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Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

3 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2013–2014 score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Pointed to as a quick, readable summary of the data behind US healthcare costs.

John Green explains why the US spends far more on health care than other countries, going through insurers, drug companies, hospitals and lawyers. He argues the causes are complicated rather than a simple blame game.

“This video (which has been making its rounds) explains many of the contributing factors to the cost of healthcare.” (HN, 2013)

2 recommendations · 1 citations · Explainers · partly dated

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@projct Jan 2014 Recommends
on HN thread The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen (2007)
Read more
I'm not looking at the average for the whole country, I am looking at a specific piece of the FBI crime data, and comparing that to what should be by your own logic numbers that are already on the high side for other countries. In fact, the group I picked is of only areas with a population of less than 10,000, including areas where there is no population at all, as well as universities and colleges, excluding suburbs. It's about as biased toward the point you are trying to make as you can get from this data source and it still doesn't line up with what you are claiming. Feel free to provide evidence for your claim as you still have not done so. Here is one nonpartisan resource about healthcare I have offhand and a summary video by john green for those who don't feel like reading so much: [link] [this video] Relevant points from it: no, obesity does not account for a significant portion; yes, it affects even those who pay; yes you need to look at a lot of data; and no the data does not agree with you. The John Green video has 2 other links of interest in the description, too. Your claims are still entirely unsubstantiated, and you keep throwing in more of them instead of backing your existing claims up with data.
Summary of healthcare cost data, debunks obesity explanation.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@Ygg2 Apr 2014 Cites it
on HN thread Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life
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> So you just magically assume that there are no bad governments? That doesn't seem very reasonable to me. Nor does your claim that this is something governments are somehow magically good at. They're not. No. I didn't say that. There are bad people in the world. And I walk down street all the time, not taking into consideration that every person I met today might attempt to murder me horrifically if they intended it. Taking worse scenario in this case, isn't prudent. I'm talking how a government should behave and a lot of government, don't behave as you state. For example UK, Canadian and a lot of EU have socialized medicine and it works rather nice for them. True, some probably had a fair share of mismanagement and probably some abuse. That doesn't detract from my point that it's possible to have decent government. > If that were actually true, people would behave very differently than they do. Any behavior that, on average, reduces your life expectancy, is irrational under your assumption. And since most behaviors do that, your assumption leads to the conclusion that people should not do most of the things they in fact do. You are constructing a strawman there. It won't work. I'm talking about immediate life altering changes. Not some, you'll die if you smoked bacon. Or hot dogs. You need a heart in seven days or you are good as dead. You are given option: A) pay X+30 amount of dollars and survive B) go online, research the prices, try to find same procedure for amount X,

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