Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
But overall, once you get past infant mortality, longevity is not what health care is about, till the last six months of life - which has very little impact on computing longevity. No matter how much money you spend, you can't substitute health care for good genes. And most people don't die young, or even in middle age, from dread disease. It's accidents that do them in. Believe me - when you hit my age, you pay attention to the obituaries.
|
I see. So by your logic, health care doesn't matter even though the main reason people die at a young or middle age is
1. getting into accidents, because of the fact that
every accident kills. So they won't be needing/getting any follow-up health care, (e.g. immediate care setting your leg and later on rehabilitation) as accidents either kill you or you survive them entirely on your own.
2. contracting age-related diseases (through bad eating etc.). Never mind that those diseases like diabetes (or heart/vein/yada disease (which also won't kill you unless you continue eating Loads of Pork™ etc.)) won't kill you for at least 20-30 years after you get it,
provided you
take care and get insulin treatments (which doesn't happen in developing countries and has nothing to do with sanitation).
All here-mentioned diseases aren't "good gene" diseases, they're "bad (eating) habits" diseases, which is something that is hitting the US, and particularly the lower socio-economic status-ed, very hard. And all those people can live a "qualitative[ly acceptable, at least to their own standards] life" for at least 20 years after first being diagnosed with obesity, (or its sometime consequent) diabetes etc. in the western world, but won't be able to do so in developing countries, as they won't have access to health care, or dietitians. (Mind you, these "wealth-related diseases" are starting to be a problem there as well.) Yet without access to health care they'll never be able to pay for any of these treatments.
The reason you see so many accidents in obits is because the age-related diseases aren't doing them in in sufficient numbers yet, and the difference between yes/no sanitation etc. is having most people live until 60, not until 80-85, and it has everything to do with proper health care.