208 comments on Rising Energy Costs and the Future of Hospital Work
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Why even have hospitals? Minor medical treatments could be performed in small local clinics or in homes, and major interventions foregone altogether. I personally have sworn off doctors. I suppose that if I broke a bone I'd have it set but anything much worse than that I'd just OD on synthetic opiates & barbituates & die. I'm going to die anyway; I don't need bypass surgery or cancer chemotherapy and neither does anyone else. There are 6.7 x 10^9 humans infesting this wet space rock; any individual human life is next to worthless. Certainly not worth the vast health care infrastructure paid for directly or indirectly by us all. There's no point living with debilitation or to decreptitude. When the time comes, just die.
Oh my goodness! We homo saps, created by god in his very own image, are worth whatever it takes to keep us alive as long as possible. All other life on this planet was placed here just for our benefit. This is so obviously self evident.
Studies have shown that overall, hospital spending does not increase average life span. Diet, obesity, exercise, less driving fatalities, less alcohol abuse are all more important than hospital spending.
I agree with you. Our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, but the outcomes are nowhere near the best. We spend an awfully lot of money on hospitalizing very elderly people who will die within a year or two, regardless of what is done.
Right. There's another aspect to this also, and that is that as peak oil develops basic overall health (prior to treatment for any health problems) may improve. In World War I, neutral Denmark was subject to the Allied blockade of the continent. They converted to a largely lacto-vegetarian diet and the mortality dropped by about 30%. In World War II, death rates for circulatory diseases and diabetes dropped dramatically in occupied Norway. In both cases, the death rates went back up when the wars ended (sources in my book "A Vegetarian Sourcebook").
A lot depends on how we react to the food situation. A lot of current health care expenses relate to degenerative conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, kidney disease, etc., all of which are strongly linked to diet and all of which tend to occur in the "civilized" nations but do not occur nearly as much in the less developed world.
In a world beset by all the other problems of a post-peak world (high prices, unemployment, etc.) switching the country to a vegetarian or largely vegetarian diet would not be either technically complicated and would not necessarily be that hard of a "sell."
Keith Akers
We'll need them for all the war casualties. So we can patch 'em up and send them back into battle.
Damn, Why didn't I think of that!
"Soldiers' joy. Oh what's the point of pleasure
When pleasure only serves to kill the pain?
Lay down arms and take the coffin's measure, or
Take up arms and send me out to fight again..."
---Michelle Shocked
The Iraqi war in particular & war in general serves as evidence of the verity of my point: that any individual human life is next to worthless.