Former Surgeon General Dr Richard Carmona interview about health in the USA

[mushmushi]

It is a bit oldish (2008) but great.

interview link

Please don't turn this into yet another marxism/muslim/mexican/marshmellow conspiracy theory thread.

Enjoy!

[BlueBee]

Mushmushi, that was a good post. 

Bush’s surgeon general seems to know what is really broken in our system.  However the solutions he seemed to be promoting are un-realistic in my opinion.  His solution seems to be personal health and fitness responsibility by each and every American to prevent disease in the first place. 

I completely agree, but personal health and fitness responsibility in the US lasts about as long as it takes to pull into the next fast food drive thru to load up on 800 calories and 20 grams of saturated fat.  Telling Americans what to eat and how to exercise is simply not going to work.   

Need more proof it isn’t going to work, look at the obesity charts for the US.  They just keep going higher and higher along with our federal deficits.  I’m not sure which will kill us first!

I prefer the Canadian approach.

[kathyp]

no one has pried the mouth of another open to shove mickyd's into it.  life is about choices.  government is about taking choices away from people.  if anyone wants more examples of crappy socialized medicine, i just got back from england with fresh stories. 

don't know why someone from another country wants to wiz in our pond.   

Carmona had differences of opinion with the admin he served under.  as it turned out, he was wrong about much.  he left with a chip on his shoulder.  if you want to use him to support a particular point of view, fair enough.  guess you can find someone to support any point of view you hold. it is curious that you care about what we do here.  you obviously are happy with what you have.  enjoy it.

[BlueBee]

don't know why someone from another country wants to wiz in our pond.

I assume that was directed at our Canadian friend since Michigan is part of our 57 states 

The point Carmona seemed to be making is that Americans are making so many horrible food choices that we are literally killing ourselves a little bit every day.  The costs to keep our abused bodies alive down the road will bankrupt ANY health care system was his point.  He was claiming it’s pointless to reform health care until you reform us Americans.  That means no more MickyDs   

In the video Carmona was not promoting a Canadian, English or any other system.  He was promoting wellness over sickness as a means to keep costs down.  Is that a bad thing?

[kathyp]

it's not a bad thing until you have the govt taking over medicine in conjunction with the rising cost of our choices.  here again, the market would cause people to make better choices.  if we were paying for our own care rather than having provided 3rd party, people would naturally make better choices because the cost of bad choices would come out of pocket.

our friend thinks that the government should be making our choices for us.  those choices are made based on a formula that already exists.  the obese person doesn't get the hip transplant because they chose to be fat.  the elderly get drugs to make them happy rather than treatment for disease because their value to society is limited.  the welfare mom gets IVF because having children is "a right". 

i don't think we all should be paying for each others choices.  i don't think i should pay for some guys prostate exam, or that he should pay for my mammogram. 

[mushmushi]

Carmona tried to be apolitical. Previous Surgeon General had issues with the Clinton administration.

A doctor should be apolitical.

A lot of health care problems are preventable. No prevention ==> increased costs for everybody.

Huge impact on your workforce. Increased costs for everybody.

I doubt a tool to solve scarcity problems (market) will magically fix obesity and smoking.

I think every individual has some lessons to take home from there (hint hint, a healthy diet and exercise).

The government cannot force anybody to lead a healthy lifestyle.

He mentions prevention is less costly on the long run and I agree with him.

Obesity is a global trend now in rich western countries. (smoking, obesity, etc).

Everybody will suffer from this, public healthcare system or not.

But maybe you are thinking of the big pharmas who should

[kathyp]

Huge impact on your workforce. Increased costs for everybody.

only if everyone is paying for others health care.

I doubt a tool to solve scarcity problems (market) will magically fix obesity and smoking.

we don't have a scarcity problem. 

The government cannot force anybody to lead a healthy lifestyle.

but a government can withhold care if they control care.

Everybody will suffer from this, public healthcare system or not.

why will everyone suffer?  they need not.

He mentions prevention is less costly on the long run and I agree with him.

good theory, but has not proven out.  we keep saving people who pass on bad genes and live longer.  no amount of prevention will cure that.  i'm not suggesting that we should not save people, but we will pay for it if we are forced to pay for each others health care.  we have increased diabetes, heart disease, etc. more because of genetics than life style.  consider the habits of 50 years ago, especially among the more affluent.  they were far worse than what we have today.  even so, we did not have as much of many of the so called life style diseases that we have today.  or....maybe we did but people just died earlier......

[kingbee]

...

Telling Americans what to eat and how to exercise is simply not going to work...

It seemed to work rather well for the National Socialist under Herr Hitler.

[Old Blue]

...

Telling Americans what to eat and how to exercise is simply not going to work...

It seemed to work rather well for the National Socialist under Herr Hitler.

Careful there Kingbee - we don't need to be giving our current socialist any more bright ideas.