assumptions t…

> completely ignoring how they affect the poorest 50% of the population You're absolutely right that there are some poor people that don't have the ability to shop around. The solution to this isn't to centrally plan resource allocation, it's to just give poor people money (UBI/NIT). We do this already for food (food stamps). Food is also a life-or-death good, one starves and dies if they don't have access to food. T…

And I completely agree. I'm 100% for a true UBI, but as long as that's not yet politically feasible, I'm also for other solutions we can more likely implement in the meantime (like Medicare For All).
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