Thoreau: Economy - a better way to deal with our health

If you read the book Walden, by H.D. Thoreau, you might recognize this idea (from "The American", below):

"Such a change seems rather minor in the great scheme of things, and indicative not of a crisis but of an assessment that the state of healthcare technology has improved to the point where it is delivering steadily increasing value for the money, and that as people meet more basic wants of food and shelter they move up the chain of desires and spend more on other things."

Thoreau reduces the necessities of life to four items: food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. He also points out that we have made ourselves more dependent on these necessities than is absolutely necessary. Thus our desire for comfort can lead to sedentary and unhealthy lives. Amen!

And now we desire cheap healthcare for all. Good luck. Way back when, when we did not have sedentary and unhealthy life styles, as prescribed by natural law, we did not need cheap and plentiful free healthcare. I believe there ought to be a cost for healthcare. Nothing in life is free, you get what you pay for. I'm with Thoreau. Health insurance is of only limited value for dealing with most health problems: a healthy lifestyle is much better insurance. 

 

 

 

 

From James DeLong in The American: 

source: August 26th American

DeLong explains:

Think of it this way: From 1990 to 2006, GDP expanded by $7 trillion. If healthcare had retained its 1990 share of 12.1 percent of GDP, it would have grown by $847 billion, leaving an extra $6.153 trillion to be spent on houses, food, video games, etc. Instead, healthcare grew by $1.4 trillion, leaving only an extra $5.6 trillion for other purposes.

From this perspective, during this 16-year period from 1990 to 2006, the nation shifted its collective preferences a bit, deciding to allocate an extra 7 percent of its $7 trillion increase in GDP into health and away from other sectors.

Such a change seems rather minor in the great scheme of things, and indicative not of a crisis but of an assessment that the state of healthcare technology has improved to the point where it is delivering steadily increasing value for the money, and that as people meet more basic wants of food and shelter they move up the chain of desires and spend more on other things.

See also Robert Fogel concluding "the long-term income elasticity of the demand for healthcare is 1.6--for every 1 percent increase in a family's income, the family wants to increase its expenditures on healthcare by 1.6 percent."