sirdroseph wrote:

 spammer wrote: 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

It's so nice to be hated for things you didn't do.

 R_P wrote: 






The creature in the sky
Got sucked in a hole, now there's a hole in the sky
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns
I'll get mine, too

The Death of the White Working Class Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The author makes some good points.

 aflanigan wrote: 
Absolutely.  The irony is painfully obvious.

Some of it is probably driven by genuine ideological inflexibility.   But most is driven by special interests who would lose big time in the shift to a single-payer system.  "I tell ya, the losses would be HUGE."  ;-) 

Naturally many Republicans are against 'efficiency' as crazy as that might seem.  This current president has made opposing 'efficiency' attractive and popular.   Or was swept to power by those who oppose efficiency.  

Here's the cure?
http://nypost.com/2017/03/27/staring-at-boobs-is-just-one-of-six-easy-ways-men-can-live-longer/

 westslope wrote: 
The irony of members of a political party which ostensibly supports free markets not wanting to take advantage of a tool allowing market power to reduce costs in health care is lost on most GOP politicians, it seems.

Thanks for sharing that kurster.  

My mind boggles at the complexity of the US medical care system.

I am no expert by any means, but the USA will never make significant cost savings in health care unless it goes to a single-payer system for basic services and fully exploits the concentrated 'buyer' power of the state.   That buyer power is referred to as a monopsony.

There are ways of fine-tuning a single-payer system to avoid the waste, long waiting lists and other problems experienced by the Canadian system, for example.

 R_P wrote:
Absolutely correct R_P.     I would have recommended the authors to avoid using that term.  In the overall scheme of things, it is a minor quibble.  

 meower wrote: 
No.  The first 2 1/2 years were via my insurance through work.  After that Medicare kicked in and I still have that now.  When you get SSDisabilty Insurance, Medicare is automatic 2 years after you receive your first SSDI check.  My cancer is so bad it automatically qualifies the patient for SSDI, no questions asked.

Obviously I can't say for sure, but if I had only Medicaid, I probably wouldn't be here today.  The costs of my care exceeded $2 million in that 2 1/2 years and with my particular cancer, swiftness in care is critical.

I was lucky in so many ways.  If I had the same employer that I had worked for before I went elsewhere, I would not have made it either.  They had Kaiser.  Even though Kaiser had no lifetime limits at the time and kicked you over to the Cleveland Clinic when your needs exceeded their abilities, they had an annual limit of $1 million and my chemo would have been interrupted and the stem cell transplant would have been delayed a year due to how the expenses accumulated.  The employer I had when I got sick had Aetna with no lifetime limits.  After the first year, the new plan was lowered to a $5 million lifetime limit, which all things considered still wasn't bad as all the other coverages remained the same and the premiums, copays and deductibles really didn't go up all that much, considering the expenses I had incurred.  That was back in 2008, 09, before the ACA.

There is a strange relationship between Medicare and Medicaid, at least here in Ohio.  Even if you have Medicare and due to income you qualify for Medicaid, the Medicaid network then becomes the first payer and your coverage is lowered and the doctors you can see are limited to the Medicaid network.  That obviously is not good for anyone with critical or advanced needs.  The expansion of Medicaid here in Ohio due to the ACA actually takes people off of Medicare and places them on Medicaid by reason of raising the income cut off levels.  My son is on both Medicare and Medicaid so I am seeing this stuff go down first hand.  And Jr is on Medicaid alone.

Any particular reason for the question ?  If there is more you are curious about, feel free to ask.  I'm in the answering mood.  

 

 kurtster wrote:

 

Hey K, during your healthcare debacle did you get assistance from Medicaid?

I'm already in double overtime.  Every new day at this point is still a bonus.

Can't bitch about nothing here.  I'll have to face Dora again eventually ...

 
There is a link to my stuff and Roundup that keeps getting stronger and stronger though ...

So fuck you very much, Monsanto.

The authors do refer to the working class, and drugs is but one part of several factors involved:

Case and Deaton find that while midlife mortality rates continue to fall among all education classes in most of the rich world, middle-aged non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. with a high school diploma or less have experienced increasing midlife mortality since the late 1990s. This is due to both rises in the number of deaths of despair - death by drugs, alcohol and suicide - and to a slowdown in progress against mortality from heart disease and cancer, the two largest killers in middle age. (...)

When combined with a slowdown in progress against mortality from heart disease and cancer - the two largest killers in middle age - since the late 1990s, the increase in "deaths of despair" has resulted in overall midlife mortality rates (death by any cause) for working class white Americans overtaking those of other minority groups for the first time.

 Proclivities wrote: 
To put a finer point on it, I agree 100% with Proclivities' post.  Even worse in terms of ambiguity is the term 'middle class'.  

What is curious are the large numbers of people who identify as 'middle class' yet who are not by most standards.  And the large numbers of so-called working class people who earn income well in excess of many college graduates.  

If anything, I believe the paper implicitly defines a new 'under class', a new sub-segment of the lumpenproletariat to use Marx's language.  

I suspect (but honestly do not know) that the American hodgepodge health care safety net is either contributing to this crisis or certainly not doing enough to help attenuate the crisis.  

I also suspect that the American fascination with the automobile concurrent with the lowest excise (green) taxes on diesel and gasoline in the rich OECD countries are also driving the poor outcomes.  Americans are 'sitting' too much.  

Much of the above also applies to Canada.  Our opioid crisis is apparently worse than America's.  

I should not have written working class.  Apologies. 

Middle-aged white Americans face declining life expectancy.  The results are worse among those with high school education or less.  Many have withdrawn from the labour force.

Download the paper and, if nothing else, look at the charts.  

In Europe, less educated folks are still experiencing increasing life expectancy.  

The authors focus on 'Deaths of Despair':   death by drugs, alcohol and suicide.    The biggest contributor in the 'drugs' category are prescription pain killers.  If I understand correctly, Medicaid is complicit in the opioid crisis.  

Oh well. Win some lose some...

 sirdroseph wrote: 
"Working class" is kind of a nebulous and debated term.  A lot of sociologists define it as "blue-collar" and usually lacking a college degree, e.g: trades people, retail and hospitality workers, factory workers, etc.  Traditionally they are not considered "privileged" and a lower class than the "middle class".  I guess it depends who you ask.  I had read about that report a couple of days ago - it is an interesting one.

 westslope wrote: 


I thought "they" were privileged?